Rosemary had a great chance with her support increasing as others failed to shine but increasingly her true colours have shown her up to be a fraud with a bad attitude, Her spat with Hugo was the nail in her coffin.

Hugo started off very badly complaining about everything and everyone. The little posh boy with attitude has however managed to stay one step ahead of the relegation zone but he would need a miracle to win from so far back.

Charlie has let her guard down several times and her obvious jealousy of Helen showed up her bitchy side. She has been draining support for the past week.

Eric is love/hate character and only half the public get his humour, so he just can't win. A point he himself acknowledges.

Ashley is the latest fad and overall she has played a blinder although her cunning "outing" of firstly Helen over the towel and Rosemary when she defied basic hygene rules, did not go unnoticed. However it would be very unusual for an American to win IAC and she may not get all the support she needs to go better than Queen of the jungle.

David Hayes is the choice of the majority of the ex jungle celebs because of his kind and thoughtful personality. Granted he isn't too much fun in his efficient execution of the tasks but the word "fear" isn't in the mans vocabulary.

David appears to be sitting in third place in the polls, not far behind the front runners, so he doesn't have to do much more to win in a year where so many have simply blown their chances after gaining popularity.

He is the logical winner.

David won't win. Ashley will win IMO.

You have convinced me. I'm going to pick up the phone and vote for David.

You are either a very very fast reader Sun Tzu or just a fanatic for Ashley.

The only logical winner is Eric or Rosemary. Helen was the only other one but she ridiculously lost to bores like Charlie and Ashley.

None of the others have offered anywhere near enough to be considered worthy of the title. It's about who contributes the most, not who is the most likeable. It's the same as Big Brother, the entertaining ones whom provide the discussion should be kept in, and ultimately win, and those who sit on the fence and provide next to nothing should leave. This is the exact same here. Charlie and Ashley have offered little talking points, whereas Rosemary and Eric have offered many. As did Helen.

If neither were to win it'd be one of the worst results in this show's history.

People vote and support people on these shows for a multitude of reasons; not just how much they "put in".

Contribution (which is quite a broad, multi-meaning thing in itself), impact, personality, presence, humour, likeability, charisma; all of these things work to gain people support.

Then negative factors work to remove support; like Eric and Helen, who provided a lot of positive things in terms of entertainment value, but those positives also came with negatives (nastiness in Erics case and vanity & falseness in Helens) which reduces the impact of those positives.

But the trouble is, if you didn't have those controversial, marmite characters, and only the fence-sitters and those who really didn't create many talking points, then the show would be less popular and eventually it'd be axed. It's always those who divide opinion that cause the most discussion, i.e. most people were and will have been talking about Helen's failure of trials at work, school etc, similarly people will be talking about Eric's harsh truths and whether he's just joking, or is rude etc. It's these people that get people tuning in to see what happens, not those that literally provide nothing to discuss. Like honestly, what can you say Linda, or Charlie has done that would have led to people in real life or indeed on forums to discuss them?

It's no surprise that in Big Brother some of the highest rated episodes have been those with major arguments (or in rare cases, fights). People love it, or it intrigues them. Drama makes good TV, and it's the same with I'm A Celebrity. Shows like this thrive off of active discussion and without those providing talking points, there wouldn't be any and viewer apathy would lead to an axe.

Very true Jack but usually the characters that cause or get involved in the rows do go home early..and the winner is generally those that stay well clear.

I like David but would quite like for him not to win for my own amusement as he hates losing.

Logic doesn't say it. The rules do. There is no logic at play... it's a goofy gameshow.

Yes but who people want to watch for shorter periods, for shock value or amusement (in the mindless sense), is usually different to who people actually want to win.

These people are fine throughout the show, but to win it, not so much.

Also, I as a viewer, prefer the fun and friendly humour to the arguments and mindless humour (ie laughing at the fool). On a personal level, I would be happy if there were no massive arguments or fights, I don't find that particularly entertaining.

I think it could be anyones really - even Eric could keep getting through and surprise us on the final day.

I'd love to see the voting stats

I think everything could change tonight and tomorrow, with the celebs actually getting a bit of air time now that Helen has left.

Poor Charlie, in particular, has been anonymous the last few days - so she may shine now and pick up votes. Lets face it, with Helen doing the last 3 bush-tucker trials, and David doing the trials, it was hard for anyone else to drum up votes as they were hardly seen.

I have no idea who is going to win this year and I don't really care either. Certainly not enough to pick up the phone and vote for anyone.

obviously the crafty cockney himself....now that would be a great turnaround

You could be right. I wouldn't be surprised if Eric won.

Why, of course. Asking where her clean towel has gone, after she's just done a Bushtucker Trial and is covered in s**t and desperately needs a shower, is a really cunning ploy.

As is pointing out that the trained chef who is cooking their dinner is avoiding basic hygiene rules that could leave them all in hospital with food poisoning.

Yes, what a dastardly cunning game she's playing.

This^^^

It was targetted assassination.

Not that Ashley isn't a great campmate but she is no pussy cat when it comes to survival tactics.

I think maybe the huge dart world is helping Eric for sure, I don't think he will win though.

I agree with much of what you say - particularly about Ashley. Really nice and smart young woman; but I think she's playing this like USBB or Survivor.

I don't like the bit in bold, though. It's not a case of not 'getting' Eric's humour. It's not liking it. Only being able to raise a laugh by belittling others does not amount to an admirable sense of humour, in my book.

patsy, I do think Eric's humour is an acquired taste and its probably too subtle for most to understand. He is paid handsomly on the circuit as an after dinner speaker, so there are a lot of people who do get it.

I can understand though that some people simply see him as rude (maybe it would help to imagine that Michael McIntyre was welcoming him on stage).

I don't think he can win, so he should leave in the next 2 nights

I love the idea of Ashley being so savvy. I'd kind of written her off as nice but erm still nice. Obviously she's not stupid but it didn't occur to me she had any strategy or anything. I will try to take to her a bit more if this is the case.

Surely you've noticed Eric isn't all about belittling. He just speaks IMO and has no filter as has been said but I've heard him include himself in the put downs again and again. I started indifferent to him and grew to hating him but have ended up quite admiring him and even liking him I'd be happy for him to win

Big Brother worked best when the big, often annoying, characters were put in as something for the winners to deal with - and the show was cast so that both types of characters survived till very late on. .It failed because the show became dominated , and the producers fixated, by the loud and extreme. Therafter either the extreme drove anyone else out, or a smaller and smaller public vote drove out anyone interesting or different along with the extreme cases. The result was that its potential winners either went out or ended up with no story. The audience declined and the show was left with a vote that liked rows, big characters, noise and not much story. IAC has some of the same problem in that when they put negative characters in some people find reasons to like them, and people expect the other camp mates to be as loud and keen on grabbing air time

Like BB, IAC is also determined largely by what its producers set up to happen and what they decide to show. Its not surprising that the quieter, more capable camp mates do less. They are not there cast to be useless or obnoxious or interfering and domineering or determined to win. Nor, when the producers have cast to avoid that deteriorating into big rows, are they going to score points in big rows or crises. The only chance the other camp mates have is when they get tasks to do. This series, those have been distributed very lopsidedly to Helen, Hugo, Ashley and especially David. There's nothing much Linda, Colin, Nadine or Charlie could have done without the producers giving it to them to do.

Listen, I've brothers who specialise in this kind of thing. You'd want a suit of armour at a family gathering. It's hilarious and great fun and I can give as good as I get, but I've cringed with embarrassment when the less enlightened new additions (girlfriends/boyfriends) get the full treatment. It's cruel and unnecessary and all a bit too try hard. Eric jumped the shark for me with the comments about Helen's skin. Nasty stuff and it didn't even get him the laughs he so obviously craves.


I did warm to Eric last night. He did well on the trial, his wit WAS more self-deprecating and I loved how he called Rosemary out after the Hugo row. Funnily enough, even though I was anything but a Helen fan, I can't get past the comments about Helen's skin. That was just cruel and mean and picking on someone who is clearly thick. Not clever.