He was as “worse for wear as a newt”. He was “worse for weared” out of his fucking mind. I admire Shaun, he is the Queen Mother of junkies, but later in the script we had a reference to him, which was funny but, after seeing him looking a bit vulnerable, was now inappropriate and defunct. I don’t get a kick from upsetting people or joking about people who are vulnerable – there have been famous occasions where I’ve had lapses, but they were mistakes and I urge you to stay tuned for the justification. After an emotionally exhausting night, with which I was coping, with the end just in sight I stood at the podium relieved it was almost over, when I noticed the offending joke on the teleprompter.
“NOOOoooo! Shaun Ryder is the punchline of the final joke!”
I ran over to the side of the stage.
“Matt, fucking hell! We can’t write another joke. We’ll have to change the name for this to work.”
Jesus Christ. The joke is this: Jo Whiley is a woman who insists on breastfeeding her children. (That’s the set-up.) Curiously she considers all homeless people her children. (That’s the introduction of a comical idea.) Earlier today security had to physically prevent her from putting her booby in Shaun Ryder’s mouth. (Punchline.) A bit daft, yes, but as an intro to the lovely Jo Whiley, who’s about to walk on, it works. Or did till Shaun Ryder turned up all drunk and in need of compassion. For this joke to work we have to replace his name, we have to find someone. Somewhere in this room. Who we don’t mind offending. Who looks like they might be homeless … Bob Geldof.
It was a tough night but an educational one that gave me experience that would prove invaluable in the coming years. I learned never to say anything controversial at awards ceremonies ever again.
Under any circumstances.
Unless I was absolutely certain that it was funny.
†
Chapter 3
Big Brother’s Big Risk
Blundersome TV producer and cohort Gareth Roy does a very good impression of my orgasm, having once overheard me dispensing with some effluvia with a couple of young people lit only by the tangerine sea of twinkling LA street lanterns, that make the Hollywood Hills so desirable a residence, and the unnecessary front room gas fire, which also drenched the contorted nude forms in naughty orange. His interpretation sounds a bit like Fred Flintstone launching into his “Yabba-dabba-doo” catchphrase then having a stroke half-way through it – “Yabaa-dadArR$%@!@*ahhhhhh- OOooh”. Wilma is hysterical: “Barney, call an ambulance – made of dinosaur bones. We need a historically inaccurate solution to this comically Neanderthal problem.”
Whilst Gareth may mock my rather fanciful sex celebrations, considering them no doubt to be over-blown Cristiano Ronaldo-style tricks, the women involved seem to like them. And why not? I myself like nothing more than a great big operatic bit of showboating from my partners when it comes to a climax, so why wouldn’t they be the same? I think it must be rather unrewarding for a woman if at the climax of the act some nervous nelly of an Englishman like Gareth drizzles out a teaspoon of cock-porridge without a whimper, perhaps palming over a clammy docket bearing the words “Many thanks, miss, I’ve just done a cum.” Give me the razzamatazz of my Russell Brand, brass band orgasmo-spectaculars any day, any day, any day.
Before I ejaculate I’m a fervid, febrile mass of sexual energy. I’ll do anything, I’m demonically sexy. After I cum I’m a guilty little berk in a sweaty tank top. “Good heavens, Mother, what have I done?” I wonder why the chemical change is so dramatic?
Using what I’ve gleaned about evolutionary psychology from Richard Dawkins and the Flintstones, the post-ejaculatory crash is to prevent Fred roaring off out of the cave the second he’s spunked up, smashing that dimwit Barney in the throat and popping something messy up Betty’s loincloth. God that sentence turned me on. I’m going to have to go on a course that addresses the growing problem of w-ank-imation.
I do at least give my squandered ejaculant a dignified mourning. Picture the funeral of ten million sperm, a congregation of grief-drunk mourners yelping and shrieking, sticking their fingers up their arses – a sepulchral carnival, a festival of mournography.
I am sentimentally attached to my fluids in an “Every sperm is sacred”, Catholic, Pythonesque fashion (Pythons themselves loathe that adjective, so apologies, dear heroes). Perhaps it’s my age, but each kinky cell seems like an opportunity for life. There are church posters that bear the hyperbolic inscription “You’re one in twenty million” – each one of us is a lottery winner before we subdivide, the product of the fastest, strongest sperm. And that applies to proper little weeds like myself, not just Jesse Owens or Michael Flatley. Whether the sperm riverdanced out of the testes or crawled out on its belly, we’re all champions.
I cherish and exalt these moments of sexual bliss, because but for them my life would be an unpunctuated scroll of unremarkable sludge. I’m not given to fist-pumping displays of triumph in my daytime activities – even when they may be warranted – so these nocturnal displays are prized.
When I was informed that I’d got the job hosting Big Brother’s Big Mouth – which changed my life and rescued me from the post-rehab routine of brittle bike rides and underpaid stand-up – I did not cleave the sky like Jimi Hendrix or Thor, I said simply, “That’s good. Thanks.”
The relationship between the British tabloid press and Big Brother is fascinating. They need yet devour each other, like Duncan’s horses in Macbeth, which similarly is a forebear of the apocalypse. Without the tabloid interest, it wouldn’t be the phenomenon it is. In America, where it is denied the tabloid fanfare, Big Brother is an also-ran TV show. A pertinent indication of the distinctions in national character is that in America Survivor, where contestants are stranded on an island and forced to do battle with the elements or be destroyed, is a must-see programme among the descendants of the pioneers. But in England we are drawn to a show where people seldom stray from stifling domesticity and the most incendiary conflagration is likely to be an altercation over the last teacake.
The concept of Big Brother is: twelve or so normal folk live in a camera-saturated house for several months and are voted out by the viewers according to their whims and the way the “housemates” have been edited.
It is titled in tribute to the dystopian Orwellian prediction that in the future we will be observed at all times. The fact that Big Brother can rise to such cultural prominence without its audience acknowledging the source novel, 1984, is one of the show’s greatest achievements – similar credit must go to the programme Room 101 for ignoring the titular implications of their show. In Orwell’s novel, Room 101 is not a receptacle in which to glibly discard pop-cultural trinkets, but the setting for each individual’s personal hell.
It’s very exciting to work on Big Brother in the UK precisely because of the relationship it has with the national press. Every year there is a scandal of some kind, usually trumped up by the ravenous media but often interesting regardless, particularly if you’re me in 2005 and about to embark on a career in which scandal is a key component. My time working on the show forewarned me of the appetite in the British media for salacious tales and the famed maxim that the truth will never get in the way of a good story.
The first scandal came about on the very first series I worked on, which was Big Brother 4. One of the genuinely intriguing aspects of the show is the social disparity between the housemates and the conflict that can elicit. In the house that year were Victor, a south London gangsta, his chum Jason, a Scottish bouncer, a Portuguese pre-op transsexual – eventual winner Nadia – a couple of gay lads and a few women with remarkable boobs, notably Makosi, of whom more later.
I worked on the show for three years, which encompassed seven seasons. Each one had a scandal which drenched the British papers and several which went international. The debut scandal was built around a violent confrontation between Jason and one of the gays, Marco,