The Second Serve // Preston Gets Upset

Big Brother returning to our screens last night got us thinking just how lawless those early years felt – and had us delving back into the archive today to see quite how much has changed since then.

While we were there, we picked up a few lesser-remembered stories that you may enjoy revisiting too.

For about 15 years, the UK Big Brother house stood in Elstree Studios; the location where The Shining was filmed.

The BB house was right next to an area that, for many years, remained enclosed – the site where Jack Nicholson did the whole “Heeeeeerrrrre’s Johnny!” bit. They used some sort of salt lime to create the illusion of snow and it contaminated the ground.

Is it any wonder everyone in there went a bit cuckoo?

anon writes:
“After the first Big Brother wrapped, Channel 4 Books brought out the official Big Brother book. My mum worked at the parent publishing company and she took me to the launch party.

“It was at Piccadilly Waterstones and I had a great time chatting to Nasty Nick, Caroline, Nichola, Anna, etc, and particularly Andy, who I thought was quite fit. We were having a nice and quite flirtatious conversation. Then someone came up to say my mum was looking for me. Andy looked surprised, then a bit concerned, and said ‘Hang on, how old are you?’

“I was twelve. He bolted immediately.”

Although its influence waned dramatically in later years, the first few series of Big Brother were capable of making pretty big stars out of its winners. Victory didn’t always bring the civilian housemates exactly what they were after though.

About four months after winning series two, Brian Dowling was at the gay club night Popstarz, moaning to anyone who would listen that he hadn’t had a shag since leaving the BB house because his newly-hired agent had told him he mustn’t ruin his innocent good boy image.

Naturally, it didn’t take housemates too long to become comfortable enough with the concept of 24/7 surveillance. First filmed wank of the show was in Series 2 (Dean). By Series 3, all but one of the boys (Alex) had started twanging their wires in the house.

It wasn’t just the boys though. In fact, one of Dean’s Series 2 housemates was telling friends she’d practiced masturbating under a duvet before entering the house – as she wasn’t used to a “low key” technique.

JM writes:
“A few years ago I was managing a small music venue up north when we had the dubious pleasure of hosting The Ordinary Boys. The rider was all rather ordinary until we reached the final page stating in all caps: ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS TO MENTION OR ALLUDE TO CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER/NEVER MIND THE BUZZCOCKS OR ANY RELATED EVENTS. PRESTON GETS UPSET.

“The urge to do his stage calls in the style of Davina McCall hosting an eviction was palpable.”

Big Brother contestants are often accused of being shameless but it’s worth bearing in mind that if wasn’t for that shamelessness, we might never have got a toe-hold on busting open the superinjunction scandal of 2011. Two Big Brother contestants were right at the forefront of that story: Imogen Thomas and Helen Wood.

Imogen Thomas (S7) was the woman involved in the Ryan Giggs case, the breaking open of which led us to learn all about the time Ryan’s brother Rhodri chased him around with a hammer after he discovered Ryan had been shagging his girlfriend.

But possibly the greatest story of the superinjunction era involved Helen Wood (S15) and the “world famous actor” who once hired her to stick a sex toy up his arse. The irony of that story was that the actor in question wasn’t really all that famous at the time. Helen only found out he was an actor because he got in such a big huff when she didn’t recognise him – and went on to explain to her in detail what she might know him from.

Max Clifford always claimed to be the one who came up with the idea to put Chantelle Houghton into Celebrity Big Brother as a fake celebrity. While she was in the CBB house, he worked tirelessly to line up a number of lucrative interviews and appearances for her to launch her post-show career – but someone tossed an unexpected spanner in his plan.

Shortly after Chantelle won the show, Davina McCall took her aside and persuaded her to sign with her agent rather than with Max. Clifford’s revenge? Shortly after, he told journalists off the record that he would be using all of his media contacts and power to torpedo Davina’s upcoming BBC talk show.

“Davina” debuted two weeks later. And was cancelled after eight.

Another week means another five rounds of musical madness. On various themes, we’ll slice up ten songs into little chunks and then thread them all together into one three-minute mix. All you have to do is identify the ten songs.

Usually, you get a point for every title you get right and another for the artist.

However, today’s theme is slightly different in that you’re going to hear ten Bossa Nova covers of pop songs – so you need to identify the ORIGINAL artists.

[Play it here]

Article illustration of the year
[Spongebob Did 9/11]

Reports from the ageing Irish goth scene
[Read on independent.ie]

An auction of stuff from Tron
[Bids in here]

Planet Destroyer
[Silly little browser game]