Not so Goody

It all started off a bit like Last of The Summer Wine, so sedate you had to wonder how the camera people were managing to stay awake. Then The Goodies arrived, sadly not Tim, Bill and Graeme but the unsinkable Jade, a veteran of reality shows returning to the scene of the crime with her physically but not socially reconstructed mum Jackie with a ?y? and seemingly nice but hapless teenage boyfriend Jack in tow. Suddenly it was Upstairs Downstairs and the wheels were off everywhere.

Shilpa collapsed into floods of tears even before Jade and her clan took things rapidly downmarket and her mood hardly improved as the husky-voiced matriarch repeatedly failed to grasp her name and insisted on calling her Princess and that was before their fledgling relationship became strained.

Meanwhile, the mere prospect of having to wait on the new arrivals was having a profound effect on our less than plucky celebs with pretend bad boy Donny ? presumably having done enough to propel his band up the download charts - having it away on his toes in an unoriginal and rather less than cool escape.

It won't have done his credibility a fat lot of good to have gone into the house in the first place and even less so having masterminded an escape by getting a leg up from H out of Steps.

H seemed an unlikely accomplice for Donny, especially as he and fellow ex-pop star Jo have been clinging to each other like driftwood after a shipwreck as the true dwindling nature of their fleeting fame was brought home to them.

It's been Leo though that has been the biggest annoyance so far. He was very irritating when he was being cheerful and upbeat and then amazingly ten times more so when turned into Mister Grouchy. His habit of talking over everyone was quick to get on the goat of his housemates and Dirk was happy to confront the situation head on. That led to Leo becoming mute which should have been a cause of celebration amongst Big Brother fans everywhere but he became still more annoying even when keeping his gob shut.

There always tends to be someone who begins to unravel somewhat and this year that could easily turn out be Leo and I get the impression that some of his cannier housemates are going to allow him to do just that rather than pull him back. If he doesn't want to look a fool in there he is going completely the wrong way about it.

Surely his diatribe against the cult of celebrity rang very hollow given that he chose to put himself in a show that is absolutely at the centre of the instant talentless celebrity culture.

At least in Leo we have the Grumpy Old Man role covered now that snore machine has decided to depart. Ken is by all accounts a great raconteur but then people don't tune in to this show for intelligent conversation and his departure may have made the live streaming less interesting but will have little impact on the highlights shows.

At least Ken's snoring will no longer be a feature of these but we'll still have Jackie with a "y" and her rip roaring flatulence to contend with. It's probably available as a ringtone already.

I suppose Jade's return will beg the question can the show that makes you be the show that breaks you, though there is little sign of that happening so far. The Jade we see here may be richer, more shapely and less na?ve than the Jade we originally met in the house but it's patently obvious that she's still very much Jade and that her unique brand of success really doesn't seem to have changed her, though some may not think that's a good thing.

Is Jade's embarrassment at her mother's behaviour and her guilt at feeling that all it seems, or when she sees her mother's antics is it rather too close to looking in a mirror?

If the idea of getting Jade back was for a good old fashioned piss take then it already appears to have backfired somewhat and at the moment that joke doesn't seem to on Miss Goody. No, I'm afraid for us loyal Big Brother viewers the joke would very much appear to be on us.

I think the biggest surprise for me so far has been to see Carole rapidly emerging as the closest that got to a leader though there can be problems in playing the earth mother one minute and the figure of authority the next.

Taking on the leadership mantle early in the show inevitably leads to bad feeling and resentment later on and being a journalist already doesn't do much for her in the popularity stakes amongst those celebs who are none too enamoured of the tabloids.

It may well be Dirk that is the one with the strength to challenge her creeping authority, though it may not be wise to judge the man?s chutzpah by the size of his cigar.

As for Jermaine, he is at least looking less like he's in a home for the bewildered than he did a couple of days ago but he still looks desperately like a fish out of water.

More soon.