THE HALF WAY POINT

Today, Monday 21st July, is the exact halfway point of Big Brother 2008. 47 days of watching hms come and go and friendships develope and die off again.

We are now into the 2nd week of the Heaven & Hell divide and Luke has taken over from Darnell as Head of House. He chose Stuart, Rex, Maysoon, Luke and Bex to accompany him to Heaven, leaving Lisa, Mikey, Darnell, Kat, Rachel, Mo and Sara to go to Hell.

How are the remaining 13 housemates shaping up at this stage?

DALE
Dale is now the Head of House, having won this honour by being able to swing on a tyre, dressed in a gorilla suit, for the longest. This sums up Dale. He does have tenacity and staying power, but is not capable of much in the way of brain power. He is the sort of person who gets through life on his, granted, good looks. He can be aggressive and easily angered and will kick off when he thinks he can get away with it and not be challenged by someone stronger, or whom he percieves to be favoured within the group.

DARNELL
My favourite to win. He is intelligent, street smart and has a high sense of what is right and what is wrong and will not tollerate abuse of others. He has just finished his week as the first BB Head of House and as a result has left himself very vulnerable to being nominated to face the public vote on this coming Friday, thanks to those who spent the week in Hell being very bitter about his not taking them to Heaven with them.

KAT
Probably my second favourite. I love her gentle outlook on life but she is very sensitive to those she holds dear being hurt by other hms. Yes, she could be annoying to be with 24/7 IF she did do her cookie power thing or happy house thing all day, but she doesn't in fact do this despite what her detractors say. She has great insight into the way hms behave and she is genuinely hurt by people behaving in a mean way. A lovely woman who will probably be in the final 4.

LISA
Many, including myself, thought that she would come into her own when her 'boyfriend' Mario was evicted. Instead she has turned herself into a Mario advertisement telling her hms, and in actuallity the viewers how wonderful this bullish man is. She is sinking into madness too, telling her fellow hms of her sightings of aliens, how she is acting like Jesus by being meek (?), and that the universe was calling Mario ~ it was his time to leave the house. The thing about Lisa is that she is really strong and will work her butt off to complete a task and tries her best to activate her lazier hms. It is just a pity her strength of body and her tenacity is let down by her ever weakening mind.

LUKE
He is like a human mosquitto, small but intensely annoying. He reminds me of one of those kids at school who when asked by the teacher which child did wrong, leapt up excitedly pointing 'IT WAS HIM. IT WAS HIM'. He really is that annoying! His great friendship, which granted does have its funny moments, does not really help him much. The snide and bitch constantly and wo betide any hm who slights them in anyway ~ we never hear the end of such slights. Except of course when it suits Luke to change and be friends with that person, then the next hm suffers his back stabbing. The thing about Luke is that if he would cease behaving like a little brat he could be entertaining but he is souring many viewers with his nastiness.

MAYSOON
Probably the most beautiful hm in BB9 and certainly one of the most beautiful in any BB. She is very quiet so far but I see her opening up a little more now. She has a strength of mind and body and a certain dignatiy that will probably carry her through at least another few weeks in the house. So far she has not done too much in the house but I am putting that down to shyness ~ she is one of the newer hms having entered later with Sara and the now evicted, Belinda. I hope to see her coming out of herself more and showing us what she is made of.

MICHAEL (Mikey)
Probably the most annoying hm in the house. He constantly whinges, moans and back stabs. He is proving himself to be a miserable begrudger. His great friend Mario is gone and he is now under the wing of Mario's 'girlfriend' Lisa. And boy do those two bitch about the other hms. No-one is safe from Mikey's bitching. He sits around the house, like some sort of ghost, silent and listening and then carrying anything he hears back to Lisa where they devour the information and spit out bile as they chew. He also has an intense dislike of Darnell, Kat, Mo, and Maysoon. Yes, this could be their personalities but as he has a passion for collecting Natzi memorabilia, I fear it may be more to do with the fact they are not white. And the worst thing about Mikey is that, being blind, he engenders a fear in the other hms of nominating him to face the public vote and, saving BB putting ALL the hms up to face the public vote, it looks like he will slither his way to the final 4. Not a hope of winning of course, but unfortunate that he may get to the final at all.

MOHAMED (Mo)
Most of the time I like Mo but he does have an incredible greed habit. He is not alone in eating too much when the food is low (Dale and others will sneak late night snacks when the others are in bed). But apart from that, Mo seems a decent and loyal person. He is very close to Kat and they are a great support to each other within the house. I hope he makes the final 4 but I doubt it because many of the hms have him in their sights to go. We shall see.

RACHEL
A lovely girl but oh my, why won't she ever take a stand? She seems totally incapable of expressing exactly how she feels. She would be a wonderful friend but I'm not sure she is portraying herself well to the viewers in that she refuses to be annoyed or angered in anyway, she is like a perfect girl, cheerleader type and very sweet but I feel she should step up to the plate more and make a good account of herself and stand up for herself. She does have an inner strength where she will not do what she thinks is wrong, and that is great, but I would love to see her telling some of those who are rude to her exactly where to go. But I fear this is not at all her way, preferring peace at any cost. I would love to see her in the final 4, but once again her niceness will see her nominated soon ~ certain hms do not believe anyone can be that nice as they have obviously never encountered a person like Rachel, or her best pal, Kat, for that matter. Which is a pity because they are both great.

REBECCA (Bex)
A vacous, noisy, begrudging, spoiled lump. How this girl survives in the outside world I just do not know. She has absolutely no concept of working hard to complete a task and throws the towel in very quickly, usually whinging loudly about something not being fair. She clearly thinks the world owes her a living and nothing is dependent on her actually working towards it. There are times when she and her best buddy, Luke, can be very funny ~ he is so conservative and uptight and she is noisy and slutty, but those times are shadowed by her behaviour at other times. And perhaps if she were able to keep her clothes on for more than a day or so it would help ~ the entire viewership has been exposed to her huge breasts on umpteen occasions so far and the sight is not one most want or need to see. Put em away Bex!

REX
A very hot favourite with many ladies. He is arrogant, opinionated and very boastful and the ladies love it. I think a lot of his bravado is based in a need to push his fellow hms as far as he possibly can to see if he can get a reaction. He causes great jealousy among certain hms with his boasts of his rich father, his restaurants, his lifestyle. Instead of their saying shut up Rex they just sit there listening only to go and make snidy remarks behind his back. However, he is a great friend to Kat and fairly close to Mo, although he does give Mo a bit of grief from time to time. Although he is nominated quite often, he will more than likely make it through at least another few weeks if not indeed into the final.

SARA
I quite like Sara but her thunderingly loud voice and screeching laughter would make me want to kill her if I was trapped with her 24/7. She is a terrible flirt and unfortunately it is falling flat as the male hms are too up themselves with their eye on the £100k prize to be overly interested in her. She suffers the 'late in hm' syndrom ~ you are an outsider to the initial group and this does not benefit her. I'm not sure I like her developing closeness to Lisa and Mikey, it will do her absolutely no good in the long run. But I feel she is probably smart enough to realise they are not as nice as she thinks and move away from them. Probably won't make it to the final but a good hm nonetheless.

STUART
Stuart is a bid of a conundrum to me. He does show great strength and staying power in the tasks and if he would get off the fence a little more he could move into a pole position. Once again, he was one of the later hms to enter but he has overcome this to a greater degree. He could be a decent guy and make it to the end if he would just assert himself more and take a stand. Instead at the moment he is in with mostly everyone and that just doesn't work in BB.