This year’s Celebrity Big Brother is allegedly the last so I’ve been watching it despite my best intentions. For once, it’s quite an interesting group of people; some of them actually have brains, and are quite famous! Interestingly enough this particular group seem to be responding to the format in a similar way to the first ever Big Brother contestants in that they seem aware that the objective is to conduct a social experiment, based on the concept in George Orwell’s  book 1984.

The group very quickly started behaving like a group of apes; Vinnie Jones is the undisputed alpha male and his directives are usually obeyed unquestioningly, with the exception of the now evicted Lady Sovereign. ‘Sov’ was a bit of a rogue element, and a not particularly good advert for her generation, which is a shame as she initially had a lot of support outside the house. Stephanie and Ivana are both contenders for the position of matriarch, with Ivana playing the ‘trump’ card of greater wealth and notoriety to consolidate her status.

Poor old Alex looks set to become this year’s casualty; I will be very surprised if he escapes with his sanity intact as Stephen Baldwin seems determined to f**k with his head at every available opportunity.

On the subject or Mr Baldwin, I find it interesting that the former addict, like many others, only managed to clean up his act by replacing his addiction to drugs and alcohol with an addiction to religion. This seems to be a common phenomenon; the addictive personality cannot be easily cured, it merely transfers the addiction to something ‘safer’. It is truly cringeworthy watching him justify his petty gripes and surpressed anger by finding validation in passages of bible scripture. Hopefully he’ll be the next to go and Alex will escape a prime-time tv conversion… not sure what Jordan would think of that!

The other contestants are an amiable enough bunch, though their celebrity status is considerably less. It will be interesting to see their reactions when they leave the house on finding that their fees for the programme are about 10% of what Vinnie Jones is allegedly getting. So far it looks like a forgone conclusion that Vinnie will win, but he seems increasingly irritable and nit-picking, so maybe one of the more happy-go-lucky contestants will pip him at the post.

It is interesting how the eviction process works; it doesn’t seem to be based on keeping in the most fascinating characters. If that was the case, Heidi would still be there. I think the public vote ends up being a mixture of factors ranging from pure popularity to a kind of surge in irrational emotion that gains momentum through the media.

Finally, let’s hope that the non-celebrity Big Brother comes to an end in the near future as the original concept does not factor in it any more; its just a showcase for sad, attention seeking losers who will do anything to get on TV!