ADDICTED . . . . .

. . . once again to Big Brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a sad bastard.

Some people use the summer months to watch the cricket; others use it to top up on their tans in Cuba, but for me summer has to be about watching paint dry televised and asking myself, and others around me, such philosophical questions as: "Who's this year's Jade?; What possessed me to once think that Dermot O'Leary seemed like a decent bloke?; Where do they find this shower of spoilt brat, self-seeking wankers?; & If I could only batter one of them senseless, which one would it be?*"

First night of this year's Big Brother, and watching the thirteen wannabes in search of an equity card enter the house, I thought I would be able to escape its grips this time round. I wasn't interested - and I said as much. They all seemed like too much of a muchness, and I was even able to stop myself from watching any of the first week when, by all accounts, Makosi was brilliant, when part of her task to avoid nomination for eviction was to wind up as many housemates as possible. (She succeeded.)

However, as the days have passed, slowly but surely I've been getting sucked in to the point now that I know that I will have to watch it regularly for the next four or five weeks or so. (It's the same pattern every year. I'm interested until it is down to the last four or five, and then I can't be bothered until the final night itself.) I've already got my favourites - Maxwell, Roberto and Makosi - the one's I love to hate, - Derek, Science, Craig and Derek again, and the ones who if they were sitting in front of me right now, I wouldn't recognise - Vanessa, Anthony and the one that keeps telling the diary room she is so much more intelligent than everyone else in the house.

I'm sure the plastic toff Derek debated with the old Islington Branch of the Socialist Party way back in the eighties, and I'm sure he's the same bloke who was written about in the old Scallywag magazine in connection with Portillo, when the latter was still reading Adam Smith Institute pamphlets in the closet. A bloke who revels in his friends nickname of him of Golly, every time I watch Derek do his pre-prepared, but supposed off the cuff state of the nation impromptu speeches whilst sitting on the couch, I suddenly remember that I'm Old Labour enough to know that, bottom line, I still effin' despise any choob wearing blue rosetted underpants. Long may that continue.

Oh, and Maxwell to win this year's Big Brother.

*Derek with one of Science's severed limbs.