A friend of mine, who I shall for the purposes of this post call 'Claire' (she's young and impressionable), announced to me and my mate Brum (who is old enough to know better) that she'd decided to apply for Big Brother this year. Why she'd want to, I don't know, but what was more interesting was the fact that she wanted us to help her fill out her Application form. She wanted to make it 'attention grabbing', 'controversial' and something that would increase her chances of getting picked - basically she was entrusting her possible future to our very incapable hands. Boy, this was going to be fun.
The first question was a tough one, entertainment-value wise. "What are your aspirations in life?" We talked it over for a few minutes, with the best offering coming from Brum which was a suggestion of rather Hitler-esque ambitions, along with one which was simply 'to find the best Newspapers to sleep under'. In the end I just asked her what her Aspirations in life actually are, to which she replied, "I just try to get by each day. I don't really think about the future." ....... perfect! Stage one of our Character Personality Profile was completed - manic depressive. I knew that the best material was likely to come from within her own answers.
Then we got to the real easy stuff. "List three things your family don't know about you". Two of the three were rather bland (partly due to Claire wanting to maintain a sense of reality), but the third one was the kicker. This character we'd created, we decided, had once gone on a boozy night out in Ayr (the real Claire's hometown) and by chance had bumped into a local football team. They got chatting, and in less time than it takes for Newcastle to concede a goal at home, five of them had taken her back to a hotel room and went for the full 90 minutes. Then, a few weeks later, 'Claire' had - because of her Stalker-like tendencies - looked up the players names (or atleast the ones she knew) on Bebo, and discovered that their hotel encounter was an option in a 'Players Highlight of the Season' poll.
Except there was one rather big difference between the real Claire and the character we'd created for her. It was, infact, the real Claire that had met the footballers (presumably the subs bench, since there were 5 of them) and all of that had really happened - right down to the poll on the website. Sure, it's extremely tacky and not exactly something to be proud of - Claire says she wouldn't have done it if she was anywhere near sober - but at the end of the day this character we'd 'created' (although I was starting to wonder exactly how much was fiction) had demanded filth, and besides, just think of all the jokes! Did they get performance ratings in The Sun the next day? Did they change ends at half time? The possibilities are endless.
Now, I will say, that when it comes to dirty jokes I tend to use them sparingly. Even after writing the above paragraphs I feel like I should go and wash my mouth out with soap (or whatever the equivalent is for someone spouting filth via a Keyboard rather than their pie hole) so I apologise if anyone feels it went too far - but I must return to my point that it all actually happened. But anyway, Brum is a lot more liberal with the Roy Chubby Brown type material than I am, and the next several responses from him all more or less pointed to the same character trait - "I'm a slut".
"I need to have more sides to my personality", Claire had objected, "Not just a Ho."
"True, we need to focus more on the Homeless/Manic Depressive side".
"Haha... oh dear."
The next question arrived. "What's your proudest achievement?". I suggested she should point to her answer for the 'three things your parents don't know about you' question - it seemed fitting that this person would hold a shag-athon with Joe Blogs Football Club in the same esteem as someone might hold an academic achievement. Hell, she'd probably have gotten them to sign the condoms.
What followed was half an hour of us refining, deepening and ridiculous-ifying the character, and Claire - unbelievably - lapping up our answers and making notes as we went along to use them. To be honest we'd long since given up attempting to simply help her fill out an interesting form and were more intent on creating a Psychopath (maybe the thought of her actually getting onto the show and having to act like this person, or at the very least at the Auditions, was all the inspiration we needed) and the fact she was actually considering our answers took us both by surprise, but we grabbed the opportunity by the horns. Along with the outrageous sexual exploits, this Big Brother auditionee was now homeless, auditioning for the house to evade Debt Collectors disguised as bin men, and under "Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about?" wrote "Wombles tell me to kill people".
Towards the end of this surreal conversation, it seemed like Laura was starting to lose faith with our suggestions and with the character we'd created. She wanted the producers to still see her as 'real', and was worried that all of the over-the-top stories about this creation shagging around and stalking people might put that hope in jeopardy. It was only when I pointed out that she had in fact done most of the things mentioned that she had to concede defeat and leave them in. If nothing else, it's a morale victory for creative license!
Of course, all I'm wondering now is that if a miracle happened and she got onto the show, became the countries most famous person for a few months and was paid huge amounts by the tabloids to spill the beans on her wacky Application form, shouldn't Brum and I be entitled to a cut of the royalties?! After all, it was technically our creation - it's like when a Cartoon character becomes immensely popular and some old duffer claims he thought it up in the 60's.
Sod it, I'll just tell her to make out she's a terrorist, instead.
The first question was a tough one, entertainment-value wise. "What are your aspirations in life?" We talked it over for a few minutes, with the best offering coming from Brum which was a suggestion of rather Hitler-esque ambitions, along with one which was simply 'to find the best Newspapers to sleep under'. In the end I just asked her what her Aspirations in life actually are, to which she replied, "I just try to get by each day. I don't really think about the future." ....... perfect! Stage one of our Character Personality Profile was completed - manic depressive. I knew that the best material was likely to come from within her own answers.
Then we got to the real easy stuff. "List three things your family don't know about you". Two of the three were rather bland (partly due to Claire wanting to maintain a sense of reality), but the third one was the kicker. This character we'd created, we decided, had once gone on a boozy night out in Ayr (the real Claire's hometown) and by chance had bumped into a local football team. They got chatting, and in less time than it takes for Newcastle to concede a goal at home, five of them had taken her back to a hotel room and went for the full 90 minutes. Then, a few weeks later, 'Claire' had - because of her Stalker-like tendencies - looked up the players names (or atleast the ones she knew) on Bebo, and discovered that their hotel encounter was an option in a 'Players Highlight of the Season' poll.
Except there was one rather big difference between the real Claire and the character we'd created for her. It was, infact, the real Claire that had met the footballers (presumably the subs bench, since there were 5 of them) and all of that had really happened - right down to the poll on the website. Sure, it's extremely tacky and not exactly something to be proud of - Claire says she wouldn't have done it if she was anywhere near sober - but at the end of the day this character we'd 'created' (although I was starting to wonder exactly how much was fiction) had demanded filth, and besides, just think of all the jokes! Did they get performance ratings in The Sun the next day? Did they change ends at half time? The possibilities are endless.
Now, I will say, that when it comes to dirty jokes I tend to use them sparingly. Even after writing the above paragraphs I feel like I should go and wash my mouth out with soap (or whatever the equivalent is for someone spouting filth via a Keyboard rather than their pie hole) so I apologise if anyone feels it went too far - but I must return to my point that it all actually happened. But anyway, Brum is a lot more liberal with the Roy Chubby Brown type material than I am, and the next several responses from him all more or less pointed to the same character trait - "I'm a slut".
"I need to have more sides to my personality", Claire had objected, "Not just a Ho."
"True, we need to focus more on the Homeless/Manic Depressive side".
"Haha... oh dear."
The next question arrived. "What's your proudest achievement?". I suggested she should point to her answer for the 'three things your parents don't know about you' question - it seemed fitting that this person would hold a shag-athon with Joe Blogs Football Club in the same esteem as someone might hold an academic achievement. Hell, she'd probably have gotten them to sign the condoms.
What followed was half an hour of us refining, deepening and ridiculous-ifying the character, and Claire - unbelievably - lapping up our answers and making notes as we went along to use them. To be honest we'd long since given up attempting to simply help her fill out an interesting form and were more intent on creating a Psychopath (maybe the thought of her actually getting onto the show and having to act like this person, or at the very least at the Auditions, was all the inspiration we needed) and the fact she was actually considering our answers took us both by surprise, but we grabbed the opportunity by the horns. Along with the outrageous sexual exploits, this Big Brother auditionee was now homeless, auditioning for the house to evade Debt Collectors disguised as bin men, and under "Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about?" wrote "Wombles tell me to kill people".
Towards the end of this surreal conversation, it seemed like Laura was starting to lose faith with our suggestions and with the character we'd created. She wanted the producers to still see her as 'real', and was worried that all of the over-the-top stories about this creation shagging around and stalking people might put that hope in jeopardy. It was only when I pointed out that she had in fact done most of the things mentioned that she had to concede defeat and leave them in. If nothing else, it's a morale victory for creative license!
Of course, all I'm wondering now is that if a miracle happened and she got onto the show, became the countries most famous person for a few months and was paid huge amounts by the tabloids to spill the beans on her wacky Application form, shouldn't Brum and I be entitled to a cut of the royalties?! After all, it was technically our creation - it's like when a Cartoon character becomes immensely popular and some old duffer claims he thought it up in the 60's.
Sod it, I'll just tell her to make out she's a terrorist, instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment