(Filed: 18/05/2006)
Telegraph
I was lying on the sofa when I heard it. It was Saturday morning; I was hiding under a duvet with a bad hangover, while reeling over a large gas bill we had just received.
But when it came on to the television, it was as if everything was suddenly all right in the world. I peered out from under my duvet, grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume so I could hear it in all of its glory: the Big Brother theme tune.
God, I've missed that music. You know - that terrible, trancey dance music. But I forgive it that, because it signifies the start of Big Brother, which tonight begins its seventh series. Seven years! Has it really been that long?
I love Big Brother, and I am not ashamed of it. I like the fact that, for a few weeks of the year, we all have something in common to talk about around the water cooler.
I adore it so much that I have been known to sit up watching the live coverage into the early hours of the morning, as the housemates do nothing more than make cups of tea, or sleep. Yes, sleep. It's not even like I'm a pervert - I just like the minutiae of life being broadcast on television. It's sort of magical. Last year, for example, there was a very big argument about mince. I can't remember why they were arguing about mince, but I do remember that it was brilliant.
But there are a lot of people who hate Big Brother. They vilify it as if it were single-handedly responsible for the downfall of modern society. I think they believe that turning it on will cause their brains to shrivel up to the size of a pea.
But Big Brother is, weirdly, one of the cleverest programmes on television. It's not for nothing that it is now in its seventh year: the producers of the show have ways of making you watch, whether it be through evil tasks, sending a contestant to the South African Big Brother house, or sticking a non-celebrity in the Celebrity house.
I have even heard rumours that, this year, they are going to put a celebrity in the non-celebrity house, and that it might be "Lotto Lout" Mickey Carroll. Doesn't that excite you? Doesn't it? Not even a little bit?
The kind of people who take real offence at Big Brother are those who say things such as "What we need is another world war", when they pass stag parties on the street (as a man commented to me the other day in central London).
They call it a "freak show", and, while I admit that the rumoured house mates for this series (a Tourette syndrome sufferer, a transvestite, a friend of Prince Harry and a porn star) may seem a little hideous on paper, I bet that, once we have been watching them for a few weeks, we will understand them, open up our minds to them and empathise with them. And how else would I get to empathise with a porn star, if not for Big Brother?
It's only a freak show if you're a misanthropic snob who would rather Jade Goody et al had stayed on the till at Tesco than dared to have wished for something better.
And if you are still not convinced, think of it this way: if it weren't for Big Brother, we would never have got to see George Galloway almost ruin his career as a politician by pretending to be a cat. Small mercies, and all that.
Meanwhile, in the house I live in, the excitement about a new recycling scheme has worn off rather quickly. Every Tuesday, when the council comes to pick up our used goods, we note that our neighbours' bins contain the odd paper or empty plastic smoothie bottle.
Our bin, by contrast, seems to contain nothing more than scores of discarded beer cans and wine bottles. "It's embarrassing - we look like alcoholics!" I squealed to my flatmate.
He nodded in a serious manner: "That's true. But at least we look like ethical alcoholics."
Mwuhahaha!
