The Silly Season

"Silly Season" - traditionally, the period of the summer recess of Parliament when good news story fodder is sparse and the media turns to providing viewers with indepth coverage of skateboarding squirrels. In the modern era, a more outstanding indicator of the onset of silly season has appeared... the cultural sink hole of programme scheduling that is Big Brother.Tonight marks the commencement of the 2008 installment of Big Brother, that barren wasteland of shattered dreams and unregainable minutes of my life. But it prompts me to think: what would happen if you loaded the "house" with 12 gardeners?? And I'm off on my little flight of fancy....- Day 1: general politeness and genality abounds, everyone acts as though they are genuinely pleased to meet everyone else (while secretly longing for some alcohol to arrive).- Day 2: the sheen of newness remains, but the ~~prisoners~~ inhabitants begin to explore their surroundings. Much tutting over the landscaping ensues, with widespread agreement that brook thistle is just so last year. Later that day, two of the inhabitants are caught on camera in the bedroom confessing a secret joy in the brook thistle... meanwhile, in the garden, the remaining housemates are enthusiastically "lifting" it (and hoying it over the fence).- Day 3: the atmosphere is cool. An altercation about the positioning of the Aruncus is reported in the media, but doesn't feature on the evening update show....- Day 15: war has broken out in the intervening days. Only now after the battle of the perennials, the dessimation of the ornamental grasses, and the defenestration of the tree ferns (which involved some considerable ingenuity on the part of the Jekyll brigade) has a cease fire broken out allowing the broadcaster to, well, broadcast. Viewers at home are speechless as the camera pans across the desolate interior of the house. Outside, one group of seemingly feral gardeners is holding the geraniums hostage in the shed, while another engages in sorties across "no man's lawn" picking off the dead heads and dropping dandelion seeds as they run.... no longer Big Brother, it is Lord of the Flymow... the nation is on tenterhooks..... and the mood is decidedly ugly in the house....

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