You forgot Unfunny Hutton and his smug *&^%&*g disco dance. Worst winner bar none.

Did he? Not because, of the two people given endless attention and extra tasks by BB, he was the one who seemed nice?


SO rude to claim to speak for those who voted for him. In the case of every housemate, the ONLY people who are entitled to say why they supported that housemate are those people themselves. It is just so obnoxious and patronising to claim that you know better than people did themselves.

As for your description, it is a combination of unfairness and being fooled by bad editing.

1. He smoked EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT as all the other smokers. I can't remember the last time anyone laid into Lauren, for example, for sitting outside in the smoking area so much smoking, but the one thing Luke really didn't do is sit and smoke on his own. If he was out there smoking, so was adam, and so was Lauren, until she left the house. When they were offered patches instead of tobacco, it was Luke who was calm and cheerful about it, and Lauren who panicked. I asked Luke afterwards when Ashleigh smoked, since we almost never saw her; he said in some surprise that she spent as long sitting smoking in the garden as he did. Did we see that? Clearly not.

2. Luke was one of the most physically active housemates in the house. We know, because several housemates commented on it, that he did most of the cooking. We know, because he and Adam grumbled about it, that they did a lot of the cleaning. We know, because it was commented on during the turf war task, that he did by far the most swimming. I know, though it wasn't shown, because I asked hhim why he seemed on good terms with Conor for most of the show, that they used to exercise together regularly. Was that shown? Not that I remember.

In what imaginable way was he 'a bad version of Nadia'? I would have said that in personality and the way they dealt with BB they were as opposite as two housemates could be. I really hope you are not saying what it looks as if you are saying. Because that would be really ignorant, wouldn't it?

Bravo Oyster. Somehow I trust you to understand your reasons more than some random who just resents Luke winning and wants to find a reason why it didn't 'count', always the mark of a terrible sportsman.

Well he did win, I didn't mind him winning. I'd of rather Lauren or Benedict won or Deana who I liked. But that is the way the cookie crumbles.

I really hope Benedict is on it, for starters, he can have an intelligent discussion on the housemates and and perhaps give a different perspective instead of any cliche lines. Lauren is lovely, so would like to see her on it.

I agree, both of these would make brilliant guests as would Deana and I'm looking forward to Luke's contributions too.

All, of them, with the possible exception of Benedict because he left so early were no doubt influenced greatly by the oppressive atmosphere in the house. It would be lovely to get a chance to see how they are in a much more pleasant environment.

*taps fingers* Still waiting for an explanation for this post. Who IS she?

Please explain in what way was Luke a "bad version of Nadia".

I didn't mind Luke A winning but would have preferred Deana to win. However, I can't see how 'Adam flew under the radar' compared to Luke.

Adam was involved in flirting with Lauren (which I hated) and a little bit with the loud black woman* (whose name I can't remember). He also had a big argument with her and a bit of a spat with Deana. That's just off the top of my head, but my overriding memory is that, of the two of them, until the argument with that toad Becky, Luke was definitely more under the radar.

*Shievonne - just seen her name on another thread.
Last edited by jaybee2 : 30-05-2013 at 23:31

Is your point just that the post didn't say "I think" or something like that? Because you can't know why people voted the way they did either.

Besides, I don't think Luke was especially brave, funny or honest.


Deana didn't lose her temper. When she was picking at Luke S, it wasn't an angry outburst. (Indeed, did Deana ever lose her temper during the entire series?)

Both Luke and Adam seemed to be trying to fly under the radar. When Luke told Becky what he thought of her, he then backtracked like anything when it became clear she was holding it against him.


Do you mean when he went into the DR and made one of the biggest 'sympathy vote' bids in the history of UK BB?


I don't think he'd even have been picked as a HM, let alone won, if he hadn't been transgender (or if it hadn't been known).

I doubt whether you voted for Luke, though correct me if I am wrong. The issue is why those that voted for him did so. I did think he was all of those things; he was not a confident person, and a lot of BB was hard for him, but he showed a valiant determination not to show, for example, how hard it was to dance in front of a laughing crowd. I am sure that at times (eg going into the task room and chatting to Caroline and Conor) it was hard for him even to have a normal conversation; he knew perfectly well that they would laugh at him and mock him as soon as he went round a corner, and yes, I think it was brave for a diffident person to carry on a pleasant conversation in the circumstances. He was often funny, in a rather laid-back and charming way, and if anything too honest for his own good when it came to admitting his doubts and fears. You might not agree, but I am sure you would not dream of saying that I am wrong in saying that I think those things.


Actually I never really hold with the concept of 'flying under the radar'. If someone is naturally averse to picking fights, why should they feel under some obligation to do so, just because some viewers find it entertaining? Luke would undoubtedly have had an easier time in a nicer house, like BB2, 4, or 12; but confronted with the house he had, he just stayed nice, did not try to dramatize, undoubtedly did not see himself lasting very long in there; and what should I object to in that?


Why would you think he was not just saying exactly what he felt? The diary room is there for that exact purpose.


There is something wrong with the 'let alone' in that sentence. A lot of housemates are picked for some reason other than their fantastically entertaining personality; it was hardly coincidence that BB13 contained two successful beauty contest competitors and an international gymnast who was also very beautiful. None of the three of them would have been in the house if they had been dumpy and plain but with the same personalities. Adam would not have been chosen if he had not been an ex gang member and prisoner. Luke S would not have been chosen if he had not been a model. Scott would not have been chosen if he had spoken in an ordinary Macclesfield accent. A high percentage of housemates over the years have clearly got in for some clearly identifiable reason: Freddie's and Harry's enormous houses, George's status as Old Harrovian, Imogen and Louise for their looks, Samanda for their Olsen twins-lite act, and so on - I could make a big list.

Once they are in the house they stand or fall on their own merits. Luke was one of many housemates in BB13 chosen, as I have said, for some marketable reason. That would not have got him past the first eviction if people had not warmed to him. There is no way on earth it would have made him win, and please don't you turn into one of those people who pretend that he didn't 'really' win at all because he somehow cheated by being transgender.

Just to be clear, do you think that because you voted for him it's ok for you to say why other people voted for him, even though their reasons could have been completely different from yours, but it's not ok for someone who didn't vote for him to express an opinion on the subject?

Because it does rather look like that's the position you're taking, though with things like "SO rude", "obnoxious," and "patronising" in the place of "not ok".

Anyway, I don't remember whether I voted for him or not. I wouldn't have voted for him against Lauren, and since preferred Adam, I wouldn't have voted for Luke in the final. But I might have voted for Luke in the final if Adam had gone out earlier, and I may well have voted for Luke when he was up against Ashleigh, Becky, and Deana.


Sure, but the idea was that "Luke won because he was brave, funny and honest amongst other things" -- not that Luke won because people thought he was brave, funny and honest amongst other things" (thought, regardless of whether he really was).


Well, I didn't say anyone was wrong in saying they thought those things, but people can be wrong about why they think as they do. It doesn't have to be (and I don't think it was) as simple as people thinking Luke was brave, funny and honest because he was brave, funny and honest. (For a start, and as I said, I don't think Luke was especially brave, funny or honest.)

Perhaps it seems strange, put like that; but it looks like you also think people can be wrong about why they think as they do, because (for example) you think they can be "fooled by bad editing".


That someone might be naturally averse does not mean that everyone who stays out of arguments etc is naturally averse, as if that were the only possibility.


Perhaps in the first few years of UK BB housemates thought of the DR in that way, and ignored the possibility that what they said might be shown to viewers; but for years now, many HMs have used the DR as a way to present things to viewers (even though they couldn't be sure it would be shown).

BTW, it could have been how he felt and a bid for sympathy support. It's possible, after all, for someone to be upset and want sympathy.


There is something wrong with that 'on their own merits', if it's supposed to mean those other factors somehow vanish or can't matter to viewers.

Re "that would not have got him past the first eviction if people had not warmed to him", you know he wasn't even up until week 7, right? By then, lots of factors were in play.

I'm certainly not going to say he cheated by being transgender, or didn't really win; but I think that being transgender most likely was a factor in his getting votes.

its simple.both non deserving winners.both for a similar reason.the only reason i consider nadia better is because of her year and the fight night.it made entertainig viewing.luke a did nothing(maybe on par with cameron)? entertaining besides tell becky the truth.i liked that.......otherwise,he did nothing of interest......plus his hatred of luke s was boardering on stalkerish.

I didnt like luke s much either,but luke a was obsessed

Do you think no liking for Rylan carried over from X Factor? If some did, how can we know it wasn't enough to get him the CBB win?


The post was not claiming to speak for those who voted for Luke. Nor was it claiming to know better than the people themselves. It was just expressing an opinion on why he won -- like you did implicitly re Rylan above, and as Noisy Oyster did when saying Luke "won for being a great friend and support", etc.


chloedancer's post said "he sat and smoked for months." Does it make much difference to add that other HMs smoked as much and that he did most of the cooking, a lot of the cleaning, the most swimming, and regularly exercised? I don't think it does. It would still mean that, as the post said, "he did nothing to deserve a win."

It doesn't help the case for Luke, imo, that "when they were offered patches instead of tobacco, it was Luke who was calm and cheerful about it, and Lauren who panicked." Her reaction sounds like the more interesting one to watch. It doesn't show anything significant about how much time she spent smoking compared to him.


We don't know whether the smokers all spent the same amount of time or not. Luke did sometimes smoke alone, or with one other person. Adam and Lauren weren't always both there with him. What Luke said about Ashleigh would be his subjective impression. It's not like he timed her or kept careful records.

But even if the other smokers spent as much time sitting in the garden smoking as Luke, that wouldn't mean they spent as much time sitting in the garden. The other 'outsiders' may have. It's one of the reasons they were called 'outsiders'. But there's nothing that shows Ashleigh spent as much time there.

And Lauren generally seemed livelier than Luke or Adam, even when they were all smoking.

(I wonder, btw, exactly what Luke said about Ashleigh's smoking. When you reported it before, you said Luke "said that she smoked the same amount as him, and in the same place (since that was the only place it was allowed)". Nothing about sitting.)


You mean like Gos was one of the most physically active housemates in bb4?


I wonder how much of the day such things took up. How much cleaning was "a lot of the cleaning". How much swimming did he actually do? If BB picked scenes at random, how active would Luke have seemed? I suspect we'd still have seen a lot of him sitting in the smoking area. I don't think there's any good reason to doubt that the 'outsiders' spent a lot of time there (not all of it with all of them actively smoking).

In any case, cooking, cleaning, swimming, and exercising with Conor aren't the sort of things that make a HM deserve to win.

I do know a lot of Luke's supporters and have read pretty much every post about him on digitalspy, and I challenge you to find one, ever, that says they support him because of his gender status. It seems a fatuous argument to me. There have been three transgender contestants: two, very different, did well, for clearly identifiable reasons; one seemed to elicit no support at all. And although there were no digitalspy posts at all from anyone saying they were supporting Luke for being transgender, there were an awful lot (some now removed) that clearly had a negative issue with it. And you must see how offensive it is for someone who doesn't like him to claim to speak on behalf of those who do.




I think that is a bit hair-splitting. But all right. Luke won because people thought he was brave, funny and honest (and relatable and likeable).



That would have been very irritating if I had just put it on its own, but I did justify it with specific examples.



Doesn't matter since I find staying out of arguments, except when defending someone who cannot defend themselves, admirable. I have always defended Rachel against the horrible allegation that she refused to get into rows with people even when they tried dragging her forcibly into them. If Luke and Adam were under the radar by trying to avoid rows, good for them.



Some housemates have indeed tried to use the diary room as their private blog, but since Luke marsden BB have been less inclined to allow it. But it is fatally easy to assume that because something is shown, the housemate(s) expected it to be shown. We know, because it was commented on by others, that Luke spent a lot of time in the diary room; as I said, I think he found a lot of BB tough and he liked to talk things through in the diary room. And as a matter of fact, not much diary room action IS shown these days; obviously when big groups of housemates go in there, it tends to be shown, but very little of the housemates just going in for a chat is shown. Luke was badly knocked off balance for that one day (he was fine by next day) by the harsh public nominations; during that day BB asked him how he felt, and he answered them honestly. That was not at all the image he was hoping to portray, which was of someone resilient and capable. If they had asked him next day, he would have given a completely different answer. But they caught him at that bad time.


Yes, because I really don't think they do. If you take Nikki's anorexia, for example, it was given massive national publicity while she was still in the house; but people really did judge her on her behaviour in the house. I can't remember a single person either saying or even distantly implying "I don't really like her, but I'm voting for her anyway because she has had such an awful life". I can't say this enough times: if people had not really liked Luke, they would not have voted for him. Even other transgender people, who might conceivably have wanted him to win because he was a rare advocate for f to m people on tv, would have regarded him as an embarrassment rather than an asset if he had been dislikeable or ridiculous, just as gay people on here so very often complain bitterly about 'camp screamers'.


Yes, which was why I used the word 'would'. By week 7 there were indeed other factors in play, and he was being judged entirely on his behaviour in the house; but even if he had been up against Victoria, people would have voted for the person they liked and enjoyed watching, not the person with a clear label on their back.



You do know that he made things up with Luke S, took all the blame for their difference, and never spoke against him or nominated him again? And was actively kind and friendly to him when he was upset? And you really are bracketing Nadia and Luke together, in spite of being such wildly different people, just because they are both transgender, aren't you? Because we all know that transgender people are all the same, right?




He looked like the obvious winner from day 1 to me, and I had never seen him before in my life. BB surely portrayed that whole series as nothing more than a battle between Rylan and Speidi; indeed that is what I think ruined the whole thing. The main players got nearly all the attention and loads of entertaining extra tasks; the others were mere ballast, hardly shown except as far as they interacted with Rylan and Speidi. And since Speidi behaved horribly for most of the series imo, the other possible candidate won.


If someone says that Luke only won because he was transgender, of course it is speaking for those who voted for him: how else could he have won, other than by attracting votes?



If someone is vilified for doing something, it is fair to point out that other people, not vilified, did the same. And as I always say when this kind of argument is used against a housemate, what were the others doing while Luke was sitting in the garden? BB is a very, very inactive experience on the whole, except when tasks are in progress. While Luke, Adam, Lauren and later Deana were sitting in the garden, the others were not toiling in thei fields: they were either sitting inside, lying in the garden, or lying in bed. The camera did not pan from the outsiders sitting in the garden to the others organising leapfrog competitions, did it?


No, but the point is that Ashleigh had exactly the same amount of tobacco as the others, and was almost never shown smoking it. Which makes it into an editing trick, as happened with Lisa, who managed to give the impression that she sat and smoked all day even when they were on a ration of two cigarettes a day. Luke and Adam's 'story' was "sits in the garden smoking". Ashleigh's was 'has unattractive romance with Luke S and bitches with the other girls". You could fairly point out that Ashleigh's story was worse, but still, it is curious that BB chose to give the impression that the smoking area was only used by the same four people, when it clearly wasn't.



Well he did cook for the whole house throughout his time there, which was quite active. And again, he was rather unfairly vilified for spending so much time in a three quarters lying position on the sofa. But it is unfair because when he was there, so were the others, doing what they do in BB, ie lounging around. Cameron used to exercise as I recall, and Steph cleaned like a demon, but I doubt whether Gos was any less active than, for example, Tania. He was fatter of course, which unfortunately is likely to have been behind the sneers.

There is nothing in particular that makes a housemate 'deserve to win', other than winning the affections of the people. Brian B succeeded by seeming dim but happy; Aaron succeeded by seeming moody but clever; Kate did it by seeming young, vulnerable but determined; Craig did it by seeming older, confident and relaxed. You are right that no one has ever won by being active and helpful in the house, but I DO take at least a bit of an interest in who pulls their weight; it irritates me by default when people like Ashleigh never so much as wash a spoon and give the impression that at home they have slaves to pick up after them. It is one little indicator among many of how selfish or unselfish a housemate is, and is interesting on that basis. (Carole came into a different category, using cooking and cleaning as a means of controlling others).

I hope they are paying him more than £50k to appear

Completely agree.

Doing what?

I think the comparisons between Luke A and Nadia are fair. Their quest for acceptance hijacked both series and people overlooked their failings as housemates due to their back stories. In both cases the majority voting reflected the times where minorities are lauded just for being minorites, in this case transgender and the public's perception was that it was the right on and PC thing to do whether they were good housemates or not.

Sure Luke A may have done 'the most swimming' but he has zero personality and charisma whereas Lauren had these things, got a harder time in house, had no gimmcky back story to fall back on and was in my view the real winner. She'd also make a more interesting guest on BOTS.

Please don't presume to tell me why I wanted Luke to win - nothing to do with his "back story". Is it so hard to accept that I just liked him - and still do.

Well, there were certainly other fans of his who only supported him for being a transgender person. I mean, look at this article on a transgender forum, they did blogs about his time in the house everyday and whenever he was up for eviction they would post his 'vote to save' number on their website for all transgenders to vote for him:

http://forum.transgenderzone.com/vie...p=31224#p31224

Not true on this forum though and I am getting a bit sick of peeps saying it.

I wasn't talking about this forum though. I was talking about other transgender forums who supported him and voted for him for the simple fact that he was transgender. That could be a major part as to why he won.

I am a Luke A fan myself and was pleased when he won, but I can't deny that his transgender storyline helped him gain more votes.

My feelings exactly jeanoj.

I think Luke is a really nice guy and I am looking forward to seeing him on TV.

It was a really good night when he won and I also loved the runners up.

I think it's partly true, a lot of people when talking about why Luke should win referred to his bravery it's his transgender back story that made people see him as a strong a role model etc rather than just a guy, his moodiness was often excused because of the pills he took if you complained on here that he was boring you were often attacked for being anti transgender etc, some people on here admittedly had an agenda against Luke but he was a bit of a bore as a housemate but most of the housemates last year were pretty boring I switched off a few weeks from the end it was just a tedious house

But that's no more relevant than a housemate picking up votes for being from Birmingham or having ginger hair. The number of transgender people is relatively small and in any case plainly none of them would have voted for him if they didn't like him too