BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

Big Brother: Channel 4’s wonder hit of last summer. We all watched it, we all denied watching it and we all had the phone on speed dial to evict Claire. Between 8:30 and 9pm on a Friday night, my local was like a morgue. We all denied that we were secretly watching it when in reality, we were glued to the TV. I was an avid fan. So much so that when I was at a friends gig one Friday night, I had my brother phone me half way through my friends set to tell me who’d been evicted. My friend was none too pleased when they found out the reason for my sudden departure half way through! But after many wasted hours in the office of my “proper” job, I’ve come up with the ultimate Big Brother experience: Morbid Fascination! Morbid Fascination works on pretty much the same principle as Big Brother only it’s for Goths. Ten lucky “victims” (not contestants, victims!) are selected to go into a big old house which is wired up with a number of video cameras and microphones. Like the original, the Morbid Fascination victims will have to do various chores to earn alcohol and cigarette money, have limited access to hot water and basically be left to annoy the hell out of each other for ten weeks. Every week, they’ll have a certain amount to spend on alcohol and cigarettes because lets face it, when was the last time you saw a Goth eat? They’ll be able to double that money by doing various tasks. These include doing each other’s make-up perfectly for a week while blindfolded and re-mixing a nice doom Goth version of some annoying Ibiza dance track. If successfully completed, they get double their money. Every day, they’ll only have access to hot water for between one and two hours. This means that they have to do everything: wash, do dishes, wash clothes etc in that time. One thing they won’t have access to is dry cleaning so they won’t be able to take any of the nice expensive “dry clean only” clubbing gear with them. But then where would they use it? Every week, one lucky “victim” will be evicted. The victims will go to the journal (Goths don’t keep diaries!) room and make their choice, followed by their reasons for wanting to evict that certain person. The results will be posted on the Internet and TV and we, the general public, make the decision. Other than the lounge, bedrooms, kitchen, garden etc there will be specialist rooms like a make-up room, a chill out room for those post alcohol blues and an S&M room. With just the cameras and themselves, they’ll be left pretty much to their own devices. Hopefully, because they’re Goths, this will make for much more interesting viewing than the original. The prize for the victim who makes it through all ten weeks: a year’s supply of Absinthe.