Thoroughly enjoyed seeing Strictly Come Dancing through to the end this year (despite the inordinate amount of filler required to pad out the final to well over two hours - how many times does anyone need to see that montage of the finalists' previous dances and rehearsal-room tears?). It was only when they introduced last year's winner, Mark Ramprakash, who I have confirmed is a cricketer, that I realised I must not have watched it last year. This will be because I was doing my radio show on a Saturday, I expect. I definitely watched bits, if not all of the first three series, because I remember Natasha Kaplinsky and Claire Sweeney and the elegant Zoe Ball and Julian Clary being voted back in despite his lack of ballroom dancing ability, proving that the public vote with their hearts, not their heads.

This last aspect - the "human factor"" - is, one assumes, why the men always do so well (I think it was an all-male final last year): the granny vote! Well, this year's winner, Alesha Dixon, formerly of Mis-Teeq, was a deserving one. She was easily the best dancer of the run, and - so I learned over the weekend - not professionally trained, which I had assumed, her being a pop singer and all. Good on her. Matt Di Angelo should have been disqualified for looking like a scruffy bastard with that facial hair anyway.

The reason I mention the show, which I like for reasons unprofound, is that the final reached new levels of vacuity. Every contestant or friend/relative of contestant interviewed used the phrase "journey" to describe what had been some ballroom dance training. I've noticed this a lot in 2007. One can no longer have an experience; one must go on a "journey". Thus, Alesha Dixon did not perform an increasing number of different dances on telly over 12 weeks; she went on an incredible "journey." Equally, Matt Di Angelo, formely of EastEnders (although I've no idea who he played), did not perform an increasing number of different dances on telly over 12 weeks, only to be beaten on the night, he went on an amazing "journey". (Presumably, his "journey" wasn't as good as Alesha's, since it ended in defeat on national television, but it was a "journey" nonetheless - a bit like going on holiday, which is also a "journey" and finding out your hotel doesn't look like it did on the website.)

I think we can guess where this new obsession with "journeys" come from. The United States of America, perhaps? The world of therapy, perhaps? (I have absolutely nothing against therapy, by the way, and am in fact fascinated by human psychology, but when phrases like "journey" and "closure" seep into everyday language, I fear for the future efficacy of therapy itself. You're going to get patients turning up and talking about their "journey" as if they know what they're talking about.) It's been weird since the death of Princess Diana and the first flush of success in the country of Jerry Springer, to see a nation mutate from monosyllabic emotionally constipated introverts to one of externalising, emotionally incontinent extroverts, where a problem aired is a problem halved, and if a confession of infidelity or sexual malpractice isn't made on television, it hasn't been made at all. Who knew we British would get so good at talking about how we feel? In many ways, this is healthy. But we are in danger of going too far, and bestowing unimportant, mundane, easily-explained experiences with psychological and emotional significance that they don't merit.

Not everything we do is a "journey". I've just wrapped some Christmas presents. It wasn't a "journey". It was a task. I went to Waitrose yesterday: now that was a journey. But not a "journey". The year is coming to a close. It's been an experience with ups and downs in it, a few changes, a few new things, a few old things - but it's not necessary to analyse it as a whole and discover what kind of "journey" it's been.

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest. I needed closure on it.

Labels: celebrity, journey, tv

Coming back from an overnight trip to Northampton (speaking engagement at the Kettering Rotary Club, if you must know), I saw two stories on the newsstand at the station that seem linked. The Daily Star had the exclusive on Big Brother's Chanelle "bottled" by stalker, and Heat (the publication that more than any other keeps the careers of BB winners and losers articificially alive) leads this week with Big Brother's Charley attacked outside club by member of public. So - is this a case of the Great British Public turning on the "celebrities" it helped create? (And the unnamed attackers must take full responsibility, as anyone who couldn't give a fuck about BB's latest wave of would-be glamour models is unlikely to go out of their way to mount an assault on any of them. If you're really lucky, and avert your eyes from the covers of Heat and Nuts on newsstands, as I am unable to, you might not even recognise Charley or Chanelle, which would be the ultiimate insult to the pair of them.)

The facts, as I have gathered them from the Internet are (and this is a culturally interesting trend, so read on even if you despise): "a crazed stalker tried to maim Big Brother beauty Chanelle Hayes in a terrifying nightclub attack. The shocked star could have lost an eye as the demented woman hurled a beer bottle at the babe who was standing on the stage." In other words, she didn't bottle her with a broken bottle, as suggested by the headline, and, in fact, she didn't hit her with one either. The whole story hinges on what might have happened, had the headline been true. Chanelle ducked and was rushed off stage at Jumpin' Jaks nightclub in Halifax, by bodyguards. A nasty enough experience for the hapless nude model, and I wouldn't wish it on her, but at the same time, you can't prostitue yourself across national TV, then OK! and all the others, for weeks on end, with your fake boyfriend Ziggy, pocketing huge sums of cash along the way, and not expect the odd strange fan. This stalker is clearly a bit cracked, as I believe she fancies Ziggy, and Chanelle now has round-the-clock security, which I hope she can pay for. The stalker is described as "a short, stocky girl with greasy, mousy brown hair." Note: greasy and stocky. Implication: what a loser, eh? A member of Chanelle's "team" added, "She was very cheap and chav looking." (Pretty easy to spot at Jumpin' Jaks then, I'd guess.) What a wonderful world these people inhabit.

Meanwhile, deluded Big Brother loudmouth Charley Uchea got into a "violent catfight outside London's Embassy Club" at 3am the other morning, her fake hair "viciously pulled by a mystery brunette in a pink dress." Charley apparently "sank to the pavement looking terrified." Having quietly watched some of BB this year, breaking my own boycott for reasons of cultural fact-finding, I find it hard to believe that Charley would be terrified of anything, except perhaps not being noticed. We need not feel too sorry for her, in which case. Charley, 22, recently revealed, "When I go shopping, it takes four hours because everyone mobs me. I've got an entourage bigger than J-Lo." Yes, and if your ambition is to have an "entourage", well done. They'll certainly be there for you when Heat no longer consider you newsworthy.

I know I don't usually trouble myself with silly gossip like this (although it's still more newsworthy than a survey about flatpack furniture), but I wonder if there's something in the air. Are we finally sick of these idiots? And if so, wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we just stopped adding to C4's phone/text-vote coffers and stopped buying the magazines with their needy faces on - that would soon bring the whole sorry edifice crumbling down. (By the way, I didn't blog about BB when I was secretly watching it, as the last time I tried to commentate upon the programme sensibly, it drew unsavoury types who must have happened upon my website while searching for BB-related material, and I have no interest in getting into a dialogue with them. If the same happens here, I'll just jettison the post. As you were.)

Labels: Big Brother, celebrity