Reality Bitesize: The TV catch-up Independent I'm a celebrity
The story so far...Pondering what may or may not count as "celebrity" these days is about as useful as having holistic nutritionist and nature-phobe Gillian McKeith on your team for a competitive jungle-based game in which nobodies battle it out to win the heart, minds and flea-like attention spans of the British public. Nevertheless, it seems we're compelled to follow the antics of hunky Nigel Havers (who cracked and stormed out of the camp earlier this week), spunky Stacey Solomon and ex-junkie Shaun Ryder, whose finest moment was undoubtedly having a fag and pocketing his lighter before falling asleep while the others struggled to make sparks from soggy cotton wool.
Recently joined by Su Pollard (actually, it's Jenny Eclair but Linford Christie can't tell the difference) and The Independent's own Dom Joly, the apathetic jungle-dwellers continue to co-exist in a wobbly state of near permanent anxiety, friction and gorgeousness. (Thanks Britt Ekland for injecting some much-needed chic.)
But Joly be praised – he cajoled McKeith throughout one of her many bushtucker trials (thanks to her stunning displays of psychopathic pyrotechnics she was regularly chosen by the public to face whatever grim horrors Ant and Dec had up their tiny, cheeky sleeves) and, with a winning combination of wit and contempt, he somehow persuaded her to pick up four out of a possible five stars for the camp. Who would have thought that the man with the huge phone could also have had so huge a heart?
And in a dose of reality TV metatheatre, ex-Big Brother contestant Alison Hammond (who?) has also arrived in their midst, revealing she is planning to use her time in the jungle to lose a stone. She should take some tips from a dietician – what a shame there isn't a qualified one in the camp.
Top prize also to the genius behind the scenes who came up with the pun-tastic bushtucker trial "Who wants to eat a willy on-air?"
Heroes/villainsPity the other down-on-their-luck personalities whose finite time in the proverbial sun is being eclipsed by the poky-faced Gillian McKeith. As well as pulling a fainting fit when buried alive in a coffin full of rats and then claiming she was pregnant, the 51-year-old apparently also smuggled in stock cubes and herbs in her M&S control pants – all the better to season the kangaroo penises, no doubt. What's astonishing is that a woman who pokes around in other people's faeces for a living could be so disgusted by a few parasites and old rats. And by all the insects, of course.
What happens next...Will Stacey Solomon's winsome face fall off to reveal the metallic core of a calculating robot? Nobody this naïve is doing it by acciden
