The biggest and best Big Brother begins this week and after the producers sprung the Chantelle surprise on Celebrity BB earlier in the year, they've come up with a Wonka of an idea for this series.
They have linked up with Nestle to give one lucky individual the chance of an appearance in the BB house through the lottery of a "golden ticket".
Big Brother are secreting 100 tickets inside KitKat fours and Chunky singles which will be made available on Friday. Anyone finding a ticket before 10.20pm on June 2 will be eligible for entry.
But there are conditions and if you go to the official Big Brother site at
http://www.channel4.com/bigbrother/ and follow the Terms & Conditions link, you can read them all for yourself.
The key ones, however, are these: "All claimants will be subject to extensive background checks and must provide all requested documentation. Big Brother shall be entitled, at any stage, to exclude claimants at Big Brother's sole discretion. Big Brother will not be obliged to give any explanation of why a claimant has been excluded.
"Successful claimants (who have not been excluded) will be invited to the Big Brother studios to participate in the programme on Friday, June 9, 2006. During this programme, one claimant will be selected to become a housemate in a manner to be determined by Big Brother at its discretion. The selected claimant will, with immediate effect, become a Big Brother housemate and will enter the Big Brother house and be subject to Big Brother's rules."
So, you've been warned and - as Willy Wonka may himself have said - be careful what you wish for. You may get it.
But if you really are looking for a place in the Big Brother house and you're down to stuffing your face with chocolate to get it, you're probably desperate enough to try almost anything to get on telly.
As luck would have it, there's a website devoted to helping you.
At
http://www.starnow.co.uk , if you don't make the show, you can at least make the audience.
Among the 25 opportunities listed on the site is one for a place in the cheap seats at Big Brother's Big Mouth on E4.
According to the blurb they're looking for people who "love nothing better than a good argument", but if you absolutely won't settle for second best, take a look at one of the 125 listings under the Reality TV section.
Here you will discover that, among others, Leopard Films are looking for a fussy eater and Children's BBC are looking for a Rastafarian character - genuine if possible - for BBC 2.
Channel 5, meanwhile, are looking for "various" people for drama reconstructions within the M25 area. They're quite fussy: "Are you a dairy farmer? Or a gamekeeper? Or the proud owner of a retriever dog which you sometimes take hunting?"
They also want American men and women, German men and women, Brazilian men, Dutch men and women and doctors. Presumably to be hunted by a dairy-farming gamekeeper who is immensely proud of his dog.
Wall To Wall Television want people who are in serious debt, IWC Media want people who are "lazy, unemployed and don t like doing a hard day's work" and ITV Play are looking for contestants to play in the forthcoming Rovers Return Pub Quiz.
An "award-winning" production company wants old virgins and Channel 4 want "plus size" women.
There really is no limit and personally I shall be applying for the "is your loft unique?" programme, or the ITV show looking for someone who looks "a bit" like someone famous.
I look a bit like an older, fatter, less attractive Warren Clarke of Dalziel and Pascoe fame. Does this count, I wonder?
