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Showing posts with label cbb09. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cbb09. Show all posts
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Monday, 26 January 2009
Big Brother 2009: A Half-Hearted Round Up
It's over, then.
It seemed to be a lot shorter this year, although maybe that's just the lack of an horribly drawn-out festival of bullying from Jade Goody, Jo O'Thingy and racism's Danielle Lloyd (interesting how the person who actually said the most racist thing from that whole horrid event is the one still getting the most work, isn't it?). Well, we've fed the the lengths of each series into Excel, and assuming Wikipedia isn't wrong (ahem), here's a chart proving incontrovertibly that CBB is now receding faster than BrokenTV's hairline. And, as a special treat (and because we've got a Firefox extension enabled that does it automatically), total Wikipedia wordcounts for each year.
It seemed to be a lot shorter this year, although maybe that's just the lack of an horribly drawn-out festival of bullying from Jade Goody, Jo O'Thingy and racism's Danielle Lloyd (interesting how the person who actually said the most racist thing from that whole horrid event is the one still getting the most work, isn't it?). Well, we've fed the the lengths of each series into Excel, and assuming Wikipedia isn't wrong (ahem), here's a chart proving incontrovertibly that CBB is now receding faster than BrokenTV's hairline. And, as a special treat (and because we've got a Firefox extension enabled that does it automatically), total Wikipedia wordcounts for each year.
So, onto the 2009 edition. Who won our special Fame-O-Tron award this year?
Meh. Our guess is Ben Adams did so well on Google News because other people called Ben Adams have been doing stuff. Either that, or his appearance at the Buckley Tivoli last night attracted HUGE media attention. It wasn't really the best series of CBB, was it? Even the Mail's attempt at pretending to be outraged about it - "Now Channel 4 gets a dwarf drunk on television" - wasn't making a real effort. If it had been a man in a giant foam Channel Four logo outfit (1983 issue) pouring booze down Verne Troyer's neck - maybe that'd be an interesting headline. It wasn't, so instead you're left with a patronising "aawwww.... poor ickle Vernie can't fink for himself" headline about a perfectly intelligent forty year old man.
Anyway, onto something more interesting. As noted by the excellent Discopop.co.uk, Five Live recently broadcast a latter day version of Frost/Nixon. Or, more accurately, a latter day Self/Littlejohn. That's right, it's Byrne/Morgan, with the odious former Mirror editor on the receiving end of a verbal pummelling from the Irish stand-up.
"Ed Byrne and Piers Morgan Cross Swords" (from Discopop.co.uk)
Anyway, onto something more interesting. As noted by the excellent Discopop.co.uk, Five Live recently broadcast a latter day version of Frost/Nixon. Or, more accurately, a latter day Self/Littlejohn. That's right, it's Byrne/Morgan, with the odious former Mirror editor on the receiving end of a verbal pummelling from the Irish stand-up.
"Ed Byrne and Piers Morgan Cross Swords" (from Discopop.co.uk)
Friday, 16 January 2009
"Almost As Popular as Ben Adams"
It's probably time we had a look at how our Celebrity Big Brother Fame-o-tron is shaping up. Or rather, the Ultimate CBB Fame-O-Tron Redux, because we've adapted it. We're still counting up the current Wikipedia wordcounts for each of the contestants, but now we're factoring in:
* The number of news stories for each celebrity, over the previous month, from Google News.
* A special bonus of up to 700 points, based on the Alexa ranking of each celebrity's official website.
Of that latter factor, here's the skinny. Eight of the contestants have official websites at the moment, with only Tina, Verne and Ulrika lacking their own digital domains. Terry has an official website, but it has a ranking of 'no data' on Alexa, meaning it's blocked by robots or something. Of the others, here are the rankings, remembering that lower numbers are what you're looking for here:
* The number of news stories for each celebrity, over the previous month, from Google News.
* A special bonus of up to 700 points, based on the Alexa ranking of each celebrity's official website.
Of that latter factor, here's the skinny. Eight of the contestants have official websites at the moment, with only Tina, Verne and Ulrika lacking their own digital domains. Terry has an official website, but it has a ranking of 'no data' on Alexa, meaning it's blocked by robots or something. Of the others, here are the rankings, remembering that lower numbers are what you're looking for here:
Lucypinder.info 144,034 (700 pts)
Coolio.com 1,626,732 (600 pts)
Latoyaonline.com 1,822,043 (500 pts)
Benadams.uk.com 2,875,997 (400 pts)
Mutyamusic.com 3,700,106 (300 pts)
Solidarityscotland.org (Tommy) 7,247,663 (200 pts)
Officialmichelleheaton.co.uk 22,470,742 (100 pts)
So, despite us allowing the website of Tony's political party, there are still 7,247,662 websites more popular than his. In case anyone's interested, BrokenTV's Alexa ranking is 2,981,135. We're almost as popular as Ben Adams! With enthralling updates like this, we're sure to be peering over our hit-count shoulder at him within a matter of weeks. Eh? What's that? We've gone down 700,189 places in the last three months? Bah.
So, onto the Google News rankings.
So, onto the Google News rankings.
Coolio - 3253 stories
Ulrika Jonsson - 2047 stories
Lucy Pinder - 1922 stories
Michelle Heaton - 1625 stories
Terry Christian - 1389 stories
Verne Troyer - 1363 stories
Tina Malone - 1058 stories
Mutya Buena - 1037 stories
Ben Adams - 999 stories
Tommy Sheridan - 682 stories
La Toya Jackson - 600 stories
Slightly surprisingly, it's La Toya at the bottom of the list, and we've counted both "La Toya" and "LaToya" together here. The Coolio NEW CHANNEL FOUR SCANDAL story sees him hit the top of the pile, Ulrika's general mardiness netting her second spot, and we're guessing the sheer volume of stories in the Daily Star about Lucy have been enough to get her into third.
So, onto our traditional (i.e. we can't think of any new ideas) listing of housemates sorted by Wikipedia wordcount:
So, onto our traditional (i.e. we can't think of any new ideas) listing of housemates sorted by Wikipedia wordcount:
Tommy Sheridan- 3223 words
La Toya Jackson - 2301 words
Coolio - 1667 words
Mutya Buena - 1430 words
Terry Christian - 1263 words
Lucy Pinder - 1119 words
Ulrika Jonsson - 965 words
Michelle Heaton - 892 words
Verne Troyer - 657 words
Ben Adams - 397 words
Tina Malone - 293 words
So, Tommy remains top of that particular sorted-in-descending-order list. Meaning, by our admittedly roundabout and utterly non-scientific way of thinking about it, he has still clocked up the highest number of actual achievements in his professional life. None of the profiles have changed much since day one of the current series, to be honest.
So, time to pour all of the statistical ingredients into a mixing bowl (Excel), and turn it into a lovely big number pie (chart).
So, time to pour all of the statistical ingredients into a mixing bowl (Excel), and turn it into a lovely big number pie (chart).
As for the show itself, we're still catching up. We should probably resort to bullet points.
* Didn't Coolio look annoyed that he wasn't up for eviction? It's as if he was thinking "jeez, just how colossal a cock do I need to act like to get out of here? Tsk. I'd better ramp up my dickishness!"
* Terry Christian is coming over really well, we'd say. Not for the first time, our cursory judgement of a person's entire character was incorrect. Who'd have thunk?
* If Tina doesn't get kicked out soon, we might not bother sticking with this. And not just because she slagged off the internet. Because she's tremendously annoying.
More soon!
Friday, 2 January 2009
Celebrity Big Brother 2009 Live Blog!
Happy new year, everyone! We've been a bit quiet recently, as we've been working on The Big BrokenTV Awards for 2008, so what better time to break our silence than on the launch of Celebrity Big Brother 2009? Live Blog ahoy! Refresh for updates.
[20.57] First thing we've noticed - Barrymore is back on our screens, playing second fiddle to George Lamb on Big Brother's Little Brother. Surely, that must represent the furthest anyone has ever fallen in the history of entertainment. We mean, it's not as if he'd kil... ("Stop right there" - The BrokenTV Legal Department)
[21.02] Fleeting, Question Of Sport style shots of a few of the participants for this year. Amy Winehouse, Tom Cruise, Rafa Benitez and Madonna, we're saying. Quite clearly, when the real contestants are announced, we're all going to need to be told who they actually are. You know, like when Jon Culshaw does his impressions.
[21.04] Davina does the obligatory tour of the house. There's a jail, which could be fun once someone who once had a top five hit (and an agent good enough to get them on this) starts getting a bit uppity.
Oh, by the way, welcome to anyone who found BrokenTV after we were mentioned on the BBC Internet Blog. As you'll soon see, we're not always as good as one hastily Photoshopped picture of Bubbles The Clown might suggest. We're also now linked to from the BBC's Flickr page, which is quite exciting. Well, it is if you're us.
[21.10] Housemate One: LaToya Jackson. Cripes. Because we can't think of anything more original to do, we're going to continue our tradition of marking the celebrity of each contestant by the word count of their Wikipedia entries, before, during and after their stay on the show. La Toya even has her own sub-section bar at the bottom of her page. We reckon she'll be the only person to have one of those. Of course, this means that CBB has now played host to 40% of the Jackson Five.
LaToya's Wikipedia wordcount: 2349.
[21.15] Mutya Buena, of whom we know nothing. An ex-Sugababe, it seems. She does have a Wikipedia page, and indeed can be found by typing 'Mutya' into the search box. She also has a sub-section bar thing on her Wiki page, which shows what we know.
Mutya 's Wikipedia wordcount: 1368.
[21.17] Will anyone we're actually a fan of appear? Both members of Tatu are probably a few years away from resorting to CBB, so that avenue is exhausted. Will Self? Chris Lowe? Dennis Skinner?
Hey, it's Shasta McNasty's Verne Troyer. Not much of a shock, as it's been pretty well known he'll be in it. He was quite good in Postal (which we liked, despite our better judgement), and could be fun here. If nothing else, he'll make for an easy target for whoever's the biggest twat on The Sunday Night Project.
Verne's Wikipedia wordcount: 558
[21.26] An advert looking for applicants for Regular Big Brother 2009. If you know anyone who is a self-centred imbecile, the dates listed would be a good time to burgle their house. And now, a Muller advert voiced by Derek Griffiths. Now he'd make a brilliant contestant in CBB. Him or Johnny Ball.
[21.30] Next contestant: Tommy Sheridan. A socialist politician from Scotland (albeit only from the comedy Scottish Militant Labour party), and alleged lover of PVC bondage, it seems. It'll be brilliant if everyone recognised him on entry to the... no they don't. As he walked in, he said "the madness!" in his Scottish burr, leading to someone else saying "oh, hi Angus".
Tommy's Wikipedia wordcount: 3240. Yikes.
[21.35] Page Fwee Stunna Lucy Pinder. Wants to prove she's not thick, but with her very next sentence says she's "a bit of a Tory girl", and she is frightened of clowns. Write your own Ben Elton-style punchline. Hates left-wingers. Boh. Will she realise it when she loses a lot of arguments with Tommy?
Lucy's Wikipedia wordcount: 1060.
[21.38] Despite Wikipedia claiming the next contestant is J.K. Rowling, Michelle Heaton, Coolio, Terry Christian, Steve Strange, Tina Malone from Shameless or Ulrika Jonsson, it's some bloke from a boy band. Ben Adams. Our prediction: he won't win.
Ben's Wikipedia wordcount: 346.
[21.42] Next: Tina Malone from Shameless. Someone on Wikipedia didn't lie shocker! A self confessed gobby scouser. Blimey, we put up with enough of those at work. We've just thought of a TV Burp style joke - she's just said how she's probably the last person you'd expect to do something like this. We'd say someone currently famous would be a bit more unexpected. NAILED.
Tina's Wikipedia wordcount: 184.
[21.51] Next up, we have Coolio, as 'predicted' by an anonymous Wikipedian. So, who else on the above list will be right? Terry Christian we can believe. Ulrika possibly. J.K. Rowling, never. Anyway, with Coolio in the house, at least we've got someone who was once a guest star in an episode of Duckman. Top Coolio fact! Gangster's Paradise was one of about three half-decent records in the pub we used to drink in. Much like a lot of pubs in the mid-1990s, really. It was a pub featured on an episode of Sky One's Britain's Hardest Pubs, although we're not sure why, it wasn't even bad by Wrexham standards, let alone national ones.
Coolio's Wikipedia wordcount: 1727.
[21.55] Michelle Heaton from Liberty X. There should be some sort of quota for People Who Used To Be In Pop Bands, which should be capped at two. Come on, someone good had better be the next participant. Someone we'd actually recognise who isn't American. They're all going to miss Obama's inauguration.
Michelle's Wikipedia wordcount: 996.
[21.59] Annoying Northern Twat (his words. We would have left out 'Northern', as we're not letting him try and use his locale as some sort of excuse) Terry Christian. Told you. At least now there's someone in the house no-one will feel bad about voting out in the first week.
Terry's Wikipedia wordcount: 1280.
[22.03] Who will be the first newspaper columnist to write something about how the events of Dead Set really should happen within the next week or so? Final participant: It's Ulrika. Probably going to be our favourite participant in the house, as she's always seemed genuinely intelligent, witty and entertaining if you ask us. She probably won't win, but won't be too bothered if she doesn't.
Ulrika's Wikipedia wordcount: 977. That's fewer than Terry Christian, which is quite unfair on her.
Ah well. That's the lot. Unless the producers have a trick or two up their sleeves, there's no-one that exciting here this year, suggesting everyone is still wary of another Shilpagate. Not even, as had been suggested, Andrew Sach's granddaughter. Is it going to hold our attention? The last 'proper' series of Big Brother didn't, and unless Coolio talking about hair straighteners is going to be the low point of the next few weeks, we're not holding out our hopes.
[20.57] First thing we've noticed - Barrymore is back on our screens, playing second fiddle to George Lamb on Big Brother's Little Brother. Surely, that must represent the furthest anyone has ever fallen in the history of entertainment. We mean, it's not as if he'd kil... ("Stop right there" - The BrokenTV Legal Department)
[21.02] Fleeting, Question Of Sport style shots of a few of the participants for this year. Amy Winehouse, Tom Cruise, Rafa Benitez and Madonna, we're saying. Quite clearly, when the real contestants are announced, we're all going to need to be told who they actually are. You know, like when Jon Culshaw does his impressions.
[21.04] Davina does the obligatory tour of the house. There's a jail, which could be fun once someone who once had a top five hit (and an agent good enough to get them on this) starts getting a bit uppity.
Oh, by the way, welcome to anyone who found BrokenTV after we were mentioned on the BBC Internet Blog. As you'll soon see, we're not always as good as one hastily Photoshopped picture of Bubbles The Clown might suggest. We're also now linked to from the BBC's Flickr page, which is quite exciting. Well, it is if you're us.
[21.10] Housemate One: LaToya Jackson. Cripes. Because we can't think of anything more original to do, we're going to continue our tradition of marking the celebrity of each contestant by the word count of their Wikipedia entries, before, during and after their stay on the show. La Toya even has her own sub-section bar at the bottom of her page. We reckon she'll be the only person to have one of those. Of course, this means that CBB has now played host to 40% of the Jackson Five.
LaToya's Wikipedia wordcount: 2349.
[21.15] Mutya Buena, of whom we know nothing. An ex-Sugababe, it seems. She does have a Wikipedia page, and indeed can be found by typing 'Mutya' into the search box. She also has a sub-section bar thing on her Wiki page, which shows what we know.
Mutya 's Wikipedia wordcount: 1368.
[21.17] Will anyone we're actually a fan of appear? Both members of Tatu are probably a few years away from resorting to CBB, so that avenue is exhausted. Will Self? Chris Lowe? Dennis Skinner?
Hey, it's Shasta McNasty's Verne Troyer. Not much of a shock, as it's been pretty well known he'll be in it. He was quite good in Postal (which we liked, despite our better judgement), and could be fun here. If nothing else, he'll make for an easy target for whoever's the biggest twat on The Sunday Night Project.
Verne's Wikipedia wordcount: 558
[21.26] An advert looking for applicants for Regular Big Brother 2009. If you know anyone who is a self-centred imbecile, the dates listed would be a good time to burgle their house. And now, a Muller advert voiced by Derek Griffiths. Now he'd make a brilliant contestant in CBB. Him or Johnny Ball.
[21.30] Next contestant: Tommy Sheridan. A socialist politician from Scotland (albeit only from the comedy Scottish Militant Labour party), and alleged lover of PVC bondage, it seems. It'll be brilliant if everyone recognised him on entry to the... no they don't. As he walked in, he said "the madness!" in his Scottish burr, leading to someone else saying "oh, hi Angus".
Tommy's Wikipedia wordcount: 3240. Yikes.
[21.35] Page Fwee Stunna Lucy Pinder. Wants to prove she's not thick, but with her very next sentence says she's "a bit of a Tory girl", and she is frightened of clowns. Write your own Ben Elton-style punchline. Hates left-wingers. Boh. Will she realise it when she loses a lot of arguments with Tommy?
Lucy's Wikipedia wordcount: 1060.
[21.38] Despite Wikipedia claiming the next contestant is J.K. Rowling, Michelle Heaton, Coolio, Terry Christian, Steve Strange, Tina Malone from Shameless or Ulrika Jonsson, it's some bloke from a boy band. Ben Adams. Our prediction: he won't win.
Ben's Wikipedia wordcount: 346.
[21.42] Next: Tina Malone from Shameless. Someone on Wikipedia didn't lie shocker! A self confessed gobby scouser. Blimey, we put up with enough of those at work. We've just thought of a TV Burp style joke - she's just said how she's probably the last person you'd expect to do something like this. We'd say someone currently famous would be a bit more unexpected. NAILED.
Tina's Wikipedia wordcount: 184.
[21.51] Next up, we have Coolio, as 'predicted' by an anonymous Wikipedian. So, who else on the above list will be right? Terry Christian we can believe. Ulrika possibly. J.K. Rowling, never. Anyway, with Coolio in the house, at least we've got someone who was once a guest star in an episode of Duckman. Top Coolio fact! Gangster's Paradise was one of about three half-decent records in the pub we used to drink in. Much like a lot of pubs in the mid-1990s, really. It was a pub featured on an episode of Sky One's Britain's Hardest Pubs, although we're not sure why, it wasn't even bad by Wrexham standards, let alone national ones.
Coolio's Wikipedia wordcount: 1727.
[21.55] Michelle Heaton from Liberty X. There should be some sort of quota for People Who Used To Be In Pop Bands, which should be capped at two. Come on, someone good had better be the next participant. Someone we'd actually recognise who isn't American. They're all going to miss Obama's inauguration.
Michelle's Wikipedia wordcount: 996.
[21.59] Annoying Northern Twat (his words. We would have left out 'Northern', as we're not letting him try and use his locale as some sort of excuse) Terry Christian. Told you. At least now there's someone in the house no-one will feel bad about voting out in the first week.
Terry's Wikipedia wordcount: 1280.
[22.03] Who will be the first newspaper columnist to write something about how the events of Dead Set really should happen within the next week or so? Final participant: It's Ulrika. Probably going to be our favourite participant in the house, as she's always seemed genuinely intelligent, witty and entertaining if you ask us. She probably won't win, but won't be too bothered if she doesn't.
Ulrika's Wikipedia wordcount: 977. That's fewer than Terry Christian, which is quite unfair on her.
Ah well. That's the lot. Unless the producers have a trick or two up their sleeves, there's no-one that exciting here this year, suggesting everyone is still wary of another Shilpagate. Not even, as had been suggested, Andrew Sach's granddaughter. Is it going to hold our attention? The last 'proper' series of Big Brother didn't, and unless Coolio talking about hair straighteners is going to be the low point of the next few weeks, we're not holding out our hopes.
Ho hum. Time for a chart.
Latest Betfair Odds:
Verne Troyer 2.86
Ben Adams 6.8
Tina Malone 12
Terry Christian 12
Ulrika Jonsson 13
Coolio 13.5
Lucy Pinder 25
Tommy Sheridan 42
Michelle Heaton 28
Mutya Buena 32
La Toya Jackson 38
Our tip: Lay Terry Christian, and try to put that mental image out of your heads.
