The egos have landed - again. Yes, a new bunch of housemates have arrived for the latest series of Big Brother, and a finer representation of the selfie-obsessed generation you could not hope to find if you googled until the cows came home.
The producers have scoured the British Isles, left no stone unturned, and finally rooted out a dozen people who were willing to strut their stuff on live TV, talk incessantly about themselves and bitch about everybody else. Can’t have been easy: they are a dying breed, after all. Perhaps when the whole thing finally runs out of steam, the Big Brother house could be turned into a sanctuary for the self-obsessed.
The house itself has had a makeover; a stairs that makes it look like you’re descending into a nightclub, lots of colourful chairs – and a lifesize zebra, for some reason. The contestants?
Confusingly, they include Marco Pierre White Jr, son of the famous chef, and model Laura, who says she's had a threesome with Justin Bieber. That makes them almost Celebrity Big Brother material. There's Letitia, who's so Welsh she has a lamb tattooed on her "fanny", Letitia, who gives it lots of "side-boob", and body double Jason, whose bum has apparently been seen in Spectre.
There are the annoying twins, Emma and Victoria, who look like The Cheeky Girls and count as a single housemate, and former BBC journalist Andy West, who lost his job because he spoke out against Tyson Fury being nominated for a sportsperson of the year, despite making homophobic remarks – so he must be the token “principled person”.
Then there’s rich London geezer Chelsea – a sort of Indian version of Del Boy – who says he’ll miss his Bentley while in the house, and posh girl Georgina, who’ll miss her horses.
Is there a token Irish person this year? Yes, it’s Dublin Traveller Hughie Maughan – but he’s not actually in the Big Brother house. To make it all a bit less boring, the producers have built a second, secret Big Brother house and filled it with six jealous, resentful wannabes who will be plotting to take down the housemates and take their place in the main house.
The housemates are oblivious to the existence of “the Others”, but they’ll soon be feeling very creeped out and paranoid as the Others put their nefarious plans to work. Oh, goodie.
You can bitch all you like about BB, but really, it's just Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – the Live Show, with added zebra. After all, we need something to feed that voracious social-media monster we've created.