Name that chicken

BIG BROTHER. That programme with the steadily reducing number of strange people under continuous surveillance in the house with the chickens and the remorselessly rising media interest outside. Sorry? No, of course you don't watch it. But you do seem to know an awful lot about it.

BIG BROTHER. That programme with the steadily reducing number of strange people under continuous surveillance in the house with the chickens and the remorselessly rising media interest outside. Sorry? No, of course you don't watch it. But you do seem to know an awful lot about it.

And it is all rather interesting. After all, there was a metropolitan school of thought that the fly-on-the-wall documentary was old, tired and looking increasingly like a beaten animal of the equine variety. But there was still something left to be done: Welcome to Big Brother.

We could list any number of reasons for its popularity. Some will watch it, with its gallery of the self-serving, the prize-hunting, the attention-seeking, the conniving and the guileless, as the soap opera finally attaining its goal and becoming real life; some will watch it to confirm lofty thoughts about our descent into banality, meretriciousness, bread and circuses, a kind of "Lord of The Flies On the Wall"; others will watch it because playing God can be fun.

And you? Own up. You do know the name of Darren's favourite chicken, don't you?