THERE'S A SMALL CHANCE THAT ITV'S LOVE ISLAND HAS BOUGHT LITTLE BROTHER THE RAT AND HE'S CURRENTLY EN ROUTE TO FIJI.

It's out there

"So they're going to catch the rat," Richard informs Pete, "and dispatch him, erm, humanely!" There's a long pause. "That's right," adds Susie, "I mean, we're in the countryside, so they'll probably capture him then let him scurry off to play with his little ratty friends!" "Oh…mmm…OK," nods Pete, accepting the tale with wide-eyed willingness; a lot like me, aged seven, believing that Fred, our family's ancient, incontinent, sociopathic cat was being taken "to help a faraway farmer with his mice epidemic".

I don't feel hopeful for Little Brother the BB7 rat. Having watched A Life of Grime on BBC1, I don't recall any episodes where the rat-catchers spend two hours on the M1, escorting their whiskery prisoners to the rodent version of Alton Towers. I don't remember any happy endings at all.

Obviously, there's a small chance that ratings-rival ITV's Love Island has bought Little Brother and he's currently en route to Fiji. The rat, being both marginally more recognisable that Gazza's ex-stepdaughter Bianca and higher up the evolutionary scale than Alicia Duvall, could only improve their ratings.

After last week's primetime Big Brother burping competition, Love Island's producers were clearly feeling the heat. By Thursday, an ITV press statement emerged that proved the underdogs have a plan: Paul Danan had been rebooked for Love Island! Oh, yes indeed, one-man light-entertainment car-crash and octopus-handed party-pest Paul Danan is now back on the island for the second series!

For those unaware of Paul Danan, being charitable, his behaviour on last year's Love Island was the televisual equivalent of hiring a gibbon with ADHD and placing it in front of one of those tables of jelly, trifle and gateaux that Gillian McKeith confiscates from morbidly obese people, then recording the ensuing messy carnage.

In light of this news, Big Brother sends in some home gym equipment to keep the housemates looking svelte and ratings-friendly. This, for me personally, is a huge shame, as one of my biggest pleasures during Big Brother is watching the very slim, hot-bodied girls gradually running to fat. Every time Imogen's tiny, little Miss Wales peach-butt edges 1lb closer to resembling mine in a tie-bikini, or Ash displays a smidgeon of bingo-wing in her strapless frocks, my black heart soars. Never mind the dumbbells, send in the Dairy Milk!

Pete is so totally Brighton it hurts, in his tie-dye trousers, BO-ridden singlets and his half-baked hippy ideals

Luckily, the housemates treat the home gym in the same way as all normal people do: with a sudden burst of frantic enthusiasm, then total apathy; exactly how I feel about my dumbbells, which I use to prop back my office door, the exercise bike I dry laundry over, or my state-of-the-art aerobics step, which I find a positive boon for reaching high-up biscuit tins.

Michael sets to work pumping iron for a while and looks rather sexy. Depending on how the light shines, Michael can look decidedly handsome, or alternatively, like one of the less affable Cenobites from the movie Hellraiser. It's confusing.

One person who isn't sexy is rapper Spiral. Spiral is one of those aggravating individuals who believes he's the next Eminem; missing the fact that truly talented rap artists like Common or Kanye West have natural charisma, vocal depth and poetic talent just oozing from them, making them huge, non-negotiable stars.

Spiral, in contrast, is just a talentless everyday Joe, yaddering a load of old gubbins about "lovin' da laydeez" to no particular beat while doing "hip-hop hands" like the Frosties child. He makes that bloke Terry with the very silly beard from E17 and John Barnes sound like NWA.

It's eviction night: the housemates gather in the lounge. Although the media appear to want Ash to go, just as many people I speak to claim to loathe Nikki.

Nikki hasn't helped herself by wasting the week ranting in a delusional manner about Pete. Or sitting by the topiary with Jayne bitching and chuntering about the other housemates surreptitiously, through very small lips, a bit like the film Dangerous Liaisons if it was set in a B&Q garden centre in Slough.

"Pete understands me! We have a connection!" Nikki has claimed all week long. The honest truth is that Nikki would not look twice at Pete in the outside world, and will not be troubling him again from the second he leaves. Nikki is a self-confessed materialistic footballer's wife wannabe who lurks with the dregs of F-list glitterati in London W1. Meanwhile, Pete is so totally Brighton it hurts, in his tie-dye trousers and BO-ridden singlets, with his performance-art background and his half-baked hippy ideals.

When all this insanity is over, Pete will toddle off back to the South East and set up squat with some Rosie and Jim looky-likey called Snapdragon, who supplements her income support by turning wine bottles into lampshades and painting hands with henna on Hove seafront. Of course, I may be wrong. Maybe Pete really was calling out Nikki's name in his sleep like Jayne claimed. Maybe it's true love.

Davina announces Nikki is being evicted from the Big Brother 7. Nikki cries and shakes and begins to go into one of her trademark demented tantrums. Davina eventually comes up the stairs and drags Nikki out as she screams, "I've lost my earring! My earring! I've lost it!" "No, come on," says Davina firmly, wrenching Nikki out, her knees buckling under her perilously slim frame. Nikki's arms whirr, she's sobbing, laughing and screaming all at the same time.

Davina shows Nikki a compilation of her tantrums. Edited together they feel far more unsettling to me than amusing. "Personally, I found you hilarious!" chortles Davina, "And this is the tantrum I liked the most!" They run some footage of Nikki on the day the housemates were forced to swear allegiance to Susie. Nikki is growling and screaming and flailing about. She's punching pillows, spitting and swearing.

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" howls Davina, "You're so funny! Hasn't she been funny, everyone?!" "I'm surprised some doctors didn't meet me with a wheelchair and cart me off," says Nikki, looking at the screen. "I know!" howls Davina, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Your tantrums were great! Very entertaining!" "Did my mum campaign to get me brought out?" asks Nikki, seriously. "Oh, I don't know about that!" flusters Davina, "But you were a great housemate! Really, really funny! Thank you! Ha! Ha!"

It'll be hard to fill the huge, laughter-shaped hole that was Nikki Grahame, but with a heavy heart, it's time to move on.

Are you jumping ship to Love Island? Mail me on grace.dent@bbc.co.uk.