BIG BOTHER

Hello? Hello? What the fuck is wrong with you people? Sam Snort goes away for one week s well-earned r&r and returns home to find half the country going ga ga about a television programme which does nothing more than poke cameras and mics into the unspeakably dreary lives of as abject a bunch of losers, tossers, dingbats and dossers as has ever been assembled in the one house.

But, hey, that s enough about Oireachteas Report, eh? Hell, there ll be time enough after the summer recess to nuke that fucking madhouse. For now, there s the no less disturbing phenomenon of Big Brother, the Channel 4 blast of so-called reality tv, to contend with.
Sam s annual week at his holiday home on the island of Lesbos meant that he was effectively cut off from the outside world for seven days, surviving almost exclusively on a simple but wholesome diet of olives, yoghurt, pure mountain water, freshly baked bread, dark red wine and some frankly spanking hardcore Dutch porn beamed direct from Amsterdam into the big satellite dish I have up on the roof of my sunny island home.
As you can imagine, between all that and the relentless but always welcome personal attentions of the olive-skinned ladies of Lesbos not to mention the traditional gifts of mountain herb bestowed on their favourite visitor by the humble peasants of the area Sam was, shall we say, preoccupied with other matters for the duration of his break and thus had no inkling of the dastardly developments afoot back on home soil.

Round Of Watersports
Imagine my astonishment then when, relaxed, refreshed, waxed, oiled, bronzed and shagged to within an inch of my life, I returned to Snort Towers to find the front steps bereft of human life.
Normally, the massed ranks of the domestic staff would be there to greet me in the traditional manner laying garlands of marijuana leaves around my neck and carrying me shoulder high to the master bedroom for a bracing round of watersports but this time not a single one of the miserable little fuckers had turned out for my homecoming.
And where were the ungrateful sods? Where d ya think? Down in the tv room, that s where, all agog with excitement at the latest episode of this thing called Big Brother. After I d had them all horsewhipped, beheaded and buried in lime, I called in my closest advisors for an up to the minute intelligence briefing. I quickly learned that Big Brother was considered so compelling that even its harshest critics watched it on the sly. So, it s almost as good as Foghat Behind The Music then? I asked. Almost, my chief advisor carefully replied, handing me a video compilation and suggesting I see for myself.
This is what I found: a house occupied by a group comprising of a shiny-headed gentleman of Afro-Carribean extraction, an elfin-faced babe also of Afro-Carribean extraction; a doe-eyed creature from, of all places, the island of Lesbos; an unbearably cheery Scouse git; and a lump of dour northern manhood apparently welded into an O Neills shirt. While I was away I d also apparently missed the departure of a chinless wonder by the name of Nick Bateman, whom I immediately dubbed Master Bateman since by all accounts he was a bit of a wanker.
And, er, that s about it.
In fact, what is most remarkable about this almost ferociously dull spectacle is not what is on view but what is so conspicuous by its absence: I refer, of course, to... Poontang. Oh yes, there s any amount of that ludicrous touchy-feely stuff, but of the old rapid arse movement there has not been even a single outbreak. And this is supposed to be real life?!?
Lemme tell ya, if Big Brother was filmed in Snort Towers, there d be so much third leg boogie going down that even the fucking hens would start to look a bit nervous.

Side Of Bacon
Of course, if the show was done according to the will of Snort, it d be a very different proposition altogether. It wouldn t be called Big Brother for a start, it d be called Big Bollocks, a reference both to my role as master of ceremonies and the fact that the first rule of the house would require everyone to be nude at all times.
Just think of how much more exciting it would be, for viewer and competitor alike, to hear the tannoy blaring something like Belinda, Big Bollocks will see you now whereupon the willing, witty and ideally very flexible Belinda would skip delightedly into the master bedroom where Big Bollocks (myself) would be reclining on the waterbed, dong rampant and all greased up like a good ol side of bacon.
What would transpire then between Sam Snort and his flexible friend would, I am certain, be a real television landmark in the great tradition of the moon landings, JFK, Tull on the Whistle Test in 73 and my own highly regarded documentary series charting the rise and fall of Irish tv, The Riordans: A Warning From History.
Now you must excuse me; Big Brother is coming on.
Your ever-lovin Samuel J. Snort Esq