Big Brother could lead to fatal copycats, rivals claim

Matt Wells, media correspondent
Tuesday August 29, 2000
The Guardian

A BBC executive and a prominent psychologist have criticised the Channel 4 TV show Big Brother as a "freak show" that could spawn dangerous and even fatal copycat versions.

Phil Harding, head of editorial policy at the BBC, said the race to replicate the successful format would "mess up" participants' lives as rival shows tried to outperform each other.

And Raj Persaud, a psychologist and media commentator, said Big Brother's premise - filming a group for 24 hours a day and ejecting one each week - was based on exploiting ordinary people's lives.

Both were speaking at the Guardian Edinburgh international television festival, in a debate about the surveillance-TV format that is increasing in popularity around the world.

Peter Bazalgette, head of Bazal, the company that makes Big Brother for Channel 4, denied that any of the participants would be harmed. All had applied to take part in the show, and had been told of what to expect.

He also categorically denied that Nick Bateman, a contestant who was evicted for cheating, was a "plant" designed to spice up the show. While the programme was never intended to be a social experiment, he said: "It's riveting, it's revealing, and it's entertaining."

Mr Harding said while Channel 4 had taken responsible steps to care for the contestants, other producers might not be so scrupulous. Warning against the inevitable rash of copycat shows that will follow Big Brother, he said: "At the top of the curve, there will be dozens of shows. They will push it and push it, and it won't be a responsible company like Bazal, there will be a real plant, and it will really mess with people's lives. A killer application will become a real killer application."

Dr Persaud said the current series had already taken advantage of its contestants in a damaging way. "These people have been stereotyped. They have been turned into freaks."

Sada Walkington, the first contestant to be "evicted" in the process by which the 10 contestants are gradually eliminated, said the editing of the show was designed to cast certain people in defined roles, and did not show the flaws of others. "We weren't told that we would be manipulated as characters," she said. "I was typecast as the dippy hippy southern posh blonde. They were putting us up to be people we weren't."

She was critical of the programme's website, which contains written summaries of the activities in the house. "I find some of the stuff they wrote was really cutting, quite destructive of my personality."

Ms Walkington said the show's editors had promised not to broadcast scenes of participants in the shower unless there was a good reason to do so. Recently, she claimed, several had been shown showering for no reason other than to titillate the audience.

Ruth Wrigley, the show's executive producer, said after the debate that there were always "editorial reasons" for showing someone in the shower, such as to demonstrate that they had just got up. "I just got bored with exactly the same getting-up sequence," she said.

At an earlier session, David Liddiment, ITV's director of programmes, revealed that he had turned down Big Brother because he thought it would be boring. "Everyone has their turning down the Beatles story," he said.

In brief

Tuesday August 29, 2000
The Guardian

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Well-wishers jammed phone lines to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital after hearing that Reggie Kray, the former East End gangster freed from jail on compassionate grounds last week, was too ill to go home. Kray, 66, who was serving life, has bladder cancer. The hospital is installing a separate line to take the calls.

Space alert for junk and gales

The MoD's defence evaluation and research agency is studying the feasibility of a European space weather service to track hazards such as magnetic storms and man-made debris which threaten power grids and satellites. The Rutherford Appleton lab in Oxfordshire is leading the study.

Police hunt for dancer's killer

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Rain sends rail travel west

Flooding on the East Coast line at Granthouse, Berwickshire, caused delays and diversions for southbound trains from Scotland. Passengers could use their GNER tickets for Virgin's west coast trains but were warned seats were scarse because of the bank holiday.

Eco-friendly float by the sun

Ra, a 30ft solar-powered boat, is offering tourists "silent" cruises on the Norfolk Broads as an alternative to the environmentally damaging diesel craft.

 

Hauliers cut France's fuel lifeline

Jon Henley in Paris

Wednesday September 6, 2000
The Guardian

Petrol stations around France ran dry yesterday as a countrywide blockade of refineries and fuel depots by road hauliers choked off supplies.

Drivers queued bumper-to-bumper at the dwindling number of stations still open by late afternoon, on the second day of the blockade, or drove miles looking for top-ups. In many regions, the authorities imposed a £15 limit per vehicle, or ordered attendants to serve only doctors, firefighters and the emergency services.

"It's mayhem and it's been like it all day," said Christophe Dupuis, a weary pump attendant at a supermarket petrol station in Stains, in the northern suburbs of Paris.

"Usually people spend about £15, now its £30 or £40. We're already out of unleaded. We've sold 12,000 litres since lunchtime, when the normal average would be 3,000."

As the beleaguered transport minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, headed into late afternoon talks in Paris with the haulage firms, who are demanding a backdated 20% cut in fuel taxes to offset soaring world prices, oil company Total said that 70% of its 6,000 petrol stations were dry and the figure could reach 90% by the end of the evening.

The blockade is supported in many areas by taxi drivers, farmers, ambulance firms, driving schools and removal companies. "This is my fourth attempt to fill up," said Eric Bouchet, a plumber, queuing at the Stains station. "The others had run out of diesel. No fuel means no work."

Mr Gayssot had earlier said that the EU and the European central bank should signal to oil producers their discontent at prices that have hit a 10-year high of more than $30 a barrel.

"Europe as a bloc - and the ECB as well, because I'd like to hear it on this issue and not just on plans to raise interest rates - should show its determination to discuss the matter, including with the Opec countries," he said. "Things cannot carry on as they are."

The blockade of some 80 depots and refineries was inspired by the success of a fishermen's blockade of most French ports that stranded thousands of British tourists last week. That ended when the government agreed to generous compensation for fishermen, including cutting social security charges.

The lorry owners dismissed out of hand an offer of a 10% cut in state fuel taxes, made late on Monday night. "We can keep going for at least a week," said René Petit, head of the National Federation of Road Hauliers. "Hundreds of firms will go out of business before the year end unless their fuel bills fall."

The oil industry federation said the protesters, who needed only to park a couple of articulated lorries and a tractor or two outside a fuel depot's gates to cut off supplies, had blocked off all sources of wholesale fuel.

The blockade hit regional airports too, with officials at Nice and Mulhouse-Basel saying they had only enough aviation fuel left for one more day. Orly and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airports in Paris were not affected as they are supplied by pipeline.

The hauliers say France's heavy fuel taxes, second only to Britain's in the EU, and high world prices mean they cannot compete internationally.