Anyone who was expecting X Factor loser Jake Quickenden to make a pig’s ear of last night’s live trial was proven badly wrong. Instead, he made a pig’s testicle of it which was exactly what he’d been asked to do. It didn’t matter that he had to orally transfer the bollocks of several swine between containers; Jake was just happy that for once the public had voted for him. If only they had done that during The X Factor.
As if giving him a 24 hour Text Santa broadcast marathon wasn’t enough for the demure ego of Philip Schofield, ITV paid homage to his gameshow, The Cube in the live trial. They already had an extra set of ad breaks ready for if Kendra Wilkinson was voted to take part, given that it would have lasted all of 30 seconds (aka the time it takes her to say ‘Oh my Gawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwd’) but thankfully, have a go lad Jake was up for the challenge. And I’m not talking the challenge of getting frisky with Irish Nadia (whoever she is); that already looks as if it’s going to be a walk in the park.
Securing ten stars for playing with building bricks (something Jake only just mastered last week) and counting eels (again, counting being something that’s just recently been added to Jake’s skills list), Jake managed to claim a full lot of meals for camp (or, if Gemma were still here, a snack). This went down very well and was the second day in a row of successes in the Bushtucker Trials.
Elsewhere in camp, Edwina Currie* had also joined the celebrities, meaning that Kendra was no longer the only campmate famous predominantly for their sexual behaviour. Edwina’s first task in camp was to lie through her teeth, to which she surely frowned and replied: ‘So, just be myself then?’ Jake and Edwina were signed up as undercover agents who had to deceive their new friends in a variety of situations, which included duping Mel into washing their clothes for them. It wasn’t too difficult given that Mel, who is constantly wearing an undoubtedly painful Cheshire Cat smile, is so eager to please and show what an amiable lass she is. Will we see her mask slip? Depends how long she is kept in I suppose, but I’m worried for Michael Buerk.
Their final task was to convince everyone to have a pool party which treated us to the wonderful sight of Jimmy (who is my current favourite to win) thrashing a bathing suit
clad Edwina about the place. Tinchy meanwhile, was none too keen to get in the pool and, given that he is the one with the closest thing to a career still intact, he probably thought he could catch failure and desperation through the water. Nevertheless, he gave in to peer pressure (lesson to kids: always do that. You’ll get prizes) and joined the splashing fun and the entire camp were rewarded with a smug Edwina boasting about how easy it was to lie to them all (once a Tory…) and a few packages from home.
Just a week in (three days for Jake and Edwina), this meant we were forced to endure the numerous tears that came with the luvvies being separated from their families and, most importantly, their housekeepers. Forgetting that armed forces servicemen and women as well as countless other occupations endure this for much less than a 100k pay, the celebrities took to the cameras to blub about how hard it was being cut off from society et al. Oh, and Michael was excited to see his nuts. We’ve all been there.
* When Gemma heard that there was a ‘Currie’ heading for camp she almost boarded a flight right back to Australia until somebody explained the actual situation to her.
Are you enjoying the latest adventures in the I’m a Celebrity jungle? Leave me your comments below and tweet me at https://twitter.com/Our_manPLA
Written By Our Man In The North
HOLBY CITY BEHIND THE SCREEN
pauseliveaction 
Well wrote dunkas very witty I enjoyed reading it xx
Less of the fattist potshots about Gemma please. Easy for sure, but also cheap and nasty. Leaves as nasty a taste as pigs bollocks.
But the jokes about Jake’s intelligence are fair play? And Dec and Tinchy’s height which is used a lot in the show itself? Strange logic. Gemma Collins often uses her weight as part of her claim to fame, so by her own referrals to it, it isn’t off limits.
And I don’t believe I called her fat anywhere? I just implied she had a big appetite. Which, in camp, she did. She was constantly shown to be complaining about being starving and wanting to kill herself because of how hungry she was.
Oh OMITN, you’re far from stupid and you read Twitter and Facebook and know very well there’s a lot of fat trolling been going on with Gemma (and any other woman in the public eye – or indeed not – that isn’t skinny). Gemma Collins is indeed very self absorbed, histrionic and irksome, I don’t mind you pointing that out one bit. But I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Daily Mail (et al) spend vast column inches attacking women for their weight. We have a society full of thousands of young women with eating disorders. I’ve been a counsellor to many of them. Women are judged by their appearance far more than men, and women earn less than men. There’s a power imbalance. And when you make a jibe about her appetite, it feels like a cheap dig.
I’m less aware that rich, powerful, successful TV presenters Ant and Dec are suffering low self esteem because they get teased for their height. And Jake isn’t getting trolled for not being bright, he’s getting lots of positive attention for being muscular and perceived as being a hotty.
Although this is a very clever and funny review I do agree with the points made by TheDivine in her last post. The different attitude of society to men and women is very striking and those of us who work with young people or have children are very concerned. TheDivine’s last paragraph gives great examples of this different treatment.
I guess that depends on who you speak to on social media; I personally have seen far more jibes against Jake for being less than intelligent and against Kendra for having a strong American accent than I have about Gemma. In fact, I think it’s far more damaging to highlight weight as a huge issue and something that should or shouldn’t be ashamed of above everything else that people using comedy can use as a joke. By highlighting how important weight and appearance is (certainly not to me; I’m not ashamed to admit that I suffer from an eating disorder: yes, men do too) then we are making people feel more concious of it.
If we are afraid of talking about it, rather than being able to make jokes about it like we can most other things, it puts the weight issue on this very scary pedestal that is making people think it’s actually far more important than it actually is. It doesn’t matter how confident, rich or successful someone seems, you either are against jokes about appearance completely or not at all. You can’t just pick certain aspects because you happen to have more experience in your work with them. We don’t know that when the cameras are off that Declan Donnelly isn’t really quite self concious abs with her weight, he uses it as part of his act; therefore it is fair game.
Jokes about peoples voices or accents, whether they’re bald, short, have a large nose or whatever are just the same: you either accept all or accept none. And if you accept none, then that leaves comedy and the ability to derive humour using free speech very limited indeed and kind of leaves us in a bit of a restricted Big Brother style way of life. I personally am self concious about my walk. I walk with a bit of a limp and always have done. I used to teach in high schools so you can imagine how often it was brought up. You either take every comment to heart and take a belief that the person is setting out to be malicious and to break you or you accept it for what it is; a joke, which is usually something that exists exaggerated for the purpose of humour. Would I want to ban all comedy or jokes relating to movement? Of course not.
Now I very deliberately did not use any phrase that called Gemma out for being fat. The show in all the footage they used of Gemma, chose to show the nation mostly footage of her claiming to be hungry or starving or talking about what she would eat outside of the jungle if she could. As I’m sure you know, the show is very heavily edited so that is what they have chosen to put out to 9 million viewers. Now, it depends what mindset you have if you take anything relating to food as a jibe at someone’s weight. We can talk about food and hunger and people enjoying food more than others without being abusive about it, and I was not abusive anywhere. However, if people choose to take the issue of food as always being about weight then that is a mindset that they themselves have gotten; pulled from, like you rightly say, their social media and what others are saying.
As for whether men and women are subject to more criticism for their appearance, I didn’t really bring that up for debate anywhere in my article so I am not sure why it became a gender issue. I didn’t say Gemma liked curry because she was a woman. I didn’t say imply that Jake wasn’t the brightest bulb because he was a man. I completely agree that the media attack women all the time; not just the papers but magazines actually aimed at women. I have seen the articles in Cosmo and the likes where there are big circles around stretch marks or roots showing through or sweat patches and I think it’s an abhorrent way to treat women. However, women still seem to buy them enough for them to stay in business, but that’s a separate issue altogether. I do think you’re right that there is an imbalance of criticism between the sexes. However, it is also very dangerous to think that males are immune from body criticism or self conciousness. Up to 20% of males will be affected by an eating disorder. Again, I have seen huge examples of males being ridiculed for their appearance (and sexuality) in schools I’ve worked in. I do not think we’re in any disagreement on that issue though I am somewhat concerned that you jumped to an assumption that any of my comments were in any way related to gender.
The bottom line is, that they’re very clearly jokes. I didn’t say ‘look at Gemma, she’s fat’ That would be an insult. I said that Gemma considered flying back to Australia when she heard there was a curry in the jungle. That is clearly a joke; it would be ridiculous to think she would travel that far for a Madras instead of ordering from a local Indian. That’s the point of jokes; they are meant to be ridiculous. They aren’t facts.
In the same way I didn’t say ‘Jake is so thick’ I said that he had mastered playing with building blocks last week. Again, clearly a joke as no one in their right mind would read that and believe that he had just a few days ago worked out how to put toy bricks on top of eachother.
That’s the difference between being outright offensive and joking. Jokes are clear and people shouldn’t be stopped from having a sense of humour for fear that some people won’t like it. Of course they won’t. All of our humour is different. I certainly think it’s something that should be discussed and I do certainly appreciate your comments. Don’t think I haven’t listened, because I have and I am far far less likely to make similar cracks in future posts so I have taken your opinion on board completely. So thank you for opening the discussion, I do think it’s an important point to discuss and I am glad that this post has allowed us to open up this dialogue. If I hadn’t posted it, the chances of us even talking about this would be slim.
However, if I am not allowed to imply anything that could be construed as offensive in what I say, then please live by the same values and don’t imply that I am in any way sexist or malicious. As that is just as offensive as saying that Gemma would fly back to Australia for a curry.