Big Brothers

I haven’t watched Big Brother since the third series but I thought I would give this one a go as it’s the last Celebrity BB, and I have to admit that I am enjoying it.  It helps that the Hub is an amateur psychologist and that he reads body language like an expert: he predicted when the inmates would turn on each other, who would bully whom, what the micro-expressions were saying about their real feelings, and so on.  I think the reason I have really enjoyed it, however, is because there has been little in the way of arguments or nastiness, and the contestants might want more public exposure but at least none of them appear to be freaks.

I particularly enjoyed the cake episode.  I would show it to you but Channel 4 have blocked it on You Tube in this country.  What happened was this: Dane performed a secret task and was rewarded in the Diary Room with champagne and cake.  He was also told he could nominate someone else to receive a piece of cake.  He chose Stephanie.  When she sat in the BB chair, a hatch opened above her head and cake dropped on her; then she was free to leave the Diary Room and tell what had happened.  Each housemate was then called separately to the Diary Room.  Knowing what had happened to Stephanie, their anxiety was hilarious to watch, especially when Big Brother ordered them to move so they were directly under the hatch.  No-one else was caked, however.  Then Stephanie was called back, having bathed and changed, and was caked again.  It was much funnier to watch than it reads here.  My reason for mentioning it was that it was a perfect example of how terrorism works: one person was targeted and the rest feared the same thing would happen to them; it didn’t actually have to happen to anyone else to create an atmosphere of anxiety.

It is amazing how quickly housemates can turn on each other (especially, as I know from experience, when food is involved).  I saw it for myself this weekend: Tory Boy couldn’t make it last week for Spud’s birthday so he came this week instead.  He took Spud into Manchester for the day, buying him a City shirt with his name on; lunch (an I’m-shopping-in-Manchester-with-my-brother-and-we’re-having-a-great-day Sub – there really is a Sub for every occasion); taking him to the cool shops to spend his own money; and lending him the price of Batman Begins.

That was Saturday, when TB was the best big brother in the world.  Sunday, they were at war.  I won’t go into detail – having lost interest three seconds into their respective whinges – but it came to a head with sixty knocks in sixty seconds on one bedroom door and a retaliatory sixty texts in sixty seconds received on one phone; or it might have been the other way round.  Who cares?  At least there was no violence involved.

Tory Boy left last night and Spud complained five minutes later that he was missing him.  Brothers!

Getting Into A Bit Of A Lather

Derr Fourteen in the Big Bother House and Tilly Bud declares she’s givin’ up cleanin’ for goodd.  All pictures, bedside drawers and crushed ironin’ will stay in the big double cupboard on the landin’; the Christmas decorations remain in the bath.  Nor-one in the House has had a bath since Monday mornin’ and the stench is slowly becomin’ visible.  Tilly Bud did wash her hair with anti-bacterial hand soap on Thursday at 7:46 aa-em sor she’s not afraid of nits, but it looked greasier than before she started, and she could’nae find a hat or a cardboard box to cover it.  The mood in the house has fallen dramatcally as a result.

Nominations are as follows:

Tilly Bud: all votes; twice

Big Bother House, this is Davina.  You are live on Planet Earth; please do not swear.  Tilly Bud, Tilly Bud, and Tilly Bud you have all been nominated for eviction.  I can now reveal that the first person to leave the Big Bother House is …………….

……………………………………..………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………….. Tilly Bud! 

 I’m coming to get you! 

Don’t worry, I’ve got a scarf for your horrible hair.

 

Tilly Bud

you have been evicted

please leave the Big Bother House

with that dirty head.

I Might As Well Face It, I’m A Victim Of Love

I was going to write about Celebrity Big Brother this morning.  I thought Vinnie was the star of last night’s show.  Partly because he said the best thing I’ve heard all year (bearing in mind it is only January 16th): of Nicola: ‘She doesn’t know whether it’s Wednesday or Wembley.’  Partly because he played the Alpha Male so nicely; and partly because he fell off a chair and later tripped as he walked into the snug, but still looked cool.

However, I am not going to talk to you about those things after all –  because my husband loves me.  I came down this morning to find bunches of red heart balloons inscribed with I love you, inside bigger, white balloons; attached to balloon sticks; jutting out of the kitchen roll holder and the dishes cupboard.  Aah! I thought; opened the cupboard door, and a thousand of my favourite mugs crashed to the kitchen floor, bouncing off the kitchen counter and scattering wet tea bags everywhere.  As I cleared up pottery shards with damp kitchen roll – doing a back limbo as I tore off the sheets, to dodge the rotating weapons of love destruction – I wished that sometimes my husband didn’t love me so much.

Not!

 

 

Proof that you don't need money to show your love

I can’t show you a picture of the other bunch because they were burst by low-flying cups. 

I Killed A Phone And I Liked It

We have had Toby a year today. He is a different dog to the one we bought, and we are a different family to the one that collected him. We all dote on him and he has us wrapped around his little paws, as you may have noticed by my regular, gushing posts. Please send all congratulatory and anniversary cards to Besotted of Stockport.

It’s fortunate for me that it is his anniversary because it has put the Hub in a good mood. I needed him to be in a good mood when I told him that I had accidentally put my mobile phone in the washing machine (on a hot wash, if you’re interested). It’s not that I’m afraid of the Hub or his regular temperamental rages – nothing a good whack over the head with a framed photograph can’t sort out; but that’s a story for another day – it is that he’s getting a bit tired of mopping up after my idiocy…did I ever mention the time I ironed the kitchen carpet?

When we moved into this house it had a manky old carpet on the dining room side of the kitchen. We acquired a small piece of carpet (our parents were dropping like flies at that point; one of the reasons why we can’t move in this house for second-hand furniture and sentimental knickknacks) and it sat in the loft for a couple of years until the Hub had recovered from the exertion of putting it up there. Tory Boy was now big enough to help and he moved the heavy furniture, etc., and helped his Dad lay the carpet. I joke about the Hub, but his CFS/ME means that a small job like laying a little carpet knocks him flat for a couple of weeks, so I appreciated the effort he had made. Pity I didn’t appreciate that he knew what he was talking about when he said a flat ‘no’ to my suggestion of ironing the creases out of the new carpet; it would flatten out with use, he assured me. Not trusting he was right, and being an impatient soul, when he was in bed I sneaked into the kitchen and got out the steam iron. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had started in a hidden corner but, noooo, I had to start in the middle of the floor. The moment I pressed my hot little iron on my new nylon carpet I knew I had made a terrible mistake. To avoid righteous and dreadful retribution, I was forced to work myself into a state of hysteria and fling myself on the Hub’s mercy. He was asleep at the time and got the fright of his life at being woken by a sobbing wife clutching a hot iron and babbling about how sorrysorrysorryshewasthatsheneverlistenedtohimandhewasright andshewaswrongandshewassoverysorrysorrysorry. He was simply relieved, once he had translated my babblespeak, to know there was nothing wrong with the boys; a little carpet burn was therefore not a big deal.

The burn sits there still, many years later, reproaching me each time I enter the kitchen; though now joined by a friend – the second burn caused by me accidentally dropping the iron when I was using it one day. I did float the idea to the Hub that I could cover the carpet with iron scorches and disguise it as a pattern, but I thought it best to acquiesce when he screamed a negative as he danced like a flea in a rage.

This is just one of my many screw-ups over the years, so you can see why I was a little apprehensive about confessing to the Hub about my sparkling clean but unusable phone. I wish I had thought to blame Spud, for he it was who left it in his trouser pocket. He had borrowed it when he went out to play footsnowball – his own phone being too valuable to take outside when playing – and forgotten to put it back. He knows I’m too idle to check pockets when I load the washing machine, my family having become used to shredded tissue over the years (indeed, they enjoy the element of risk I bring to wash day).

I discovered my poor, sodden phone as I hung up the wet washing and I freely confess I was tempted to say nothing and let my deluded husband try to fix it in a couple of days, when it might have dried out. I resolved on this as Hayley (Delilah Dingle as was) impressed on Dancing on Ice. As Alex destroyed the snowman in Celebrity Big Brother, however, it suddenly occurred to me (along with the realisation that I have become strangely addicted to reality tv) that the first thing the Hub would do was try to charge my phone: even I know that water and electricity don’t mix outside of an appliance. I don’t fancy going to prison for manslaughter (I hear they make you do cleaning) so I had to ‘fess up. Annoyingly, he was nice about it. I had a whole raft of self-exculpatory reasons for him not to divorce me that I had prepared during the DOI skate-off I had taped to watch after CBB, and nowhere to use them.

I’ll save them for my next cock-up.

Visitgate

Mother cut the apron strings but still found it difficult to let go

 

Tory Boy is on his way back to uni this morning.  It has been wonderful having him here.  When he was here.    He arrived on Sunday afternoon and went out on Sunday night.  Monday afternoon; Tuesday night; stayed out all of Wednesday night, arrived home at 4pm on Thursday; then it was just a last jaunt out last night (Friday) before leaving five minutes ago.  Yes, it was lovely having him home, though he does have a tendency to treat it as if he lives here. 

Being a possessive sort of mother, I worked out how much time he was actually here: if he arrived at two-seventeen last Sunday and left just now (making 141.3 hours); spent 73.6 hours visiting his mates; 82.13 sleeping; and 7.7 hours on bathroom and personal duties, I calculate he spent 9.8 minutes in our company.  Scandalous!   

No, wait!  He did watch six minutes of Celebrity Big Brother with us when he came in on Tuesday.   Woopdedoo.  To rub salt in the wound caused by my First Born shoving a knife in my back as he stepped over my prostrate body on his way through the front door to visit one of his 733 friends also come home to ignore their mothers, he casually commented this morning that he would miss the dog and Sky News.  No mention of the woman who suffered no contractions, no swollen ankles and no morning sickness for nine months, other than a slight nausea, alleviated by a magic pill from my doctor.  Outrageous.   And no mention, either, of the twenty-two kilos I grew about my person on his behalf.  Ungrateful. 

On his way out he raided the freezer for goodies: cheese, German sausage and potato hash; eschewing vegetables, naturally, and any attempt on my part to offload the stuff that we never get around to eating but which is too good to throw away.  I can’t chuck it because I know there are starving children in Africa; but if I post it to them it will have gone off by the time it arrives.  I think he’s rather selfish not to think of them and eat up my leftovers on their behalf. 

You might not be aware of potato hash: it is the ultimate comfort food, particularly in this weather; a delicious meat mush.  It is the Hub’s mother’s recipe and requires two key ingredients to lift it above the average stew – celery and a pressure cooker.  The celery was the Hub’s Dad’s idea, and I’m sure he bought his entrance ticket to heaven with it.  You can’t taste the celery, but the hash is utterly dull without it.  The pressure cooker means it’s ready in a couple of hours.  This is vital, or you would be drowning in slaver because of the gorgeous aroma wafting through the house and distracting you from important cleaning work. 

There is a slight drawback when I prepare this meal: I am afraid of the pressure cooker.  It sits hissing atop the stove, daring me to adjust the temperature and just waiting to explode the moment my back is turned.  However, a greedy stomach will always find a way.  The Hub supervises the making of the meal: More potatoes!  Less leeks!  Vary the onion size! so he merely adds to his not-at-all onerous duties by sending me to look at which red line the top knob is at; report back; and adjust the heat setting up or down, as necessary.  I’m too scared to enter the kitchen when the pressure cooker is on the stove so I stand in the doorway and check it out; if it needs adjusting, I send in one of the children. 

Well, that sounds like the Hub at the door, back from taxiing TB to the station.  I expect him to be grumpy because he got slow in his sneeve when he was scraping the car.  He was also annoyed that I told him eight times to remind TB in the car to phone me when he gets in to Lancaster in an hour’s time.   TB tends to complain after my fifth reminder, so I offload it on the Hub.  I just like to know where TB is; what he’s doing; who he’s with; if he has enough money and a clean handkerchief.  It’s not unreasonable, is it?   

If you are reading this, Tory Boy, behave yourself: Big Mother is watching you.