Grace Dent's TV OD - Only on Radio Times

The barefoot native

Posted on Fri 12 January, 1:45pm
Cleo Rocos

"I've told them Jackiey was the most important person we've ever met in our lives," sniffs Cleo Rocos to Jade Goody. Cleo's just left the diary room after her acutely emotional tribute to the newly evicted housemate. "She was a wonderful person! Wonderful!" says Cleo, rejoining the house hysteria. "Jackiey was a marvellous person! Jade, you should be very proud," adds Leo, disingenuously.

To me, it's clear that none of these tributes fit Jackiey. She was an utter nightmare, lacking in any discernable positive feature other than for eight hours every moon cycle she was asleep and relatively silent (aside from her machine-gun rump.) Still, I can't really fault Cleo for being upset. Incarceration in the Celebrity Big Brother house does odd things to a person's judgement.

After seven days locked in, perhaps I'd be hugging Lizzie Bardsley or the smaller Chuckle Brother to my tear-drenched bosom, squawking: "This is one of the most important people in British light entertainment! I am inconsolable that they're going! Goodbye, cruel world! I'm off for a large glass of Toilet Duck." Losing your marbles is inevitable.

Jackiey's surprise eviction was a genuine shock to the house, as well as to me at home. I thought Jack would leave, as he's not exactly the most dynamic child. I've only watched one of Jack's diary room sessions. It consisted of him lying virtually horizontal mumbling stuff like: "Shmph flurtt badddurg Jadereallygood pattgh," before staring blankly.

Big Brother probes Jack for more insight: "So you're enjoying the experience, Jack?" Jack thinks for a bit. "T's alright spose, yeh, shmphf lumph Jackiey's birrivamare, yeh." Thank you, Jack. You can leave the diary room for ever.

I never thought I'd say this, but bring back Jeff Brazier. At least he was brimming with life and impish energy, a bit like Sonic the Hedgehog let loose in Von Dutch. I'm sure Jade loves Jack, but to me he feels like another child for her to support.

Deep down, some people aren't that sad to see the back of Jackiey, with her Popeye expression and her Shaun of the Dead stagger. "Not the full shilling," sighs Carole Malone. "White trash," whispers Jermaine Jackson, albeit in a benevolent context. Jermaine seemed to view Jackiey as a project sent by God for him to help.

Placing underclass warrior Jackiey Budden in the CBB house with Bollywood princess Shilpa Shetty then filming the fallout was either one of the finest pieces of televised socio-anthropological experimentation ever, or just outright exploitation of an extremely low-intellect woman by a TV crew and her own daughter.

One thing's for sure, Shilpa has certainly never encountered anything like Jackiey before. Shilpa's experience of Britain most probably stretches to a nice suite in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, a box at We Will Rock You and a chat with the lovely shop assistants down Bond Street. Not a night out in Stevenage town centre watching people being stretchered to the mobile treatment centres, or an afternoon in Solihull DSS watching women fighting for their kids' asthma allowance.

Leo mooches about the house looking a lot like a small, shrunken Griff Rhys Jones in a joke 70s afro wig
Shilpa Shetty

Shilpa is no angel, in fact, she's almost exactly as you'd imagine a Bollywood princess to be. A little starry, picky, diva-ish. However, anybody with half a brain (ie not Jackiey) would know that simply refusing to learn Shilpa's name, particularly as there is nothing else to do, is a direct insult. More importantly however, in a house full of mostly white people, to refuse to learn the Indian person's name for six days, referring to her instead as "that Indian" comes across as plainly racist.

Jackiey's exit interview showed how Big Brother is rarely in control of the monster it helps to create. As Jackiey burbles on in her stupid way in front of four million viewers about "Dat Shirpa, Shippel, whateverhername, is jarring me'ed," there was no real attempt from Davina to properly bring her to task. No stiff looks or snidey digs, in fact, "Let's all give Jackiey a big round of applause!" Applause for what? For behaviour that would probably get you suspended for racially aggravated misconduct in any modern workplace?

Meanwhile, Cleo, Jade, H and Jack are in turmoil about Jackiey not being able to "go out for the cameras looking nice" as it's important for her to have dignity, unlike in the hours leading up to her eviction when Jackiey was being pulled around the floor on live television, wearing an old T-shirt and getting covered in carpet burns. "And she had no shoes on, either!" cries Cleo, running to the diary room in floods of tears to check that Jackiey has been given shoes.

I'd have been quite tempted to tell Cleo that Jackiey had not been given a nice dress or shoes, but instead a gold catsuit, and was being chased the whole 14 miles from Borehamwood to London barefoot, followed by a man on rollerblades holding a flame thrower, just like on that Arnold Schwarzenegger film, The Running Man. It wouldn't be true, but it would be fun to see Cleo's expression.

Dirk is still in the grip of a crush on Shilpa. Shilpa quite fancies Dirk but has the calm presence of mind to know that this is just because she's locked up with limited options. Cleo is dismayed that Shilpa won't go out with Dirk. It seems genuine, but I think deep down Cleo fancies Dirk herself and the moment Shilpa's evicted they'll begin a "special bond". Regardless, Dirk is looking highly knackered at the moment. All crinkly faced and unshaven, a bit like when Face got kidnapped by baddies and Mr T and Hannibal found him in a barn days later.

Leo's ego grows by the day. He mooches about the house looking a lot like a small, shrunken Griff Rhys Jones in a joke 70s afro wig, warbling on about his "Number-one hit last year" again and again. Basically, Leo's hit was an old record from the 70s, remixed by a producer called "Meck".

Meck transformed it into one of those up-tempo repetitive dance-aerobic-style tracks that makes clothes shopping very arduous for the over 30s as it's eternally on at a migraine-inducing level as you're staring at your thighs bleakly in a changing-room mirror. Somehow it was a hit.

"They all wanted Leo!" brims Leo, talking about the public's great yearning for his music. Leo talks about himself in the third person a lot; a mannerism typically reserved for total luvvies and the under-fives. I'll sort of miss him if he goes in the next eviction. Listening to him speak about his life is like watching an episode of Rob Brydon's Marion and Geoff. It's funnier to read between the lines of what he tells us than the actual words themselves.

Who should go next? Mail me on grace.dent@bbc.co.uk.