Something Rotten in the jungle

"Ah wanna holiday inna sunnah!” Like many viewers, this reporter got sucked into the glass teat hit I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! for one reason only: the prospect of seeing Johnny Rotten undergo the Bushtucker trial, steadfastly prising eggs from the muck while coated in molasses and birdseed and being pecked by ostriches. It was a scenario that eclipsed even Bono’s anecdote about the late Johnny Cash getting attacked by an emu.

But of course, there was the further attraction of seeing how Lydon – one time Richard III in the riotous one-act car crash that was the Sex Pistols’ career – would fare among the C-list celebs dredged up by ITV for this year’s rumble in the reality TV jungles of Oz.
He played to type from the off, showing up late to the pre-match reception, throwing shapes and mugging for the cameras. It was apparent even from this point that he was the one lit firecracker in a cluster of duds, although the impartial viewer could betimes make a case for disgraced aristocrat Charles Brocket’s randy wastrel routine, Neil Ruddock’s East End blokiness, Kerry Katona’s dual role as vulnerable innocent and factory girl made good, or the toe-curling but compelling sight of Peter Andre trying to mount page three girl Jordan at every turn – when not subjecting the assembly to spontaneously composed ditties that showed exactly why he doesn’t have a record deal anymore.
There had of course been accusations of sell-out lobbed at Lydon from all corners, that this was a once great man reduced to appearances on grotesque telly circuses in the hopes of flogging his forthcoming album almost two decades since his last big hit, PiL’s monumental ‘Rise’. Such naysayings can hardly be gainsaid, but then the Pistols had already pissed in their own mythic river with that in-it-for-the-money reunion tour of ’96.
Besides, this was not Lydon’s first foray into the grisly swamps of Pleb TV – your correspondent recalls once watching the singer participate in the Courtroom Reality TV programme Judge Judy, wherein a disgruntled former drummer filed suit for owed monies, ill treatment or some such (the judge ruled in favour of Lydon, but not before cautioning him for his mouthiness in court). But beyond all that, this writer has always found it dubious when grown men and women spout platitudes about “manning the barricades in the punk wars”, as if getting one’s runners dirty at a Slaughter & The Dogs gig equates with service in the Spanish Civil War.
And as the first week of IACGMOOH proceeded it became apparent, as if anyone who saw Julian Temple’s excellent The Filth & The Fury needed reminding, that John Lydon is a complicated man. At times, sequestered in the jungle camp, he seemed bent on contradicting the rantings of his younger self as preserved in the barbaric yawp of Never Mind The Bollocks.
Here was the co-author of ‘God Save The Queen’ going to some pains to establish diplomatic relations with ex-BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond. Rather than being the anarchistic Antichrist of yore, he seemed an amicable old duffer, offering consolation and morale support to his team-mates as they underwent the horrors of preparation for various Bushtucker trials involving the immersion in – and sometimes ingestion of – bugs, grubs, snakes, rats and the kind of creatures the singer might only have previously encountered in the toilets of the 101 Club.
But here also was the man who once brayed “I’m a lazy sod!” exposed as a hyperactive workaholic, the keeper of the campfire flame, custodian of the water supplies and forager for eels. Here was a man who once snarled about being pretty and vacant now chastising Jordan for the same transgression. Here was a man who once cautioned us never to trust a hippy now getting all beatific with nature, taking extended strolls and conversing with sympathetic lizards – no, not Malcolm McClaren – when he got the hump with his fellow human beings.

Which happened more and more as the days went on. By the first weekend, we finally got our license fee’s worth when Dr Lydon became Mr Rotten, wearing jungle fatigues and blackface and lying in his hammock, staring psycho-eyed into space like some personality morph of Willard and Kurtz, just waiting to blow a gasket.
When he finally went ballistic, the main object of his ire was of course Jordan, whom he characterised as “dull as dishwater…she doesn’t lift a finger except to do her nails, that girl. I’m not here to support a page three fucking blow up balloon. They (her breast implants) are two a penny in any crap disco.” By now he could barely bring himself to speak her name anymore, and in an in-camera confessional session (during which the lens received a good kicking) he vented copious amounts of unchivalrous spleen. “‘It’ don’t contribute!” he sneered. “It’s a parasite! It don’t know how to cook, walk or talk. It’s a moron! It’s a bicycle pump! The smoke annoys her! It’s a campfire, bitch! No more! Bollocks to ya.”
Heeeere’s Johnny, and he ain’t a happy camper.
Later again, Lydon loosed yet more tirades against his team-mates for neglecting the campfire, for not making the tea strong enough and for, wait for it, peeing on the toilet seat – this from a man whose bandmate Steve Jones once spunked in bassist Glen Matlock’s baguette. And on the subject of Jones, there was one rare and precious moment of Lydon/Jordan bonding when, discussing the subject of liposuction, the singer scotched any chances of another Pistols reunion by letting slip that the guitarist once underwent the grisly fat-suckage process, whose unfortunate after-effects included his testicles swelling up to the size of balloons. Never mind the bollocks indeed.
Despite such moments of light relief, Lydon’s fuming went on all weekend and beyond. By the end of the second week in camp, he’d had enough and professed his intention to leave, citing a plethora of implausible excuses: that he disapproved of the harshness of the eviction process; that he wanted to give Kerry Katona a chance to win (and his arrogance at assuming he’d have automatically inherited the King Of The Jungle crown raised a few hackles among his former comrades); that he didn’t want to turn into Des O’Connor.
This writer suspects Lydon never intended to finish out the two weeks in the wilderness, and his premature exit was merely a premeditated and theatrical exercise in expressing contempt for the reality TV format he himself was exploiting. Churlish yes, but I switched off when he left. While it lasted, here was a true messianic fable for our times, the tale of a flesh and blood human being who did appear among the celebrities, and did dwell upon them for a short time, and on the second Thursday, did a bunk.
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
[Screen pix: Cathal Dawson]

I'm a celebrity's da.. John Lydon Sr. on his son