Deliver us from Mediocrity

It was with, I have to say, a certain trepidation that I joined the party heading out through the snow (once again) to the House of Viewing to see Celebrity Big Brother on the Television.

It is a common course for television programmes that originally feature what are sometimes disparagingly referred to as "ordinary people", to morph into a Celebrity equivalent.  So Stars in their Eyes became Celebrity Stars in their Eyes.  Family Fortunes -  a programme featuring two teams of slightly odd people who we've never heard of - became Celebrity Family Fortunes - a programme featuring two teams of slightly odd people we've never heard of, with one family member we've vaguely heard of because they were once a road-sweeper in Coronation Street, or a costermonger in the "Square".  Come Dancing became Celebrity Come Dancing with Elephants in Tutus on Ice.

I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here, by definition didn't make this trip - there was never a programme called I'm a Nonentity, Get me Out of Here.  But it was built on the back of many earnest programmes where common people were cast adrift on islands, stuck on farms or whatever.

In the end, does it come down to safety?  Not my beloved Health and Safety, but commercial safety?  The planners - those right-on, cutting-edge, blue-sky-thinkers will take any concept involving the proletariat and think - this is a great pitch.  But wouldn't this programme on people sweeping the streets of Luton be more interesting if the street-sweepers were formerly on Footballers' Wives?  Would that make just the difference to the viewing figures - bring just that many people who were already fans of the "celebrity" - that the balance could be tipped between a programme few people watch and one that a few more watch?  Given the effort that goes into ensuring the right "back story", as I believe it's called, of the X-factor - hairy barmy religious woman; single mother; lost an uncle in the last year; brought up by wolves or whatever it may be - wouldn't it be less trouble to bring someone in who has their attitude and attributes pre-set - so Jordan is gobby and busty, Joe Pasquale is squeaky, the Cheeky Girls are... well, forgotten basically.

And now the whole thing seems to have gone full circle.  Behold in front of me on the screen I see - an entire group of people who I don't recognise, except for a former QPR midfielder who was once famous for getting into fights in pubs.  In fact the only difference between the "celebrities" I see before me and the wannabe celebrities from previous Nonentity Big Brothers, is that the celebs are older and generally less attractive.  Apart from the aforesaid footballer, I can't look at these people and think "oh they're not like I thought they were".  Because I don't know who they are.  They are as much an unknown as an eighteen-year-old "student" from the "University" of South Bedfordshire (formerly  Sainsbury's in Dunstable) who thinks she can be a "moddawl" if she appears on TV.  So if this is reality TV - the reality is actually more boring and unimaginative than our own realities.

What possesses those who run our idiot boxes to think that we are so gormless, so lacking in the ability even to change a channel, so easy to control - because control is, after all, what it is about - that we will keep watching even when their "celebrities" are talentless, witless, pointless  unknowns?

Thankfully, at least in the case of Big Brother, it would appear that game is up.  We're not quite that stupid - or, at least, after ten years of it we're not.  We turn off in droves, maybe to do something more practical.  Play charades, or run for Parliament, or go down the pub for a fight, or even turn to the Internet - a place where anyone with a laptop and a bright idea can make him or herself famous, regardless of "contacts" and "celebrity".  Typing a Facebook status, as one friend of mine did, such as "Just caught a super-bug in hospital - lol", gives you hope for the future of mankind.  And I'm pleased to say she seems better now.