The emotional Richter scale hit 10 last night as Brian Dowling packed up his newfound celebrity status in his kit bag, left the Big Brother house and ran out into the arms of an adoring nation.
It was a casual affair - just Brian and a few million of his friends. Today he'll have a meeting with a counsellor, pose for the press and meet his agent. Tonight it could be the Met bar with his idol, Posh Spice.
Next week will be a triumphant return to his home town of Rathangan, and then his 15 minutes of fame will start ticking.
The only certainty in a life turned upside down is that he won't be returning to his £18,000 a year job as a Ryanair steward. Both the BBC and ITV have been monitoring his progress on the Channel 4 reality TV show and are waiting with lucrative job offers.
"Everybody loves him, from housewives to teenagers. He's an ideal frontman," an ITV source says, while the BBC thinks "He is going to be a star somewhere, and we want him to be that star with the BBC".
The levels of adoration for the young, gay man are the stuff of showbiz legend. As millions followed his progress in the Big Brother house over the last 10 weeks, a cult following developed.
Adoring fans created a tribute website, celebrities were busy endorsing him, the Daily Mirror adopted him as a mascot and urged their readership to vote for him on a daily basis, and the popular dance-tracks in nightclubs featured a sample of his voice ("Hold me, Bubble"). With last year's housemates mainly consigned to obscure digital TV channels (with the exception of Dubliner Anna Nolan who is soon to present her own prime-time travel show), Brian has the requisite levels of charisma, personality and wicked good humour to make an impression.
It's not just Graham Norton who'll be anxiously looking to his crown over the next few months. While agents, managers and PR companies attempt to plan out his life (and their 10 per cent), they should try to understand that below his camp effervescence there lies a traditional Irish Catholic who will always owe more to his Co Kildare background than Channel 4 and Davina McCall.
The eldest of seven children (and the only male) from a "quiet Irish backwater" as the British press describes Rathangan, Brian was known as Bambi at school because of his wide-eyed innocence. A natural entertainer, more interested in song and dance than academic pursuits, he was popular with his classmates.
On holidays in Spain when he was 18, he met his first boyfriend, an Arsenal football player, but it turned out to be a mere holiday romance.
Soon after he moved to London to work for Ryanair (the airline redecorated one of their planes with a massive "Good Luck Brian" banner during his stay in the house). While in the house he broke the airline steward's omerta by revealing he once spat in the food of a passenger who was causing him unnecessary grief.
He also tantalised his Big Brother housemates with a story about how he had once been propositioned mid-air by a well known male Eastenders actor, although he wouldn't reveal his name. The tabloids gave it two pages.
Brian was an avid fan of the first series of Big Brother and made his mind up to audition for the second series when one night in Soho one of last year's contestants, Darren, approached him looking for directions to a nightclub.
The two chatted for a while, and Brian decided there and then to add his name to the other 50,000 applicants for this year's series.
The programme's producers were instantly won over by his demo tape, and the fact that he was Irish was a bonus, as they always like to mix the backgrounds of the housemates.
On arrival in the house last May, he made an immediate impression, and by the end of week one the betting agency, William Hill, had installed him as joint favourite, along with Bubble, to win first prize.
His progress was halted by the arrival two weeks later of an add-on housemate, Josh, a 29year-old gay Londoner. It was dislike at first sight. Josh was supremely self-confident, with a pair of Gucci trousers that cost £2,500 and was as composed as Brian was insecure. "He just does the gay thing much better than me," Brian hissed at housemate Helen one night.
The pair's feuding transfixed the eight million-odd viewers who tuned in to the programme each night. On Brian's 23rd birthday, with copious amounts of cider having been taken, he verbally turned on his rival. Immediately after he dashed to the diary room, he broke down in tears and wailed "I'm just a selfish bastard".
Although the two ostensibly made up the next day, the simmering tensions sometimes boiled over. Wondering if Josh was popular with the public, he remarked: "He'll have all the people he's slept with voting for him. That's half of London"; while Josh said to Brian: "If we were on the outside I'd punch your lights out."
When Josh was evicted from the house, he made a "special guest appearance" at a gay London night-club. He was booed off the stage by a hostile crowd chanting Brian's name.
The Guardian analysed the sub-text of their relationship. "It is Brian we love," wrote Matt Wells. "Josh is too successful, too self-confident, too sassy. He's not vulnerable enough. Brian, on the other hand, is desperately lacking in self-confidence, yet he's witty and switched-on. His lack of self-awareness is lovable, his sensitivity is deeply attractive. He uses high camp to hide his insecurities."
That is Brian's appeal. The British, in particular, have always rushed to embrace campness that comes laced with a thick streak of sarcastic humour. From music hall through to Carry On and Lily Savage, Julian Clary and Graham Norton, camp is cool, popular and generation-spanning.
Book, video, chat show, sitcom - the life of Brian will reveal itself soon. Of all the acres of press given over to his odyssey during the last 10 weeks, only one tribute from a fan managed to distil his endearing appeal: "Brian is camp, slightly chubby and totally off-message. He could be your friend."
