DIARY
MARIELLA FROSTRUP Perhaps it's the lateness of the hour but on Saturday night, driving from Heathrow to the Hampshire coast, I'm consumed with melancholy. The endless stream of traffic on the spaghetti-like tan- gle of motorways brings forth nightmarish visions of the future: the Cornish Coastal Path turned into a five-lane highway; one-way traffic from Plymouth to Pen- zance; the Scottish Highlands flattened to create more fuel-efficient 'low roads'; the Welsh border transformed into the world's biggest bypass to bring thunder- ing trucks laden with our shopaholic hearts' desires to the northern territories. My cataclysmic musings are interrupted when some moron in a Ferrari with his lights on full beam mistakes my attempt to get out of the glare for a desire to race. Obviously high on testosterone and obliv- ious to Norman Mailer's recent diatribe on male emasculation, he swerves in and out of the traffic undertaking me and putting us all in mortal danger. I escape by pulling into a service station for petrol, and shortly afterwards reach my friend's seaside abode. A cold sausage washed down by a couple of glasses of delicious Burgundy around a beach bonfire, as we gaze across the Solent at the twinkling lights of the Isle of Wight, proves to be just a brief respite. Later, in the luxury of my linen-sheeted bed, I toss and turn as my dreams hurl me into some Fritz Lang- inspired Metropolis. Elevators snake the city where once we pounded pavements, and obese human beings stand like wax- works as they are transported from shop- ping mall to office block. I'm among a new breed of Homo sapiens: legs like chipolatas, grown stumpy and podgy through lack of use. I'm relieved when dawn breaks. It's 'only later, as we cycle through the New Forest to fetch the Sun- day papers, that my fears recede. As the grey clouds are perforated by the sun, and Mother Nature shows off with a mag- nificent rainbow, my mood lifts.
That night, I agree, under duress, to watch the first of my Edinburgh Review programmes in the company of my hosts. Nerved by copious amounts of alcohol and with a cushion at the ready to place over my head during embarrassing moments, I'm ready for the upcoming torture. I needn't have worried. Within moments my host is snoring loudly next to me, one of his sons is piling as much bedding as he can on his father's head to drown out the noise, while the other informs me with typical adolescent honesty that I look much younger on screen. I don't know whether to laugh, cry or suffocate him with my redundant cushion. Monday morning dawns and after an idyllic weekend on the coast I'm ready for a bite-sized morsel of London. Dinner promis- es to be a treat, reuniting me with friends I haven't seen for much of the summer thanks to my itinerant lifestyle. I'm eager to be brought up to date with what they've been doing, but I'm in for a shock. Within seconds of sitting down, all but one (me) of the assembled throng are engaged in a lengthy and heated argument about Big Brother. I haven't noticed Nineteen Eighty-Four rocket- ing to the top of the bestseller list, so I'm a little baffled by the subject matter. Slowly the light dawns. It's a television show that I've managed to miss out on completely. Nothing unusual there. Only the other day I was won- dering if I might be in for a television-licence rebate, not having switched on my set for three months. Inertia and my Booker Prize judging duties are my only excuse. Judging by how high passions are running on the sub- ject around the table, my pop-culture credi- bility is at a dangerously low level as a result. Still, I can't help wondering whether this lat- est attempt at television-verite (surely an oxymoron anyway) has much to offer. Do I really want to set aside a portion of my day to watch a bunch of (by all accounts unpleas- ant) people trapped in a house trying to make their housemates like them? I get enough of that on country weekends. 'It sounds horrific,' I finally exclaim. 'What's the appeal?"0h, it is really dreadful,' they reply in unison, 'but once you start watching it's totally addictive.'
Next morning I'm on the move again. Edinburgh beckons, where I'm in residence for the remainder of the festival. The news- papers on the plane 9.re dotted with stories relating to Big Brother. They mention people called Nichola and Nick, and debate the like- lihood of either one surviving the week. Competing for space is the unfolding tale of the horrific fate of the Russian submarine crew. Forty-eight hours fly by during which I cram in four excruciating hours of the Bar- baric Comedies, the sort of histrionic theatre that puts people off for life, and is tragically the great white hope of the International Festival; director Stephen Daldry's heart- warming and magnificent film debut Billy Elliot; a mesmerising display of Balanchine's choreography from the New York City Bal- let; and a Dali exhibition that has more in common with Magic-Eye puzzles than great art. My apologies to the Surrealist fraternity.
By Friday morning when my daily paper falls through the letter-box I still haven't managed to log on to the Big Brother web- site or tune in to the show. One glance at the front page and my world falls apart. The Guardian, often the last bastion of journalistic sanity, has fallen victim to the hysteria. One-hundred-and-eighteen sailors lie dead or dying in the murky depths of the Barents Sea, but equal space is devoted to the departure of the man they've dubbed `the most hated man in Britain'. Who can he be? Not Dr Harold Shipman, who mur- dered his frail patients in triple figures, not the man who cruelly ended the life of a lit- tle girl in Sussex, but some imbecile who fancied making a quick buck on what is essentially a television game show. Have we gone completely insane?
Since then it's been impossible to escape the deluge. As each new day dawns more lurid details about the contestants make national news: 'Nasty Nick: My Life Is Hell', `Big Brother Sex War', 'The Battle of the Big Brother Babes'. George Orwell must be turn- ing in his grave. Even he couldn't have imag- ined a future as bad as this. As Channel 4 press officers work 24-hour shifts to feed the frenzy, and smug executives rub their hands with glee as they tot up advertising revenue, the rest of the world must be looking on in amusement: a once great nation reduced to a bunch of television addicts whose voyeuristic tendencies have reached epidemic levels. Friends excuse themselves by muttering half- heartedly about the fascinating psychological insights to be gained from the behavioural patterns in the Big Brother household. The more interesting study would surely be our obsession with the world as defined by our television sets. Having accepted the addictive qualities of the programme (with so many casualties, how could I not?), I've decided to just say NO. Like heroin, there are some things in life I'd prefer to leave unexplored.
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