Dear Campers

Okay, I just cannot help myself. Another blog post about I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, I hear you say? But it is fascinating viewing, it really really is. It even made me switch over from BBC's Children In Need 2010, which was a brilliant night of TV, too, more of which a little later.



 
Earlier on, the much put-upon ten little celebrities were joined by foul-mouthed comedienne Jenny Eclair and the over-sized mobile phone carrying Dom Joly. They do this every year, the producers. They wait for the group to gel a little bit, usually for about a week and then they decide to stir things up a bit by dropping in another two mouths to feed. It doesn't always go down well, particularly this year when our Dear Gillian keeps getting voted in to do the trials she's not excused from on medical grounds, and she keeps fainting into the arms of Medic Bob. In fairness though she did manage four stars (= four meals for camp) last night in a tube of water and other stuff. She was fine with baby gators, but bailed when faced with a spider. Go figure.

Anyway, new arrivals. I was expecting Dom to be a loud mouth, shit-stirrer and Jenny to go in cool, calm and collected. I was half right. In their Shack task  Jenny kept her cool a lot better than Dom did, picking out stars from underneath layers and layers of cockroaches. Well done Jenny. Once she got into camp, she took an immediate dislike to Lembit. I know his kidney bean shaped head must be a bit disturbing from close up, but surely a judgement like that should take more than half hour? She called him a cock, apparently. Maybe it's just because he used to be an MP. Most of them are cocks. But he's not an MP anymore. Give him a chance, Jenny, he's just like a special needs puppy. Annoying, yes, but you can't kick him to the curb either, without feeling incredibly bad about yourself.

Dom, on the other hand seems to be taking it all in his stride, getting quite relaxed in the camp. I'm still waiting for that massive mobile phone to emerge for a special guest starring spot any time now. Please, ITV?

Oh, Linford Christie has turned out to be a roaring disappointment. Apparently, he's not only 50 years of age, but also has the mindset of someone from the 1950's. Having pretty much attacked Playmate Kayla for posing for Playboy, he proceeded to liken her to a prostitute and said that his own daughter would find herself homeless should she ever even dream of doing something like that. You're lucky you can run fast, Linford (Thanks for that, @hollywills). Dagenham girl Stacey jumped in to defend womankind and prostitutes (male and female) all over and my inner feminist was cheering her on. She was the only one to speak out. You are my champion, Stacey!!

Okay, 12 in a camp, getting a bit crowded, yeah? Let's send in another camper, then, shall we! Talk about the most lackluster welcome ever! Poor Alison Hammond, she wasn't to know. Or was she? Don't get me wrong, I like her, did when she was on Big Brother. But she is loud. And big. Big personality and big as is takes up a lot of room. And probably used to eating a tad more than rice and veggies. In her VT she did say she wanted to go in to lose some weight, which she will more than likely achieve unless the hungry campers turn on her and decide to slow-roast her over the campfire. She did bring the camp a Chocolate Orange. With 12 pieces in it. For 13 people. Think these things through, Alison!

The Chocolate Orange didn't really go very far due to Gillian's fainting fit at the trial earlier. Poor Alison was feeling a bit self-conscious at mealtime even offering to skip the dinner because she was the last one in. She tucked into whatever it was they had on offer that night, afterwards pointing out that Gillian, who also does the cooking, gets everything ready, dives into the food first spooning out a big portion for herself and then leaving the last person in he queue to scrape the bottom of their all-purpose pan. I don't know when they'll start voting people out of there, but before they do, it is going to get rough going around that campfire.

And poor Shaun. Hermit Shaun. All he wants is to go back to camping with four other blokes, doing blokey things and spend most of his time asleep in his hammock. Please don't go, Shaun, you have so much more to offer.

Now then. Children In Need. Great show, but in all honesty I really didn't care about anyone else on stage once these lads took to it. Take That. Sigh and swoon. I loved them all through my teens, I remember being heartbroken when they broke up and I was absolutely ecstatic when they announced their comeback. And then Robbie came back and him and Gary made up and did that song... I am swooning as I write this. I mean come on, look at them! They look amazing. Even little Mark, who I imagine will in years to come look more and more like a cross between Dobby The House-Elf from Harry Potter movies and Frodo Baggins. But Jason. Oh, Jason. Never mind your Chocolate Orange, bring me Jason Orange! Yum. I'd tap it and unwrap it...

Dear Gillian

I don't really do this often, but I feel compelled to blog about a TV show. Show called I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! http://celebrity.itv.com/2010/ For those not in the know, it is a TV reality show, where celebrities (playing fast and loose with words "reality" and "celebrity" here) are dropped into the Australian jungle for three weeks during which time they endure Bushtucker Trials involving goo, creepy crawlies and eating kangaroo penis, balls or bottom. Quite possibly all of the above.

It's a great show. It really is. Why, I hear you ask? Well in all honesty, there's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing a group of has-beens trying desperately to stay in the limelight while the show producers are doing everything they possibly can to strip them from that last little thread of dignity. And doing it quite successfully, I might add. How dignified would you feel after crawling through a tunnel filled with spiders, cockroaches, rats, snakes and goo, just to grab a hold of few plastic stars which mean your camp is eating something other than rice and beans tonight?

Some of these has-beens did quite well out of the show over the years, but really the lucky ones are few and far in between. Mostly the public laughs at them for the three weeks they're in there and then forget all about them until the ITV compilation show around Christmas time.

But enough with my ramblings, and to the point. The point why I'm writing about a TV show. Two words; Gillian McKeith. The once-presenter of You Are What You Eat, #notarealdoctor and poo-inspector extraordinaire. These days he calls herself a nutritionist and some time ago she basically went around a couple of years on TV in the UK telling people to eat mung beans, shifting through their poo and calling herself a doctor. Doctor she ain't but she may know a thing or two about mung beans, being a vegan and all that. Just to make one thing clear, and I'm using the help of Dara O'Briain here to make it clear as day. Nutritionist is to a dietitian what a toothologist is to a dentist. Ok? I  could call myself a nutritionist and get into no trouble at all with any type of authority.

Clearly in a bid to boost her non-existent celebrity profile at the moment, Dear Gillian decided to sign up for a stint in the jungle. She told everyone from the very beginning she's afraid of all bugs, snakes, spiders and basically everything with more than four legs, I imagine. Note to Dear Gillian: when you say this on air, every viewer in the country capable of dialling the number to vote for you to be thrown into a dark hole with spiders, is going to do so. Which is exactly what happened yesterday. She was voted to spend some quality time in an underground crate, chained to the floor with five padlocks in the company of some lovely rodents. She was going head to head with a former MP and Cheeky Girl romancer, Lembit Opik.

Having screamed at regular intervals at ordinary flies while being briefed about the task, Dear Gillian was locked into a crate and told to fumble around in the dark to find keys to the padlocks holding her in place thus freeing herself. She continued screaming and telling us she couldn't see anything (it was dark in there so, duh..)  and as soon as she heard the bell being rung to mark the victory of Lembit, she screamed even louder to be let out of the crate. Then she "fainted". While being "unconscious" she was given oxygen and carried to level ground where she managed to pull down her top to hide her control-panel undies while still supposedly out of it. Faking it.


More hilarity ensued when she returned to the girls' camp telling the tale of her loss, putting a lot of emphasis to the fact that she had fainted twice. I must've been to the loo when she passed out the second time. She is getting on everyone's nerves already and I, for one am loving and hating it in equal measures. I cannot wait for tonight when this vegan excrement-enthusiast will have to eat all sorts of maggots, insects and animal genitalia. I'm sure she'll go back to her camp telling her camp mates (a Bond girl, a Playmate, a WAG and an X-factor finalist) how she had to wrestle a crocodile to the ground and rip out it's testicles with her teeth. Now there's  a trial I'd watch over and over...