That's another issue I think was discussed fairly recently but I can't remember where.

I don't agree with your description of why Corin continued. (I could give you a proper explanation if the forum had a working search facility, but it doesn't, and I don't have time now to work it all out again. But if someone can find a video clip, viewable from the UK, that would be useful.)

In any case, Corin was quite unpleasant, dishonest (for instance about her relationship with the woman whose name was tattooed on her wrist, little more than a bundle of catchphrases, strangely over-rated, and not all that good a sort.

I wonder, as with other HMs, whether rewatching includes the live coverage or is only the highlights. Rachel's fans have thought she seemed better live and often took the line that anyone who disliked her must have watched only the highlights. It was even claimed at one point that it wasn't enough even to watch hours of live BB every day: you had to watch pretty much every hour when the HMs were awake before it would be accepted that you might have a valid opinion.

So if it was re-watching highlights shows that helped you appreciate her more, I'd be especially interested in what you saw that made the difference.

Anyway, I mentioned in a post above that I raised my opinion of her after seeing Luke A win without being tested as much and without doing as much against the house baddies.

However, some things that supposedly showed Rachel's wonderfulness actually made her seem worse when I watched them. A key example is her famous "confrontation" with the "Whisper Club" in which Rachel seemed unable (or unwilling) to understand why happy-housing could be annoying and seem like it was trying to force happiness.

I don't think Rachel was quite a surprise winner. dj sunset predicted she would win before we even knew she existed; I thought on opening night that should could become very popular; and on August 16th I said "Mikey, Rachel and Danell are now the contenders, imo with Rachel most likely to win". I don't think I'm especially prescient, so if I could sort of predict it, I don't think it can have been all that surprising.

I had Rachel at 77, and I couldn't move her much higher than that. (I could move some of those below her down, but I could also move some of those below her up.) Maybe into the 60s if I was feeling generous. However, I wouldn't feel right about having Rachel much lower either.

I don't think it's all that hard to dislike her. Her pained reluctance with whole categories of opinions, for example, suggests someone who's not being open and honest but is instead carefully monitoring and controlling what she says to avoid saying anything that might be controversial with viewers.


Do you also think Kat is very difficult to dislike?

I always assumed that it was Bea.

Not sure why they'd do it for Lisa. She wasn't the one generating material for the HL show.

Just checking this morning and you had 2 Brian BB8's and No Adele BB3.

So your vote was still counted, just not included in the stats bit

I don't think her reluctance was pained. Calling it "pained" suggests that she wanted to say things, but didn't for fear of the reaction, when I don't think this was the case. She explained that she felt that if she joined in with the HMs' discussions on "who's going to be up for eviction" and someone would say her, then it would make her feel down, and she didn't want to do the same with others.

Also, she once spoke to Mikey about the accusation that she didn't go round voicing negative things about the others:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/...tid=1650049212


Why do you ask about Kat?

Anyway, I don't agree that Kat is difficult to dislike, even though I always rank her in my top 10. I can see why some people wouldn't like Kat.

Thanks again. I quite like Brian but not enough to vote for him twice.

I think that something about the Bea theory needs to be tightened up.

BB didn't contrive to save Freddie the week after, or Bea the week after that, or Marcus either of those weeks, or the week after them, or the week before Hira went. Or, indeed, Noirin that week before, or Siavash that "week after them". Weren't any of those HMs generating material for the HLs? I'm pretty sure they were.

So why was it so important to save Bea in particular, that one week in particular?

It certainly looked pained, at times. It would be odd to have a pained expression without feeling any corresponding emotion.


I think it suggests what I said it suggests, in which neither the word "wanted" nor any equivalent appears. Adding "wanted" makes it seem she had some urge or desire to say things and had to fight to suppress it. (While that might, I suppose, be true, it goes beyond what I think the pained reluctance suggests.)


Replies like that that make me think I'm on to something, because the pained reluctance wasn't only about things like "who's going to be up for eviction?" or "voicing negative things about the others". And also, of course, because if her reason for not joining in was that her answer would make someone feel down, then she was indeed holding things back.

In the clip, she thinks that talking about people is "playing a game" but keeping back your opinions (as she's doing) somehow isn't. (Note, btw, that there she is talking about people and accusing them of playing a game.) Anyway, if she was a BB fan she should know that sitting on the fence (which she in effect admits she's doing) is considered a tactic.


I asked about Kat because some of the reasons for disliking Kat would also apply to Rachel.

I'm surprised, though, that anyone could have Kat in their top 10. She was a contrived, manipulative cheat who was so sure she and her friends would be in the final that she could negotiate with Darnell about who they'd let in with them.

It wasn't "necessary", but they did it to save someone and ditch the "quiet" Hira.

Maybe they just wanted rid of her?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...n-viewers.html

Couldn't they have just thought "we don't want to lose any big characters this week"?

Is there a reason why it has to be more specific than that.

Re wanting to be rid of Hira, she wasn't at the bottom of forum polls, and I don't know of anything that would make it clear that she'd be the one to go.

If it looked pained, I think it would more than likely be because people like Rex would keep on and on questioning her when she had had enough of the constant questioning.


What other things was the "pained reluctance" about, then? Please remind me.


It wasn't a case of her never voicing negative opinions full stop. As well as times when she'd go and speak to the person to their face, sit them down and tell them that she didn't agree with what they had done, she also spoke in the Diary Room about them. It wasn't to the extent of what Luke accused her of doing, (all being nicey nice to people's faces and then slating them behind their backs in the Diary Room). The things that she talked about in the Diary Room would be things that she later said to the HMs faces. I can't give you every example because it was eight years ago and I can't remember it all, and not all of it was shown on the HLs. But some of it was. For example, there was a time when she spoke to BB in the Diary Room about Jen's and Bex's bitching and that she couldn't sit back and let it carry on. She then went and spoke to them and this is what led to what's been called the "shutdown" moment which I know we've discussed before.

I think she was one of the most honest and most truthful HMs we've ever had.

The first year i don't vote and Michelle goes and wins it without the points from my perennial #1 ranking.

The rest of we Michelle fans did the business.

Do you think there wasn't anything else? I can't say I've kept a list, but think for instance of what happened when Davina mentioned splitting the prize money. Even after Davina moved on, Rachel agonised over what to say, like she needed to find some way to avoid splitting the money that wouldn't seem selfish. (This is to her credit, though, in a way.)

There wasn't constant questioning. Rex did press her for opinions one some occasions because she was so reluctant to express them (which is how Saddam Hussein came up). (Her e̶x̶c̶u̶s̶e̶ reason for no opinion then was that she didn't know him. She was the same about Maggie Thatcher.)

I end up wondering what it would be possible to have a conversation about with Rachel about, that wasn't just superficial. It looks like history, politics, current affairs, and anyone she doesn't know would be out. (I wonder how she manages to vote. Perhaps she doesn't.)

The time she came closest to living up to the talkative image presented in her VT may have been when happily chatting about trivialities with Belinda*3.


Did she tell the HMs she accused of game-playing in that conversation with Mikey that she thought they were game-playing? Did she ever sit Luke down and tell him she didn't agree with what he'd done? Mario? Dale or Stu? When B-Block was lining up nominations for Sara and Lisa in the bedroom during the "B-Block reunion", Rachel didn't go along with the plan (though she did nominate Lisa, she'd been nominating Lisa anyway), but she also didn't tell the others that what they were doing was wrong.

Ok, she spoke up to Alexandra re chip cooking. That was good. Beyond that, the standard examples are Lisa (very eventually) and Jen and Bex, though she didn't sit Jen and Bex down (they were already on a bed); I don't think she sat Lisa down either.

Re 'what's been called the "shutdown" moment' -- it may have been called that, starting with Darnell, but it didn't actually shut anyone down. Anyway, that time when Rachel went to speak with Jen and Bex is my example above of things that supposedly showed Rachel's wonderfulness but actually made her seem worse when I watched them. As I said, Rachel seemed unable (or unwilling) to understand why happy-housing could be annoying and seem like it was trying to force happiness. And it went on, and on ... and on. More than once Rachel said she'd said what she wanted to say, but that didn't seem to mean she was through.

Thanks for all your hard work Yohinnchild in yet another mammoth stats-spree! No lie, this game is all that's keeping my last vestige of interest in BB going.

For my personal stats, I gave 6 housemates their highest vote and also 6 their lowest, pretty much the same as last year. My biggest difference is where I gave HMs one of their top or bottom ten votes. I have about 15 more in each of those categories. However I'd put that down to you having fewer full lists this year rather than my views becoming more polarised, because I didn't change that many positions from last year.

No, I was just asking for examples if you had any.


It was a bad question. Also, Rachel had just come out of the house after three months and won, which she wasn't expecting to and told Davina she still felt like she was dreaming at the start of the interview. Also, there were lots of people shouting different things at her when Davina asked that question, so I don't think a lot of people would blame her for not being able to come up with an answer to such a left field question.

Davina made it worse by dragging out the silence. She should have said something like, "Do you know what? It's your money - you spend the money whichever way you like. Moving on..."

She should never have asked that question. I understand why she did because of the conversation that had happened in the house, but she shouldn't have asked it.


I'm not referring to you personally, but I can remember a lot of people criticising her for the Saddam Hussein moment, almost as if she had said she had agreed with the things he had done, when she hadn't. She obviously didn't agree with the things he had done, but didn't fully know enough about him to say very much. IIRC, she did say that she didn't know a lot about politics. Rex told her that Margaret Thatcher removed free school milk and she said that she definitely disagreed with that.


Really? I think there were loads of moments where she was like "VT Rachel" - chatty, enthusiastic and upbeat. There's examples in the Rachel's Real Best Bits link which used to get linked to a lot here.


Like I said before, I don't remember everything she said for the reason I've already mentioned. But about Luke - what I do remember is that as much as she didn't like being part of them, she did join in on at least one group discussion on who people least wanted to win and she said Luke.


Going back to the "Rachel's Real Best Bits" webpage, it does say that when Lisa came back to the house after she broke out, she said that she hadn't been sad to see her go because she knew about the time she slagged off Kat, Rex, Darnell and herself behind their backs with Luke as she'd overheard them, and that she thought she'd been particularly nasty to Kat on the night that she sang "Shut up!" to her face. None of this was shown on the HL show, however.


I know we've talked about this before, but when Rachel said at the start of the video that she'd said what she wanted to say, I think she was meaning, "that's why I wanted to come in here and speak to you", not "I've finished speaking, end of conversation".

In reference to Bex not wanting a "happy house", Jen said that Bex meant that she wanted people to be themselves and that if they were going round with the attitude that everything in the house was happy and positive, (etc), then they were being fake and that it was winding Bex up. But what's ironic is that Bex, (and Jen) had been bitching about certain HMs behind their backs - even that very day! And unless I'm mistaken, bitching about people behind their backs is the very definition of being fake. That shows that they were either lying when they said that they weren't fake, of that they were really lacking in self-awareness.

I don't think it's a case of Rachel not being able or willing to understand that the "happy" house song was annoying. What she was trying to say was that if Bex didn't like it and found it annoying, then she should either walk away or go and speak in the Diary Room, and not go bitching about it behind people's backs, which would just stir things up and create a negative environment to live in.

Who do you think Saskia attacked like a shrewish fishwife or was really vicious to?

If you mean Mary, Mary was the worse one there (even making sure she had a group around her, rather than talking one-on-one); if you mean Makosi, Makosi could give as good as the got, or better really. And if you mean anyone else, I can't even guess who it could be.

You make it sound like it was a command.

(Has anyone been able to find a video of it that's viewable in the UK?)


Corin continued because she was a self-centred automaton who was for some reason desperate to stay. Something like that.

I had Derek at 275 and might have had him lower if I'd forgotten that Sam (of all people!) said something in his favour way back then.

Anyway, I can understand people ranking him higher than I did, but #3?

Still intending to catch up on this at some point...

Had you tried watching the blocked vid via a proxy server?

I think I have the clip downloaded. God knows why as BB11 wasn't a favourite of mine.

When I've tried proxies in the past, it's worked very poorly; but I've tried that one for something now (not yet the Corin task incident) and it worked well.

Ok. And (just to be clear) there were some examples in my post.


In what way was it a bad question? Why shouldn't Davina have asked it? Contestants in tv shows sometimes discuss splitting the prize, and in at least one case (The Search) they actually did it. In any case, I'm not blaming Rachel for not being able to come up with an answer; that would make no sense, since she did come up with an answer.

It seems a legitimate question to me. There was a conversation about splitting in the house, and Davina mentioned that, first asked the other HMs, and then asked Rachel if she'd considered it.

Davina didn't drag out the silence. She gave Rachel a chance to answer. Surely that's better than not giving her a chance, or interrupting.

I don't quite agree that "there were lots of people shouting different things at her when Davina asked that question". Some people shouted "no" or "don't do it". One person said something longer (I couldn't make out what it was). And while there were some other shouts later, there were also periods of silence. Rachel also had time to think while Davina was talking to the other HMs about it.

Someone saying they think they're dreaming in that sort of context is a bit of a cliché; they don't actually feel like they're dreaming.


A lot of people criticised her for the Saddam Hussein moment because she was so reluctant to express an opinion even about someone like that, and because her reason was that she didn't know him. (How does she manage to vote in elections, if she even does vote?)


It matters that I didn't say it was the only moment when she was like VT Rachel and instead that it was "the time she came closest to living up to the talkative image presented in her VT".

Remember that in her VT Rachel said "I am annoying. I know I am, because I talk a lot" and a bit later "'cause people think I'm on drugs as well, just because I'm so energetic."

Anyway, while there are times when Rachel was like something in her VT, I don't think it can be credibly maintained any more that in-house Rachel wasn't different from VT Rachel, because even Rachel's mother has given explanations for why she was different, and that wouldn't make sense if there was no difference.


I don't think anyone has even claimed that Rachel talked with Luke (or with various other HMs) in the way she did with Jen & Bex and with Lisa.


Rachel had a long conversation with Lisa. I'm not absolutely sure it was the same one you're talking about, but it covered the things Rachel said she had a problem with. It was too long for all of it to be in the highlights, but some of it was, and BB even edited it misleadingly to make it seem Rachel had left Lisa speechless.


When Rachel said she'd said what she'd wanted to say, I think it's pretty clear that she meant she'd said what she wanted to say, and not that she'd said one thing she'd wanted to say but had a lot more to add to it so you'd better set aside half an hour for the rest. (Though to be fair, the first time Rachel said it, the one at the start of the video, it may have started up again because Stu arrived and someone (Stu?) said "what's the matter, like?")

In the early part of the conversation (so far as we can tell from the videos), there's nothing about "whispering" (contrary to numerous claims that that's what the talk was about).

It's just about things like Bex being annoyed by Kat singing and saying (according to Rachel) that she didn't want a happy house. Bex says that isn't what she said; in any case, it isn't what she meant, and Jen agrees, adding "what she's saying is she doesn't want people going happy happy house and she doesn't want it to be a false environment".

Rachel really doesn't seem to get that Happy House can be annoying; she says "I like Kat singing, and other people like Kat singing; Kat singing cheers people up." I don't think there's any time in the whole long conversation where Rachel shows she understands that it can be annoying or that it's impossible to get away from it in so small a house. (And by that point in bb9, it looked like Happy House was sometimes being deliberately sung as a way to wind up the HMs who didn't like it.)

Rachel saying "just walk away" shows she doesn't get it (or is pretending not to). You cannot walk far enough away, in the BB house, so that you won't hear it.

I think Jen explains it pretty well. There's what I quoted above; and, also about what Bex meant, "she wants everyone to be themselves and be normal and not purposely try to be happy when really you're not."

Plus this: "when you live with someone for 24 hours a day there's no way of getting out of this house, and when people are like purposely repeating and singing the same thing over and over again -- it could be any song, it could be any song in the world, and eventually it's going to wind you up to a certain extent."

Rachel didn't -- or couldn't -- or wouldn't -- take it in.

who
Rather shockingly it was Dale rather than Rex who mentioned "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher" (although he was wrong to suggest it was when she was PM. The decision was made some years previously when she was Education Secretary.)

I seriously wonder how many people have actually seen that footage for themselves. It wasn't on HLs or even DRU. It was on LF at about 3.30 in the morning. (Maybe footage was shown on BBLB or BBBM but I don't recall anyone ever claiming as such.)

The fact that Rex subsequently agreed that Saddam Hussein was a bad example of the point he was trying to make says to me that he accepted that Rachel had understood the conversation to be about people one meets in person, rather than "talking heads" on one's telly. (It was at this point that Dale chipped in with Thatcher.)

I've actually seen the footage, and I've also read posts by other people who've seen it.


Where / when did Rex say that, and who was he agreeing with?

In any case, I don't agree at all that Rex saying that meant that the conversation was about people one meets in person, and I don't think anyone has even claimed before that it was about that. The idea that the only alternative to that is '"talking heads" on one's telly' is absurd, especially since Saddam Hussein and Margaret Thatcher aren't normally described in that way. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I've never seen them described that way before just now.

It's very telling that the way Rachel's defended changes in such ways. It's like the arguments defending her don't matter -- no one actually believes them -- all that matters is that somehow Rachel can seem to be exonerated in the end, or that the waters are muddied.

* * *

Right. I've just spent the time to watch it AGAIN. And what Rex just before "Saddam Hussein" was "Do you like everyone in the world?" When Rachel looked pained at that, and didn't answer, Rex asked about Saddam. After Rachel struggled with that, with the excuse that she didn't know enough about him as a person, Rex said he'd give another example, and Rachel said "someone not controversial". That's when Dale tried Maggie Thatcher, and Rachel still looked pained.

The wider subject was Rachel's fence-sitting and lack of opinions. It wasn't even confined to people, let alone to people Rachel had met in person. There wasn't even anything that made it seem that Rachel thought the conversation was about people one meets in person.

So I hope that's the last we see of that defence attempt.