Sixteen Volts

The vast majority of my readers comes from Finland and USA (the exact share varies during the day due to the time difference) while Canada gets a surprisingly small slice of the reader pie. But as the SiteMeter country share page informs us, Sixteen Volts is read and enjoyed all over the world.

In response to my earlier blog post about more reader commentary, a reader from London sent me an email about their version of the famous "Big Brother" reality show. It's too bad that I don't get to see this show, but at least this description allows me to vividly imagine it. In fact, this email is so funny that I asked the emailer if I could publish it here so that my other readers could enjoy it too, and got an okay. So here goes nothing:

Not being based in the UK you miss out on the annual television sleaze fest that is British Big Brother. a dozen attention seeking dimwits stuck in a house together with the cameras following their every move. They get voted out one after another for about three hysterically funny months until the winner emerges.

This years is shaping up to be one of the nastiest and most entertaining. I just got to thinking how valuable the programme is for kids. It really is a masterclass of how nasty 'grown ups' can be to each other and has got to be one of the most educational things on TV. It also demolishes notions of political correctness.

Which is odd because of one of the justifications given for Britain's public broadcasting system is that it is educational with its natural history programme, animals crapping and eating each other etc.

The really educational programmes come at the junk end of the spectrum, things like Wife Swap, Beauty and the Geek and of course Big Brother. They have all got valuable things to say about personal responsibility and how what people say and what they do are two different things.

In this year's BB inevitably the women who come out looking the worst, exposing how two faced and awful the girls can be to each other. It has descended into an orgy of back-biting, two facednessness, hypocrisy and ruthless rank pulling.

The two best looking girls have lost no time in pulling the best looking two men, ostracising the lesser favoured women and generally turning the whole thing into a terrific bitch fest. Tears and tantrums every five minutes and not an iota of self-awareness; it is magnificent viewing.

As one of the younger males put it: "Why do they spend so much time tearing each other apart."

But the funniest thing at the moment is that there are no black males in the house. (12 housesmates and no black minorities)

The reason is painfully obvious - during previous series the black males have barely been able to function without violence, threats, inappropriate behaviour etc.

So the producers in the time honoured left liberal fashion have sorted the problem by ignoring it. And leaving the black males out.

Right now it is really gripping. The house is divided into two groups - heterosexual good looking ones have banded together.

The other group consisting of a gay man, a transvestite gay man, a fortysomething retired porn star with grotesquely enlarged bosoms and pop singer with tourette's syndrome, are in the other.

The "straights" have dubbed the others the freak show and are pleading the producers admit a new member who they insist must be good looking and male to balance things up.

Ultimately the fate of the contestants is judged by the TV audience who tend to be overwhelmingly young and female or gay men.

That is the reason the winners have all been cute guys (a couple have been gay as well).

The one suprise has been the shock voting out of the house pretty boy Sezer (pronounced Caesar). He was a super confident jack the lad figure who got the pretties girl into his bed in 48 hours flat and pretty much said what was on his mind with no attempt at disguising his thougths to spare anyone's feelings.

He was very cutting but accurate in his observations. One vulgar street blonde he described as a "ghetto ho". The female didn't like this keen eyed judgementalism and voted him out. Needless to say the blonde has revealed herself to be a gangster's moll who boasts of visiting the black boyfriend in prison with no underwear.

Sezer in fact was punished exactly for being himself and not putting on a front and lying through his teeth. And for being outspoken in his accurate assessments of others.

Lesson; in life as in BB it does not pay to be honest with women.

The news article "Truth about Sezer the Geezer" tells us more about the travails of this alpha male.

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Monday, June 05, 2006 at 11:03 AM