Sport on TV: Dennis swaps his dress for distress as reality dawns

Rodman was trying to ensure that his fears of celibacy were to prove groundless

But if Mr Galloway, the man who so memorably wiped the floor with the US Senate, was the star, there was a colourful supporting cast, including a cross-dressing NBA champion, a former squeeze of Sven Goran Eriksson and, in Jodie Marsh, a page three girl who claims to have been a major distraction for some of Sven's key players at one time or another.

Big Sister Davina McCall filled us in as the multi-pierced peroxide-blond former basketballer and wrestler, Dennis Rodman, exited his limo and entered the house (in men's clothes, sadly, rather than the crack-whore duds he seems to favour on his tranny days). He'd been partying at Stringfellows - of course - until the early hours. He'd brought extra large condoms and no underwear. He made his first movie with Mickey Rourke and Jean Claude Van Damme, which tells you all you need to know about his post-basketball movie career. He's also known as "Worm", apparently because, like a ringworm, he gets under your skin.

In his filmed interview, he clearly had no idea what Big Brother is all about, wondering, "Can we go out?" He then pondered the possible ramifications of not going out.

"Three weeks without having sex? That's bullshit. That house is going to suck. Really suck." Rodman has urges, itches that need scratching, but preferably not with celebs. "Famous people, they can be assholes," he said. "It doesn't make any difference to me. I'll fuck celebrities. But it's not my cup of tea." He laughed. "It's gonna be a wonderful thing, seeing me on that show. I'm going to be a motherfucker."

As he entered the house, one of his fellow inmates went all giggly - Traci Bingham, whose main claim to fame is being the first African-American woman on Baywatch. Rodman was spooked, steering round the edge of the room and making for Michael Barrymore, whom he greeted as if they were old friends. "This is weird," Rodman whispered.

Next in was Faria Alam, who in her filmed interview displayed that bewildering combination of self-obsession and naïveté that afflicts minor celebrities.

"People make me feel I've committed the biggest crime in the world," she said of her affair with the England manager. "Then why didn't you tell that to Adam and Eve? She gave him the apple, he ate it!" It turns out she just wants to be loved. "I am a good person. And I'm a normal person as well. And I'm not craving limelight." Best steer clear of reality TV, then, you'd have thought.

Later, live and very late (the things I do for you), she and Galloway were discussing Rodman. "But they said he was a transvestite," he said. "He doesn't look like a transvestite."

Alam corrected him. "He's a cross-dresser," she said. "But isn't that a transvestite?" he asked. "Isn't a transvestite someone who's trying to change sex?" she posited. "That's a transsexual," said Galloway. "Ah, that's where I'm going wrong," she murmured. This is a woman who speaks five languages.

In the kitchen, Rodman was attempting to resume his wrestling career with a drunken Chantelle, the non-celeb whose mission is to convince the others she's in a girl band called Kandyfloss. She was trying to make him a ham sandwich. He was trying to ensure that his fears of three weeks of enforced celibacy prove groundless. Suddenly, he looked round.

"Shit, these cameras are going to be on us 24 hours," he said. "These people are perverts. They have no life. No life."

I think he means us. Well, me.