Watch With Mothers

Ah, the ladies! Sweet, tender ladies; Sugar and spice and all things nice ladies! After a hard couple of sleepless nights on the jungle floor, poor Camilla broke down in tears. As she was smothered by the other cooing contestants (all but Jimmy, who watched from a distance as part of an apparent suss-it-all-out strategy) the cynic in me wondered whether this might be a ploy to curry audience sympathy early in the game.

Next morning, the Strictly star was fresh as a daisy after a good night’s kip.

But no, on Wednesday Ant ‘n’ Dec reported that Camilla had made her exit. The nightly scheduled nature of this programme means that this inevitably feels like events unfolding but we’re still hardly flies on the wall here compared to previous years. Further evidence of the death of the Reality style? Or perhaps it reflects the producers’ respect for Camilla’s obvious exhaustion, her innocence, her gentle purity and her lawyers. What I wondered – having not seen the papers; everyone else knew apparently – was the identity of the pretty wee thing that would replace her. Every series needs its Girl Next Door Sweet Lass. What young beauty would be called upon to step into the shoes of this lovely, graceful beauty?

Joe Bugner, conveniently resident “just down the road” from this remote rainforest location, will look odd pouting from the cover of FHM or sporting a bikini in a Nuts photo feature. No offence to the man, but eye candy he ain’t, resembling Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund after a Vic and Bob style frying-pan fight. And before I’m accused of blatant sexism, let’s remember what show I’m reviewing here. I’m merely astonished that the casting has strayed from its usual adherence to reliable character types at camp and replaced a dancer with a pub man. Admittedly, though, Joe’s arrival on screen brought back memories of that Monty Python link, which pans across a field of swimsuit babes to rest on John Cleese, similarly attired, reclining on his desk.

Boxer Joe’s eagerness to assure his mostly-British campmates that he was indeed a celebrity, having decked a man that used to try to flog them aftershave in the 70s, came across very like the pub bragging of the experts that prop up the bar of my local, claiming to have flown helicopters or been close mates with the Beckhams. Or invented the roof rack.

Perhaps his likely arrival prompted the makers to include a knocker segment the night before, reminding us that there are still plenty of ladies to ogle. And they’re saucy ladies! Rude, naughty, don’t-get-many-to-the-pound ladies!

“Wherever you turn around, there’s knockers everywhere,” Gino complains before Gordon grills Kate about her boobies and whether the texture resembles concrete or cheese soufflé and describes Kim’s set of pendulous, swinging melons as a “theme park in themselves”. Tabloid backing is guaranteed as cutaways show the gals bathing their chaps in the camp’s waterfall cum shower.

(Those last two words should make a good tag for the article).

But what’s that noise? What’s that smell? Oh, dirty ladies, noisy, filthy ladies – pardon-me-for-being-rude-it-was-not-me-it-was-my-food ladies! Segued through nightmarish coverage of Kim’s violent snoring keeping poor George awake (no doubt exacerbating his much-mentioned “health grounds”), we move on to a discussion of women’s farts and burps which flusters – and perhaps further alienates – Gino, whose romantic cultural heritage leads him to define the fairer gender as “the beauty and smell of flowers all the time”. Waving his hands at the diary cam, he admits that he is unable to speak to his wife for 24 hours after she has let one go from either end.

Katie Price, meanwhile, faces trial after trial. I’m actually starting to quite like her, whether she’s going through with this to get the public onside (and the callers are certainly putting her to the test) or whether this is a “personal quest for closure” as she claims and I’m beginning to believe. Her genuine terror at gushing water in the Deathly Burrows was as convincing as I need (Ant and Dec looked like guilty schoolboys for a moment) and is matched only by her clear relief that the Bottle trial didn’t involve being immersed in anything liquid. Humiliation upon humiliation, punishment after punishment – the campmates sat and watched her School Timetable themed trial: actually a series of challenges based around the National Curriculum and featuring Snakes-sphere (a clever play on the name of a playwright grossly misquoted by Kim earlier), gloves full of ants, a cockroach coat and a hideous beetle based milkshake that she wasn’t able to down. The other challenges, though – cerebral, physical or just icky – she went ahead and did with spirit, suggesting that the eel featuring in one challenge would make a good supper.

So here’s to tough ladies, kick-ass Tomb Raider ladies, Zig-a-zig-ah-Grrrl-Power ladies! A trial that came a little too close to school bullying has clinched it. It may not have put me on Team Jordan but I’m edging nearer the bench (not that I was ever on Team Andre or Team Anyone. I’m not entirely sure what any of that means).

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