A little while ago I wondered if the BB4 housemates read or were allowed to read books they’d brought into the house. I posted to the BB4 forum and asked this question and only got one response saying they thought so but just hadn’t seen anyone reading this year. My question was answered for me on television last night during the BB4 nightly show when the narrator said something like, ‘Without books and tv in the house the housemates….’. Perhaps the Big Brother team read the forum and answer questions like this in the nightly show or whichever show is appropriate for the question asked. I know last year books were allowed in the house as I remember Chrissie reading books.
Do they read?
Watching my fourth season of Australian Big Brother I’m interested in what the housemates do to pass the time away, given that they don’t always have set tasks. One thing I’ve noticed in comparing this year’s season to last year is that I have not seen anybody read a book. Are they allowed to bring books into the house this year or is it just that nobody is a reader? I would go absolutely insane in the house, or anywhere for that matter, if I could not read. I have things to read all over the place. On the kitchen table there’s the paper from last weekend or the weekly free paper and maybe some junk mail. I have at least one book on the go in my bedroom that I read before I go to sleep. My ex-boyfriend was not a reader and he could not understand why I liked to read so he used to deride me for reading and for my choice of books (mainly thrillers).
Back to do the BB housemates read? I’m going to post to the BB forum and see if anyone can tell me.
Quiet weekend
Have had a pretty quiet weekend for a long weekend. Saturday evening has been the only time that I caught up with friends. I had two friends around for dinner and made a roast beef with home-made gravy which I’ve never made before – the gravy that it. It tasted great but there wasn’t much of it. I think I could have watered it down a bit more. I even made a pavlova as I had some egg whites left over from my moussaka I made earlier. We all had far too much to drink; gin and tonic, red wine, some strong ale and chased with a Coopers Pale Ale and coffee and water. I felt pretty bad yesterday and as the weather was miserable it was easy to stay inside after venturing outside to get some hot chips and a video – Monsters Inc for myself and Jaycee Junior. It’s now his favourite video. Hopefully it won’t be too much of a wrench for him when we have to return it next Sunday.
After gladly putting Jaycee Junior to bed I settled in to watch Big Brother eviction show where Merlin got evicted which was pretty predictable. I think the ones that generally go are the ones that are shown the most during the week after they are nominated. Merlin was shown a lot because of his discussion about nominations and receiving two strikes. Of course he did his free the refugee protest as he was walking down the gangplank at the stadium towards Gretel and refused to speak to her. I think he’s a big hypocrite for doing this protest as if he felt that strongly about it he should have registered to vote when he could. Even his interview with 2UE this morning was pathetic when he was challenged about not being Australian – he just kept reiterating the fact that he is Australian because he’s lived here for some time and feels very strongly about this country. I don’t think he thought through the consequences of what he did last night and how it might go. Of course lots of people are going to ask him about his protest but apart from what he did last night what’s he going to do? I wonder if he will actually do the cause any good or just give people the fuel they want who are pro refugee detention.
Turnaround
During the first week of two of BB4 Australia I didn’t like Paul and Terri. Now they have both managed to survive some evictions I have newfound respect for them. I hope Paul stays in for a while as he doesn’t care about stirring the pot so he mustn’t be in it to win it, except on his terms. From what I have seen he appears to be a good judge of character and is trying to get people to be real.
Terri I think is coping very well with the lack of support and friendship she is receiving in the house and I don’t think she’s trying as hard to be liked as she did in the beginning. I thought last night when she talked to Bree about her hair colour and Bree just walked out of the room was very rude on Bree’s part. I should have stuck with my original opinion of Bree which I formed on the very first night of Big Brother when someone introduced themself to her and she just ignored them – a bit like she’s doing now to Terri. If I were Bree I would be worried that I might be evicted this week as Terri and Paul have both survived repeated nominations. Although my vote is for Merlin this week to be evicted. At the beginning of the season I thought he was a pleasant sort of guy but every since Aphrodite left my opinion has changed. He just seems to bitch about other housemates and if this show were Survivor he would be trying very hard to make alliances. I also think the voting Australian public will want to consciously or sub-consciously vote out a boy to even out the numbers a bit.
I hope that Wes and Kane don’t make it to the last 3 housemates just because they are slipping under the radar – that’s not the game as far as I can see. If I were a housemate I’d nominate both of them and make up some lame excuse about strategy like Dan did last year. Not that anyone else would probably nominate them though.
Was it a joke?
Sat down to watch the eviction show last night and when I saw Gretel I nearly fell off my chair. Was that wig supposed to be serious? I sincerely hope not as it was so obviously fake. I normally think Gretel looks fairly good but the wig was sure noticed by lots of people of if the Big Brother forum is anything to go by.
On to Krystal. I’m glad she was the one to go as the thing about her was that she was a backstabber. One example – Krystal overhears a conversation between Terri and someone else about Bree and the funny look Bree gave Terri while doing the song task, then immediately goes and reports back to Bree about it – “Oh I wasn’t even going to tell you”. If you’re not going to tell someone, just don’t tell them. There were many other instances of Krystal talking about other housemates behind their backs – not that other people don’t do this but I think Krystal did it the most. And Krystal’s comment when Terri approached her about Krystal walking away when Terri was trying to speak to her. Krystal’s response was “You so shouldn’t take that personally”. How else would a person take it. If I was talking to someone and they walked away I would take it personally and think that person didn’t like me. How two faced is Krystal?
In her interview with Gretel after the eviction, Gretel was fairly kind to Krystal about her comments about other housemates and about why she thought she was nominated and evicted. I remember Gretel grilling Igor about why he thought he was nominated but not the same sorts of questions for Krystal.
So who will be nominated this week? Not really sure. Probably Ash again because she’s an easy target as she doesn’t help much around the house, Terri and Paul again maybe as people can use the same excuses rather than come up with new ones. Or will we see a new nominee this week?
I should have guessed!
I wasn’t really sure who would go this week. None of the people up for eviction did that much for me and none of them annoyed me more than the other but I guess what clinched it for Igor was the controversy surrounding him regarding his debts and so on. I think he’s probably correct in guessing that Paul will be up for eviction this week especially after the argument with Merlin the other night about him not being an Australian citizen. Paul should have known when to back down and he just didn’t. I thought things were going to get ugly but I guess that would have been nipped in the bud pretty quickly.
I can’t think who else will be up for nomination apart from Paul – maybe Crystal and Elle? Is Terri settling in more? I don’t think she will make it to the last few that’s for sure but she might have been saved for a little while. A few housemates think Catherine will be one of the last three in the house but I think she’s too quiet and not in the background. But then Ben – the first Big Brother Australia winner didn’t feature that much on our television screens but all the housemates thought he was really funny. So who knows.
I had a thought about Ashalea last week too. She comes across as very naive and not very knowledgeable about past famous happenings in the world, but remember Reggie from last year – she was about the same. The difference between Reggie and Ashalea is that Reggie seemed like more fun to be around.
I hope Channel 10 shake the house up soon as I’m starting to get bored. Perhaps a double eviction, or everyone up for eviction? Come on.
Why Aphrodite?
I know Aphrodite was a bit annoying but I don’t think she should have been the person to go. Why not evict Terri for trying too hard or Igor for being a sexist liar. Even though the housemates voted for Aphrodite to be nominated most of them were quite sad when she left – except Paul – but we all know that he didn’t really like her. It’s funny though when someone obviously doesn’t like somebody else they will say nice things about them when they nominate (I love her/him to death, I think she/he is a great person) but their actions tell the real story. I haven’t quite figured Paul out yet. He appears to come across as quite controlling with being critical about people not doing the recycling correctly for instance so I think he would probably annoy me as I don’t like being told what to do.
My favourites are – in no particular order – Trevor, Ryan, Bree (they all seem natural)
The people who don’t really stand out – Wesley, Kane, Catherine (haven’t really seen much of them)
The people who annoy me – Terri (tries too hard), Ashalea (childish), Elle (the way she speaks), Igor (contradictory)
Those I feel indifferent towards – Paul, Crystal, Merlin (almost in the annoying category but haven’t seen enough annoying things for me to put them there).
I think and hope Igor will go this week. I hate it when housemates say they want to go but have no intention of really going. As I think it was Merlin who said, Igor’s just using it as a defense mechanism in case he is the one to go.