They're never going to have sex in front of the cameras. Helen is too aware of their presence. Paul would have a go if she let him, though.

Were they having a dirty grope under the dusters last night?

And, disappointingly, no picture of Paul's 'bulging' shorts yet.

"Brian, Brian!"
"Yes, Helen."
"Does Richard Whitley from Countdown turn you on, Brian?"

Paul out! Out you go Paul! (He's such a self-absorbed tosser, much worse than Josh).

From The Sun Online:

"It would have to be - like - half a trained dog"


Amma

"The problem is you're so similar - but in different ways."


Amma

"I was nervous and I'm never nervous"


Paul

"If there were less people in here it would be less crowded."


Dean

(Helen to Dean) "Can you play the Vengaboy's are coming?"
"No"


Dean

There's no point guessing who's made the most clangers. Yes, it's Helen. Read her pearls of wisdom below.

!"God!! There are nine of us in here..... It does not seem to be as many as at the start!!!..."


Helen

"I dreamed last night when I was asleep..."


Helen

"There's less people in the house than we started with"


Helen

"Do I look chubby, I'm worried if I'm nominated as I'll have lots of pictures taken of me. I just won't eat anything on Friday".


Helen

"You do have five fingers don't you?"


Helen

"I think I'm the only Welsh person in here"


Helen

On her G.C.S.E's: "God!! How come you lot have got loads and I have only got two?"


Helen

"I probably sound Welsh on the telly"


Helen

Dean playing "The Look of Love" with Amma singing along ...
"Is that one of your songs, Dean?"


Helen

"I love blinking, I do!"


Helen

"What is a Liberal Democrat?"


Helen

"Is the jelly cooked"


Helen

"This is Big Brother, a meteorite has landed in the garden. You have two minutes to get dressed...
"Dressed? What as in clothes?"


Helen

"Yeah, you know Jack Daniels... he does all the magic stuff!"


Helen

Bubble was balancing the three juggling balls on Brian's head as he was reading a book on the sofa:
"That's fantastic that is, does he know?"


Helen

"It's just like being in Spain!" (sun behind clouds, cold outside)


Helen

"What does insanity MEAN???"


Helen

(Brian outloud) "What if Helen's got an IQ of 25?"
"Actually, I'm only 23"


Helen

(Stuart out loud)"What's Deans greatest fear?"
"Going insane"(Bubble)
"No it isn't, its insanity he's scared of"


Helen

"Those infrared cameras can see under your duvet covers"


Helen

"I've heard that when men's willies are erect they are all the same size"


Helen

"I don't like telling clients (her hairdressing customers) that I teach dancing because they might think I'm being big headed."


Helen

(Josh out loud) "I've had four wet dreams ... I wake up in the morning covered."
"Covered in what?"


Helen

Dean told the group how fans had stalked members of his band.


"I've never been stalked. It doesn't happen in Wales,"


Helen

"... They're self-indulged with themselves..."


Helen

"I fancy cheese on toast." A while later... "I fancy something to eat but I'm not sure what I fancy."


Helen

"What's in kidney beans?"


Helen

"Jimmy, Isn't that the name of a baby Kangaroo?"


Helen

(Brian to Helen) "Did you make any mistakes cutting people's hair?"
"When I was training, I cut someone's necklace off."


Helen

I might be alone here, but, like the moment when I realised Anna wasn't going to win last year, the fascination with Paul and Helen has made me feel distanced from the mass of the country in a soiled and disappointing way.

I've mentioned it before, but I think the real appeal of the Big Brother sort of cack-TV show lies in the reactions of the viewers, not the action on screen. People see themselves reflected in the contestants, react to them, talk about them and reveal themselves. You're a Brian type, or a big fan of Helen, or someone who can't stand Josh - it's pop psychology lite, and really good fun for you and your friends.

The tabloids - and a lot of the show's critics - however seem to think it's a soap. Thus they get excited when something soapy happens (nasty Nick, the possibilty of romance), and spend the rest of the time whinging about how "boring" great stretches of it are, or how Dean is dull (presumably because he's not trying to have fumbling adolescent sex on national TV).

Now, the tedium of the BigBrother experience is why I watch it. If I want romance, I'll watch a romantic drama. If I want voyeuristic sex, there's loads of it in the video shop or online. I want to watch people doing absolutely nothing. It's pure zen TV. I can react to them in utter isolation - merely mediated by the skill of the editing technicians, or (on lovely E4) without even that interference. It's the joy of the social experiment. Watching other people do exactly what you do, more slowly, in a bizarre, heightened way.

Anyway, I'm finding the whole "budding romance" thing skin-crawlingly awkward, and a forced distraction from the real business of spending 20 minutes watching Elizabeth wash cups.

Since the whole nation and the media seem fascinated by Paul and Helen, am I missing the point of Big Brother? Have I been watching a different show for different reasons?

I now anticipate the wrong person winning again, and me having to recalibrate my place in the universe. Boh.

Yep, I watched BB avidly last year, mainly because I was almost permanently drunk for the first 6 weeks, but also because it was 'new' and 'different. A year down the line everyone is fed up with 'reality' TV and it's a huge turn off. BB2 does feel as if a huge amount of effort has been made to make it appear interesting, and to enforce perceptions of various 'characters' on the contestants. They're trying to manufacture the whole thing, make someone appear 'nasty', another appear 'mad', when they're really just a handful of isolated, but related incidents.

Anyone seen the live feeds on E4? They're so boring that the minute anything interesting happens the sound feed is replaced with bird song or aeroplane noises. I've watched 3 feeds for about 15 minutes each time and it follows the same pattern:

someone talks about books or food or something dull

bird noise follows

and that's it most of the time. I looked at the C4 BB2 forum yesterday, it was amazing, for all the wrong reasons. Conspiracy theories abound (among Paul and Helen threads that is) "There's a secret room", or "What is Elizabeths big secret?". Was Elizabeth a bondage mistress? Has she had an affair with someone famous? No, she was shortlisted for BB last year and was invited to reapply, that's it.

The 'almost' leak of Brians nomination the other night, some coincidence that it happened at almost exactly the same stage in last years proceedings. As for the Helen and Paul thing, it's contrived and sickening. I don't want to watch that, like UB said, if we want to watch romance, then we will! The idiots on the C4 BB forum even said "Don't vote for Helen or Paul, this is the greatest romance ever, they can't evict them if we don't vote!" Oooh, boy meets girl, they flirt, WOW! They were even threatening to beat Brian up for nominating helen and Paul! These people need a serious reality injection to their brains. I suggest we petrol bomb the BB house tomorrow. Who's coming with me?

Not me! BB2 is better than any of the other crap that is on at the moment!

Don't get me wrong, there must be something about it or surely i wouldn't keep watching (especially as I haven't so much as touched alcohol since March) but I just wish something would happen, like all the Nasty Nick stuff last year!

> Don't get me wrong, there must be something about it or surely i wouldn't keep watching

Has it struck you that there culd be something about *you* instead...? : )

*laughs* Like I mentioned in another thread "I have brain damage" and I'm seriously suffering from the total lack of alcohol for four months, that can do things to a girls mind y'know.

I just hope John has stocked up on the vodka.

Is it still true that there have been no female BB winners anywhere in the world?

I reckon that the person who has come out of this series best is Dermot O'Leary. Big Brother's Little Brother is skill - simultaneously glorifying and mocking the reason for it's own existence.

If Helen manages to pull it off, I hope she uses the £70,000 to set up a museum of blinking.