Big sister

Excitement is in the air. I spoke to my big sister yesterday.

'Guess what is starting tonight' she said. I being submerged in the world of writing, films, research and the like, am not sure.

'Dunno?'

'Celebrity Big Brother' she said with a flourish

Oh shit.

I am, I'm very sad to say, susceptible to a weakness that predisposes me to... oh damn it, I just love this kind of mindless TV. There, I've said it. It's out. Rather than reading Great Expeditions, I'd rather watch z-list celebs irritating the hell out of each other.

Phew, now I feel lots better.

It is fascinating, to see how quickly they forget that they're on TV all the time and the microphones pick up everything they say, even when they whisper. I love it when they lie, and blatantly deny it. Sometimes, they are are aware they are lying. But you can tell sometimes that they just are unaware that they have created a new truth for themselves to fit what they want to believe. Utterly fascinating.

My sister likes it for another, much less common reason. She has been in hospital a lot over the last 10 years, suffering from mental health problems. She has had the grave misfortune to have had to live in secure wards for months at a time while battling her demons. Big Brother reminds her of being in hospital, locked in with people you don't know, with nothing much to do. Being watched all the time, by the doctors, nurses and paranoid creations.

Now she is out and better than she has been since it all first started. She finds it reassuring as they, the 'normal' people, struggle and 'go a bit mad' themselves in the equivalent of a locked ward. Remember Les Denis and Vanessa? If they can't cope with it, no wonder my sister and her ward mates with their collected disorders struggled to hang on to the little bits of sanity they had at their disposal and occasionally threw cups of tea at the wall.