Genuinely me...

It's all Euro 2008 and Big Brother. I wish I'd got a wall chart. I wish they'd stop talking about being genuine. But I didn't and, if past years are anything to go by, they won't. "I just want to be me. I want to be real. I'm being myself. If you don't think I'm genuine you don't know me."

Between all that, I keep thinking about blogging about that old attention seeking media whore David Davis, then changing my mind because -and not for the first time - he's utterly baffled me. Surely, as an MP, he was ideally placed to debate civil liberties. Instead, his 'resignation' has turned the 'debate' into exactly the kind of 'he said/she said' circus that has left voters like me completely disaffected and disenfranchised. Over-ambitious politicians like Davis are not to be trusted - I don't believe for one minute that he's a champion of freedom...oh, sod it, I've changed my mind again...

Interpup v The Mighty Windass

The playwright David Eldridge has, for the second time, christened me The Mighty Windass. Which, coming from such an esteemed theatrical gent, is very nice indeed (and marketing will, I'm sure, be keen to use it on the posters come January). In the spirit of Lewis Carroll, of course, if he says it a third time I will indeed become The Mighty Windass and I shall rule, if not the Universe, the World or the country, then at least a couple of the dirtier streets in east Hull. I am assuming that David is, perhaps, a fan of the Christopher Guest film A Mighty Wind, a piece of work that I wish had existed during my school days as The Mighty Windass is certainly preferable to a lot of the utterly uncreative names I was called as a trembling, spotty member of Woggy (!) Hall's form with an oh-so-funny surname at the boys only Riley High - an establishment designed and run with the encouragement and training (but very rarely education) of thugs in mind. All of which, in a rather contrived way, brings me round to a conversation I overheard at the bus stop this afternoon. Someone was talking about being bullied. A bigger, older chap who should have known better offered the bullied some advice: "Yeah, bullies, they don't give a shit about you. So if you're gonna be punched you may as well give them a slap. Tell you what you need to do. Put some pool balls in a sock and whack the bastards across the head."

Actually, steering my thoughts back to the playwright David Eldridge, I've not given up on Big Brother. I'm there every night - even forcing M to endure the show on the nights when she feels indifferent to tuning in - and will be until the end. There's nowt so life-affirming as meaningless trash on telly, is there? But I've gotta say that I'm missing Russell Brand on Big Mouth enormously, and have yet to find a guest presenter that doesn't leave me wanting to throw one of the cats at the television or, say, whack Pete Burns across the head with some pool balls in a sock.

So, we we're in town - I had to drop a hard copy of the aformentioned half a script in at the theatre - and I walked past a newspaper bill board, announcing the staggering news Hull shops to open late. Which illustrates, I suppose, that we're in the middle of the silly season when nothing much happens but is hardly the earth-shattering stuff of your above-average front page. Keen, as ever, not to buy a copy of the paper I read the story online when I got home, amazed that mother-of-two Lynn Smith, 32, of Belvoir Street, west Hull, reckoned that "Late-night shopping will make life easier." Which makes it sound like shops being open until 7pm is on a par with the invention of the wheel, the availability of food and peace in all corners of the globe. But never mind late night shopping, you want stuff that makes life easier, you read what the clever Newsround kids have to say. I especially like 10-year-old Lauren's: "I would invent a robot dog called Interpup. On his belly would be a screen and you could play games or surf the web. You could teach him to speak and sing by telling him through the speaker!" The Mighty Windass would certainly buy one of those.

Bread, rain and blood...

Big Brother 8: It's all about bread and arguments about bread. And/or toast. And try as I might, and even after all these weeks, I still can't understand a single word that those two twins utter in unison. Nor, for that matter, anything that comes out of Brian's mouth. Kara-Louise's hair freaks me out (did she used to be in Flock of Seagulls?). OAP boybander Ziggy's surely in his mid-40s, if the truth be told. Liam is a walking, talking north-east stereotype - everything in Liam's world is "canny" or, on the odd occasion it isn't, he divn't give a hoot, like. Carole is under the impression that she is running a care home, albeit one in which she regularly breaks down in tears in front of those she cares for and, oddly for someone who used to be a peace protestor, loves a fucking big scrap about absolutely nothing (or, as is usually the case, bread). Jonty is everyone's slightly disturbed and estranged Uncle. Tracey, well, she's a vacuous pile of nothingness - or, as these people are prone to say, she's simply being real - who has a limited vocabulary that consists of "phat" and "sorted". How on earth do you pick a winner out of this lot? Quite simply, you don't. Here's a twist - just let them out, give them a load of bread each and lock the house up, giving it all up as a bad job until next year. There, I've blogged about it. It was inevitable - my life is so shallow.

Rain stopped play today. We were going to Hull's Grassroot's festival but, in the end, couldn't be arsed to amble across town in the wet weather. But not before we'd filled a huge rucksack with sandwiches. So we had a picnic for our evening meal at the dining table. Nice bit of father-son bonding today - as the rain fell down outside we sat and watched Korean gore-thriller Into The Mirror. Son appeared a bit disappointed that the body count was nowhere close to his fave slice of Asian extreme Battle Royale but did come away something of a Sung-ho Kim fan, I feel.

Too real?

As a man that literally throws away hours of his time gawping at all incarnations of Big Brother I suppose I better express my thoughts on the recent shenanigans. It's certainly an uncomfortable viewing experience, and Brecht would be impressed with the alienation techniques at work. There's absolutely no doubt that racism has reared its ugly head - the housemates can't blame dodgy, out-of-context editing for their bigotry. But I'm not expecting Davina McCall to give any of the guilty housemates a grilling when they exit the bunker to their deserved chorus of boos. Nah, she'll talk about the important issues. Such as...erm...erm...nope, sorry, can't really think of anything else that's happened. She'll think of something vacuous, though, our Davina, she's a master at that. I'm thinking, though, that the reason CBB is such an awkward, horrendous experience for us audience members this time around is that those people slobbing around on the sofa really are a true representation of the worst, shitty bits of British life. Ladies and gentlemen, this country is home to many racists and, ooh, look, there they are. And when those racists are not called to task over their misguided views, it reminds us of the times when we've not intervened when we should have. Or it does me, anyway, and, as I watch these morons, I'm growing increasingly appalled. I've met the likes of Goody, O'Meara and Lloyd in the real world. Okay, the ones I've met aren't Z-list celebs nor footballers wives, but they spouted the same nonsense, and, like H from Steps, I've failed to confront them. Never again, though, I'm certain of that. For once, reality television is just what it says on the tin. And it ain't nice, is it?

Back to Spurn today, to gather some research and admire the choppy conditions out on the Humber. With Force 10s on the way the crew were all set to head to their second home at Grimsby (they move there when the wind is high, as otherwise it's impossible to launch the lifeboat). But it was the coxswain's wife I'd come to have a quick natter with, and she explained life at Spurn over a nice cuppa. We sat and talked in the control room. It looks like this:

Tomorrow? No Spurn, just J Arthur Rank, which is coming along nicely, thanks for asking.