Behind Enemy Lines
Well-known member
Germaine Greer, the 65-year-old author and feminist icon who shocked her fans by participating in Celebrity Big Brother, was today the first to buckle under the pressure of incarceration and quit the house.
Just before 12.30pm she blithely told housemates she was leaving and began packing her bags after an apparent row over food.
Her decision left Big Brother producers bewildered - just moments before she was happily playing a game with Jeremy Edwards, the Hollyoaks actor.
At about 10.20am she went to the diary room where she remained for about 10 minutes. She looked upset when she left and went into the garden on her own.
After a bottle-top throwing competition with Hollyoaks star Jeremy Edwards, she returned to the diary room, exiting again at around 12.20pm with her suitcase, saying "Happy, Happy, Happy".
Unlike others such as the Scotsman, Sandy, who escaped over the roof in sthe second series and Jack Dee, who made a dramatic bid to escape in the first Celebrity Big Brother, Greer's exit was quiet and composed.
She gave little clue as to why she had decided to leave other than that she was "fed up".
There was some hint that she was leaving over meal allocations - as she was quietly folding her clothes into her suitcase she was asked by Caprice, who was still in bed, why she was leaving and she mentioned food rations.
However, most of the conversation was censored by Channel 4 with a soundtrack of birdsong drowning out what was being said.
But the live video feed on digital channel E4 suggested the argument may have been over Big Brother's decision not to open the larder where the food was stored.
At 12.45pm Greer was still in the house and the larder was being opened, much to the joy of other contestants. She was nowhere to be seen but Channel 4's website confirmed her departure with the words "Germaine left the house on 11th January" under her Big Brother profile.
The Australian writer and broadcaster had already bid farewell, hugging fellow housemates Happy Monday's Bez and Blazin Squad's 19-year-old member Kenzie, who were still wandering in their white towelling bathrobes.
A bidding war is now expected to break out among national newspapers for Greer's story, with her explanation for getting involved in a show she had criticised three years earlier, guaranteed to sell copies.
The Australian author, most famous for her seminal feminist work, The Female Eunuch, is believed to have been paid around £40,000 to take part in Celebrity Big Brother.
In an Observer article published in 2001 Greer made her feelings about the show clear when she wrote that Big Brother viewers were "worse than voyeurs" and those who volunteered to appear on the show were "exhibitionists" with "pampered egos".
The trenchant piece attacked those she felt were naive enough to think Big Brother could be described as reality TV. The contestants, she said, were merely the pawns of the show's producer, Endemol, and the viewers were complicit in the producer's game.
"In the 17 countries that have worked the Big Brother formula, the programmes have had besotted fans though they may be sad and lonely, they are not voyeurs. They are worse than voyeurs, for the part they agree to play is not that of a helpless peeping Tom but that of Big Brother, Chief of the Thought Police," Greer wrote.
"The viewers who vote for exclusions from the Big Brother house, and we are told that they are far more numerous than the people who voted for the present government, are happy to observe, evaluate and judge their fellow humans on capricious and partial evidence and condemn them to ostracism, one of the most powerful weapons in the human social armoury, just because they don't like them."
Just before 12.30pm she blithely told housemates she was leaving and began packing her bags after an apparent row over food.
Her decision left Big Brother producers bewildered - just moments before she was happily playing a game with Jeremy Edwards, the Hollyoaks actor.
At about 10.20am she went to the diary room where she remained for about 10 minutes. She looked upset when she left and went into the garden on her own.
After a bottle-top throwing competition with Hollyoaks star Jeremy Edwards, she returned to the diary room, exiting again at around 12.20pm with her suitcase, saying "Happy, Happy, Happy".
Unlike others such as the Scotsman, Sandy, who escaped over the roof in sthe second series and Jack Dee, who made a dramatic bid to escape in the first Celebrity Big Brother, Greer's exit was quiet and composed.
She gave little clue as to why she had decided to leave other than that she was "fed up".
There was some hint that she was leaving over meal allocations - as she was quietly folding her clothes into her suitcase she was asked by Caprice, who was still in bed, why she was leaving and she mentioned food rations.
However, most of the conversation was censored by Channel 4 with a soundtrack of birdsong drowning out what was being said.
But the live video feed on digital channel E4 suggested the argument may have been over Big Brother's decision not to open the larder where the food was stored.
At 12.45pm Greer was still in the house and the larder was being opened, much to the joy of other contestants. She was nowhere to be seen but Channel 4's website confirmed her departure with the words "Germaine left the house on 11th January" under her Big Brother profile.
The Australian writer and broadcaster had already bid farewell, hugging fellow housemates Happy Monday's Bez and Blazin Squad's 19-year-old member Kenzie, who were still wandering in their white towelling bathrobes.
A bidding war is now expected to break out among national newspapers for Greer's story, with her explanation for getting involved in a show she had criticised three years earlier, guaranteed to sell copies.
The Australian author, most famous for her seminal feminist work, The Female Eunuch, is believed to have been paid around £40,000 to take part in Celebrity Big Brother.
In an Observer article published in 2001 Greer made her feelings about the show clear when she wrote that Big Brother viewers were "worse than voyeurs" and those who volunteered to appear on the show were "exhibitionists" with "pampered egos".
The trenchant piece attacked those she felt were naive enough to think Big Brother could be described as reality TV. The contestants, she said, were merely the pawns of the show's producer, Endemol, and the viewers were complicit in the producer's game.
"In the 17 countries that have worked the Big Brother formula, the programmes have had besotted fans though they may be sad and lonely, they are not voyeurs. They are worse than voyeurs, for the part they agree to play is not that of a helpless peeping Tom but that of Big Brother, Chief of the Thought Police," Greer wrote.
"The viewers who vote for exclusions from the Big Brother house, and we are told that they are far more numerous than the people who voted for the present government, are happy to observe, evaluate and judge their fellow humans on capricious and partial evidence and condemn them to ostracism, one of the most powerful weapons in the human social armoury, just because they don't like them."
disgrace to the female race - let alone Australians...
