First things first, a little bit of housekeeping.

First post into 2007 (2k7), so I do wish you a Happy New Year.

And my posts have slowed down quite a lot recently, because I’ve been busy (yes, generic response, but it’s true), also I’ve got some exams coming up at some point within the next month, so it’s mostly revision time on top of everything else.

Straight to the point now. In the UK, we have a show called “Big Brother” (and Wikipedia link here), which exists in it’s own form in several other countries around the world. The UK has two sets of Big Brother – a celebrity edition, in which it is mostly the same as every other “Celebrity” branded TV Show that’s not for charity, mostly actors from years gone by who people, for the most part, would have forgotten about. In some cases, not so forgotten about, as this year they have Dirk Benedict (Wikipedia) from the A-Team and Shilpa Shetty (Wikipedia), a famous Bollywood movie star, very well known in the Asian (English use of the word) community, and some more home-known celebrities (or former celebrities if you like), Ian “H” Watkins from Steps fame and Jo O’Meara from the S-Club 7 fame.

It has now become an international problem, in effect. It may sound as if I’m making this larger than it is, but it’s been all over the newspapers in the UK, even the ones that don’t even care about Big Brother and it’s all over the news on TV, and even on BBC News (See here, here, here and here).

To sum up the events that happened:

• There was an incident between a few housemates which involved breaking one of Big Brother’s Rules about talking about nominations. Shilpa was present at the conversation, but did not specifically break any rules.
• The housemates that did speifically break the rules where up for eviction
• One was evicted
• Three other girls who were not directly involved in the conversation began “bullying” Shilpa

Claims are all over that this is a racially motivated attack, for lack of a better word. The three other girls involved were:

Jade Goody – Claim to fame: Big Brother (normal series), in the 3rd series, and amongst several other things, which you can read for yourself.

Danielle Lloyd – Former Miss England 2004, it’s former because of her alleged affair with one of the judges, her current footballer boyfriend Teddy Sheringham.

Jo O’Meara – Claim to fame: S-Club 7

The alleged racist events are (taken from Wikipedia, because I’ve not actually seen all these events):

• Jade Goody’s mother, Jackiey, repeatedly referred to Shilpa as “the Indian” or “Princess” while she was on the show because she was unable to pronounce her name.
• Jack Tweed [Jade's boyfriend] called Shilpa Shetty a “fucking [expletive]“, with the bleeped-out expletive variously reported as “cunt” and “Paki”. [side note: in the UK, it is extremely offensive to call anyone Asian (British sense of the word - Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lankan descent or similar looking) by that name.]
• On Days 11 and 12, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara poked fun at Shilpa’s accent. Lloyd has also referred to Shilpa as a “dog”.
• Jo implied that all Indians were thin because they were always ill as a result of undercooking their food because she believed Shilpa undercooked a chicken meal.
• Referring to Shilpa using hair bleaching cream on her face, Danielle said “she’s trying to make her face look white.”
  In an argument between Jade and Shilpa, as witnessed by Danielle and Jo, Jade was derogatory about India by referring to Shilpa as a ‘princess of Neverland’.
• After an argument between Shilpa and Jade, witnessed by a giggling Jo and Danielle, Danielle said she thought Shilpa should “just fuck off home” and (in response to Shilpa’s recommendation that Jade take elocution lessons) that Shilpa could not speak English properly. She also mentioned to Jo that she didn’t like Shilpa touching her food because “you don’t know where her hands have been”. Danielle later apologised in the Diary Room after Big Brother questioned her on the comment. The next morning, Danielle spoke to Shilpa about the situation, but did not apologise. During the conversation in the bedroom, Jade entered, sat infront of Danielle, blocking out Shilpa, and began doing makeup. As Shilpa left, Danielle told Jade that she “tried apologising to her”. Later Danielle made an awkward attempt to apologize by saying “I feel really bad, I feel disgusted with myself the way I’ve treated you and the way I’ve acted, because I’m not like that, Shilpa, really,” … “And you can even cook me curry and you can pick the onions out with your fingers.”
• After an argument between Jade and Shilpa, Jade referred to Shilpa’s sari as “a duvet”.
• Jade referred to Shilpa as, among other things, ‘Shilpa Papadum’ and “Shilpa Fuckawala”. She later said she had done this with no intention of racism. Although creating more offensive names in the Diary Room during this, she apologised if her actions had offended anybody.

All I can say is that the evidence speaks for itself. These girls are vile and that’s all I need to say. To Jade’s credit, I might add, she did apologise, but I never got the slightest feeling of sorrow or remorse at all. Danielle did also try to apologise, but admittedly that looked all so clunky, it wasn’t an apology. Jo still holds to this time that she’s done nothing wrong, and hasn’t apologised.

Vile, vile, vile.