I’m A Celebrity 2010: Episode 7 Recap by Bren

Disclaimer: Despite agreeing with my mother-in-law on everything that’s happened this week, these remain my own opinions.

Episode 7/Day 8

Nigel’s in a grumpy mood. He’s so grumpy that Dom describes it as ‘existential despair’. I’m not sure it’s that serious, but the brief glimpses the producer allows us to have of Nigel not participating in the social activities do indicate he’s near the end of his road. Discussions of his forthcoming doing panto in Birmingham may be taken as either a threat or a promise. Stacey’s innocent conversation about how much she loves riding a bike visibly contributes to Nigel’s thickening mood, quicker than congealing gravy on a plate of roast beef. Can the person who bet me £20 that I couldn’t get the words ‘Stacey’, ‘riding’, ‘gravy’ and ‘beef’ in the same sentence pay me now?

Nigel also gets a tick. No Irish gags please. Dom chips in with the helpful words, ‘I don’t think you’re going to live through that tick’. I may have LedOL.

Speaking of LingOL, it’s time to review yesterday’s recorded challenge. While everyone else sat around the campfire discussing Gillian’s Bushtucker Challenge loyalty card (‘Christians versus the Lions’, says Dom), Gillian put on her happiest face and after negotiating her way through a partial meltdown when she encountered a spider on the bridge, jauntily sauntered to the challenge zone where she was introduced to a mechanical digger. That is not cockney rhyming slang for anything.

Gillian doesn’t get the controls. She is showing signs of mental fatigue to accompany the physical exhaustion that a jungle-based vegetarian must be feeling. She’s not getting her protein. Hmmm… all manner of thoughts briefly enter my head, none of them repeatable outside of PornWorld™.

The concept behind this challenge is simpler than a politician’s need to lie. Seven half-buried stars must be retrieved through the operation of a digger, which has a magnet on the end of the winch. If the operator gets things wrong, nasty surprises, such as bugs falling on the operator’s head, and stars exploding, will occur. As Gillian is being taught how to use the controls, she has her second meltdown of the morning. There’s a worm in the cab. The worm is removed and she is shown how to move the digger’s arm up and down, and from side to side, and where to dump the stars. The use of the word ‘dump’, in this context, is nothing to do with Gillian’s favourite topic.

Gillian decides that operating the simple back/forth, up/down controls is beyond her (or she can’t bear the thought of bugs raining on her head); she has today’s third meltdown without even attempting the trial, and returns to the camp empty-handed.

Let’s be clear, despite my snide comments to the contrary, I am a fan of this show, it’s given me many laughs over the last few years. But there is no place in IACGMOOH for a contestant who doesn’t try, and that’s the place where Gillian is now at. She compounds her lack of effort by attempting to avoid the slebs through ducking around the camp and going to the video booth/dunny zone, but Sheryl, on her way for a crafty poo, catches her out. Gillian bluffs her way through not being able to drive the digger as the reason for her failure. In a game-show where survival is the motivation, Gillian cuts a pathetic figure of doomed failure. There is an undercurrent of resentment in the camp at her lack of effort. And who can blame them? This show isn’t about caring and sharing and having a personal support network, this is about triumphing over adversity. Gillian seems to be a lifelong member of the adversity club.

Yesterday afternoon’s group challenge was a bizarre scene, loosely based on a speed-of-reflex exercise. It blatantly favours the recent additions to the camp, because they will be better fed and most rested. The more established inhabitants will, naturally, be hungrier and therefore more tired and, they will have  slower reflexes. Or so I thought, because first to win a round is Shaun Ryder. Hmmm… but to back up my theory Shaun is quickly joined by Jenny Éclair, Dom Jolly, Allison Hammond and then, one-by-one, the rest of the camp. Except for Sheryl Gascoigne and Lembit Öpik. Our two losers have to troop back to a special ‘prison’ enclosure and dress in a comedy version of prison clothes that cartoon characters used to wear 90 years ago. There are two more days of this group challenge left to run. Something’s not quite right though, because it didn’t work for me.

To return to an earlier thought for a moment; it seemed, at first, as if this game was going to get underway one person short. Nigel objected to it in a most forthright manner. I have a strong feeling that Nigel wants his Laura Ashley duvet set and four-poster more than he wants to be in the middle of an Australian rainforest. The charms of being surrounded by bugs and rain, enduring bad food, a continual lack of sleep and the constant drone of people being boring during the day and snoring at night sounds like Glastonbury festival to me. Nigel is, I think, near the end of his festival road. I feel he is capable of putting up with a lot more from the show, he just doesn’t want to.

That night, because of Gillian’s abject failure at the Bushtucker, no extra food is brought in to camp; tea is beans and rice. I am once again tempted to mention my own survival on these staples for three years at UEA, but I don’t. As the core ingredients are stewing, Gillian, the cheating toerag, is clearly seen to be retrieving and sprinkling contraband ingredients in to the pot. She mouths ‘It’s salt’, to Dom.

I think it’s more likely to be crack cocaine. Or, knowing her proclivities, shit.

After breakfast the next day, the Junglepreneurs – or the ones who aren’t in jail – are called together and told that they are about to experience the thrill and disappointment of a live Bustucker Challenge that the public have been voting on since the dawning of the Ice Age. And the results are… are you ready for this shocker? *Sigh*, it’s Gillian. Again. And it will probably carry on being Gillian until hell freezes over.

On receiving this wholly unexpected news, Gillian looks for a way out and finds one. She has an attack of the vapours and collapses to the ground as if she’s an Austenesque character who has just seen Mr Darcy’s skidmarks. It is the most unconvincing acting since big girl footballers invented falling over. A Twitter buddy (@nuttycow – no relation to this website) ponders that Gillian fancies Bob, the camp medic. I wonder if Bob is Gillian’s secret ‘salt’ dealer.

She’s fooled everyone! We are told that, for medical reasons, Gillian won’t take part in the challenge. Linford, as the runner-up in the phone-vote, steps forward to take her place. He does a fake faint which is far more convincing than Gillian’s.

Linford steps up to the plate and shows remarkable expertise at shoving his hand in tight, moist places. He tackles the other portions of the fairground-based challenge with the same ballsiness. At the end of the trial he stands before his peers covered in fish guts, festooned with bugs, wearing all manner of creepies and crawlies and in the very close proximity of Ant or Dec. This is courage above and beyond. Linford has retrieved 12 out of a possible 13 stars and is, rightly, treated as a hero. Kayla mouths the words ‘blow job later’ at Linford and he gives her the thumbs up. Or maybe I dreamt that bit. Anyway, that’s how you do it Gillian, you try and you succeed or you try and you fail but the bottom line is that you try. Or in your case, you don’t.

You can follow ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!’ on ITV but, let’s face it, you’d rather be reading about it here. And who can blame you.

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