Inhibition, embarrassment, indirectness, hypocrisy, gritted-teeth politeness – all very English, and, you might say, not particularly surprising. But think for a minute about who these Big Brother participants were. The people who applied and auditioned to take part in this programme actively wanted to be exposed to the public gaze, twenty-four hours a day, for nine weeks, with absolutely no privacy, not even on the loo or in the shower – not to mention being obliged to perform idiotic and embarrassing tasks. These were not normal, ordinary people: these were the most shameless, most brazen,
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