Wow Eddy - you've been busy! Great selection of Q's though. As you can see, it's 10 to 2 so I'll see how far I get!
1. I've met Kate briefly a couple of times, really fleetingly and didn't have any chance to speak about anything at all, other than saying a quick "hello". Maybe she was keen to get away after some of the things she said on RI:SE! lol Wouldn't mind meeting her properly.
I'm desperate to meet Brian as I think he's hilarious - I've wanted to meet him ever since he was on BB, for lots of reasons - can you imagine how funny he is? He's one of the most amusing people I've ever seen and I would love to meet and get to know him. Similarly, from what I've seen, Craig is a generous and genuine guy who I think it would be interesting to chat about BB experiences with. I imagine he's very down to Earth and (dare I say it) "normal" - whatever that is!
2. I was quite apprehensive about the Panto - I've done some of that type of thing locally and latterly found I hated performing and being on stage. Could be because I had to wear a gold frock and tinsel sandals to perform Big Spender...

Having said that, doing the Aberdeen panto was absolutely brilliant! The acrobats, dancers and cast were excellent to work with and so were the stage crew. I enjoyed the whole thing and (to my own surprise) would love the chance to do it again. The theatre management and Aberdonians in general were very generous and extremely welcoming and I would say that added enormously to the pleasure of the whole experience.
3. I think that in some way the open auditions will make it a quicker selection process than last year - we still had to audition, but only after our forms and videos had been studied by goodness knows who! The interviews and auditions and indeed filling in the forms was as much part of the experience as being in the house - it was all very enjoyable and I said at every stage that if I got no further I would be content, because it genuinely all had been so much fun. I wonder if I would have auditioned this year - hmmm, good question. Well, for a start, to apply last year only cost me the price of a stamp and a blank video tape I suppose - it was for the first interview that I forked out a £350 plane fare! I maybe wouldn't have done it this year if I'd had to spend so much to get to the open auditions. Don't even get me started on Orkney air fares!
I think the change will enable the people selecting to get through a lot more people in a shorter period of time - however, I do think that the open auditions will encourage people to act the goat in order to be noticed, and that's all very well for the auditions but how well will they do for a long period of scrutiny? I think the producers were successful last year in that they set out to have a more harmonious, relationship-based bunch of HM's, and that's what they got. It may not have been what some viewers considered the best combination.
4. I didn't see any of the US BB. Saw one or two adverts for it on Ch4, but at the time I didn't have SkyTV, nor in fact the time to watch it!
5. Yes, we're almost all still in touch fairly regularly - obviously to a greater or lesser degree depending on time pressure etc. Around Christmas and the New Year we more or less all sent greetings around and I've spoken to some since New Year but not all. I was over in Dublin for Ray's birthday a couple of weekends ago - it was great meeting Ray's Dublin mates. The BB4 lads are getting together in and around Glasgow at the end of the month, probably for go-karting and paintball and stuff like that.
Not spoken to Gaetano for a wee while - mainly been e-mailing some of the BBA housemates. Cherise phoned on Valentine's Day which was lovely, and one of the BBAfrica crew texted me tonight. One of the best things about the whole experience is having gained these friends.
6. The main thing I've learned from the press is to believe about 5% of what you read. Even some of the interviews that I've given properly, not just those based on hearsay or what's written elsewhere, have been reported inaccurately. Something that has surprised me is the reporting that Scott was boring - I think I've even said on this forum that he's one of the funniest people I know. I've always found it interesting how the press seems to need to label people, even for everyday events - Mrs Smith, 55, cleaning lady and grandmother of 6 children, blind in one eye and prone to selective hearing was today found to be.... Is it necessary? lol
7. We were disappointed to hear and read that BB4 had in some quarters been considered dull. From an insider's point of view I'd tend to disagree - we had a new housemate, the return of an old housemate, a foreign housemate entering and one of us leaving, we had the reward rooms and other treats. Granted, harmony is perhaps not as interesting as scandal and I suppose reading books rather than discussing what we'd read didn't make the most exciting viewing but there are legal considerations to this too. Much of what was discussed was unable to be aired due to legal reasons - I find this one of the most frustrating things about these programmes. In BBAfrica I believe there is a team of people who look after copyright and libel and all that, thereby enabling the producers to broadcast much more than we are allowed to here. That's a huge shame.
8. At the start I though Gos had a great chance of winning, or at least he was someone who I liked a lot and expected the public to share my opinion! When it came to the final week, it was such a bizarre situation that I didn't really know what to think. Please believe me when I say I was totally surprised to be asked to attend auditions/interviews, let alone be one of the final 12 chosen housemates, not to mention staying in the 9 weeks and finally winning. (Don't know if you watched the Winner's Story - I think I commented on this subject on that prog.)
I was very surprised when Scott was second to leave on the final night - it was clear then that the final person to leave the house would be Ray or me (stating the obvious I know). I suppose in the latter stages I imagined the final to be between Scott and Ray so it was an enormous surprise when Scott left. It's true to say that both Ray and I thought that the other one of us would win - Ray was an extremely gracious second place winner and I'd like to think I would have been as happy for him as he was for me. Our ongoing friendship confirms that he really has no hard feeling about it and it certainly has never been a point of conflict between us at all - in all the tv stuff I've seen and press I've read, Ray has never once been unkind in what he's said about me.
SORRY EDDY - ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH AND IT'S 2.45AM SO I'M GOING TO STOP HERE. I'LL TRY THE REMAINDER TOMORROW!