Friday 6 June 2008

Big Brother Season

Oh I love this time of year. As light relief from the attention-seeking, constant noise and shouting, and idiotic comments every hour of the working day, each evening I can chill out in front of the TV and watch the attention-seeking, constant noise and shouting, and idiotic comments of the Big Brother contestants.

This year there are two trainee teachers amongst the seething mass of humanity (and otherwise) who entered the house last night. Dale is training to be a PE teacher and claims to hate children. Why is this a surprise? I thought it was a prerequisite of being a PE teacher. He is also an arrogant tosser who believes he is heaven-sent for the women of the world. I mentioned this to a female PE teacher at school today. She hasn't seen the programme, but just shuddered. Apparently Dale sounds like a typical male PE teacher, most of whom are to be avoided like the clap.

There is also Rachel, training to teach English and drama. Some of her pupils from her training school are already posting on forums about how "pritty" she is and what a surprise it is to see her there. Is there a future for teachers who appear on Big Brother? In 2001 a contestant called Penny Ellis temporarily left her teaching job to appear on the show, and the headteacher of her school said she faced the sack if she had sex on the show. In the end she was voted out early but not before letting her towel slip a few times in front of the cameras. According to her entry on imdb, she did carry on teaching, and in 2005 one poster wrote:

after big brother, she came to teach out our school, her real name is penny
ellis, us older lot used to mess about wit her, saying stuff like "nice tits
miss". if the class got out of control she used to cry. believe me if u like and
dont if you like, i just thought it was worth mentioning!

I might try to find out more later, but if anyone knows any more, then let me know!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I felt the same as you watching the opening show - surely those two are just destroying any hope they have of a career in teaching for at least 10 years. Unless of course they are both hoping to become mega-famous and never actually have to work. Some hope!

Margaret English said...

Although I watched quite a lot of the first series of Big Brother, I have rarely watched it since. I have no real desire to sit on my couch watching a bunch of other people sitting on a couch. And most of the contestants are, as you say, tossers, who make me want to put my big feet through the telly!

I cannot understand teachers who go on this show- what is their motivation? Surely their position at school would immediately become untenable?!

Ranting Teacher said...

I think the most genuine reality TV contestants are those who don't want the fame and footballer-shagging lifestyle that many of them aspire to. I must have been the only person in the UK who enjoyed watching ITV's "Survivor" a few years ago, and one of the contestants there was a teacher in Series 2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(UK_TV_series)