BB FANS

A true Scotsman...?!

Erm, Nick - not me! I was going to be paid. That's why I can't figure out this story about ex-HMs not getting any fee.

Could you just not be bothered going because it was so last minute, Cameron?

I must say I haven't been overly impressed with the way the "celebrations" have gone. It has been funny seeing ex HMs in the house, to an extent, but BBBM last night was a bit of a non event. First time I've watched it this series, lol.

Probably speculation or hearsay about the non-payment?

I watched a bit of BBLB on Friday. Interesting to see Rachel, Anthony, Pete etc again but it was a bit rubbish.

My thoughts about it are in my column today - hopefully one of the mods (*cough* Jezi) will post it sometime.

So Kackling Karly’s out and there’s a new bunch in. But anyway…
More important than whatever shenanigans happened on Friday night is the utter non-event and anti-climax that was Big Brother’s big birthday celebrations during the past week.
I can hardly begin to express my disappointment about the missed opportunity for a really celebratory shindig last week. Past winners and ex-housemates were going to be brought back to take part in the celebrations, and the potential for fun was enormous!
But it all started to go wrong when Nick Bateman from the first series pulled out, allegedly partly due to his discovery that other ex-housemates had been offered appearance fees and he hadn’t.
I warned Big Brother that travelling expenses from up here in Scotland could be costly. The day before I was due to go to London, Big Brother contacted me to say that the fare was too much! Un-be-flipping-lieveable. Gearing up for the big birthday celebrations you’d think they would have been switched on enough to factor that in, and realise that not every winner lives within a taxi ride of the studios.
But even back in 2003 there was serious penny-pinching going on. They tried to get my mother and brother to travel to London by train, as if it was some kind of exciting adventure. When they refused the eight-hour rail journey, a national newspaper offered to pay their airfares and Big Brother was left with egg on his face.
But frankly, I don’t like that happening. I have always been a staunch supporter of the concept, the producers and the whole team – even over the last couple of years when it’s been more difficult to draw out the positive aspects of the show.
A Big Brother insider told me that scrimping on production is “big bro all round this year”. It’s thoroughly disappointing, especially when they could have made such a fantastic event of the big birthday.
I have no axe to grind; I’ve always watched it with a sympathetic eye and a defensive stance but it’s shocking that they thought they couldn’t fork out a few extra quid from the multi-million pound budget on making a real event of the 10th birthday.
I’ve been asked if I’ll go and take part later in the series, and I would love to. I have extremely fond memories of the place. The problem is I don’t want them tainted by a shoddy experience this time around.

Good column, Cameron. They've really missed an opportunity this year. The viewing figures are down, but if they'd really hyped up a shindig with former fave HMs, it might have brought some of the old fans back.

The production team have taken far too much notice of the Tesco Value range...

I would say so indeed OG. Sad though, innit.

Thank you vags - I didn't want it to come across as sour grapes, because it's not. I really find it very disappointing that there was such potential for fun and capers this week, and it didn't really happen.

Incredible. Can't believe BB said that.

I think sometimes people think the world stops at Watford. London-centricness really annoys me. Although I have friends who live in London and I love visiting, sometimes people have no idea

They shot themselves in the foot though, by refusing.

I don't think it came across as sour grapes at all. We'd all have loved it to be a big week, to be honest. And how rude to do that to you at such short notice? Not that you'd have much fun if you'd made it down there, from what I saw!!! You probs had more fun staying at home chatting to us, hehe!

I'm not bothered - the whole thing was short notice really, and that's what I find most disappointing. I wish they had put more thought into it all - then again, maybe they're saving up for next year.

This reminds me of the 'Millennium' argument, where thousands of computers were supposed to crash when we hit 2000, but everyone totally overlooked the fact that we reached the new millennium starting in 2001, unless there was a year numbered zero?

Next year is the tenth anniversary of BB starting in the UK, this is the tenth year it has run, but only over a period of nine years (and a bit...)

Oh, and the computer wary amongst you will realise, of course, that all the computers will keep running until 2048 and then they'll crash...

It doesn't make good business sense for CH4 to cut back on it's biggest cash cow for the last several years, ok it's lost a lot of viewers due to it not being new any more and messing with the format, but the cutbacks it has made this year have alienated quite a few of it's core viewers. The anniversary could have been great fun but was a letdown imo.

Even though I started watching this one late after skipping last year altogether it is a good series this time round but it could have been a great one!