A feminist sister on 'Big Brother'

Germaine Greer is someone who has always relished going against the grain. But surely no one expected this distinguished academic and feminist thinker to end up taking part in Big Brother, the mother of all reality TV shows.

But Ms Greer is clearly following the lead of The Independent's own Janet Street-Porter, who recently spent two weeks in the jungle for ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and introduced a much needed dash of intellect into a genre that was perhaps turning a bit stale. It seems that if reality TV is the death of civilisation, the only smart response is for the intellectuals to colonise it.

But we suspect there might be more to Ms Greer's decision to become a contestant than a raging desire to share a hot tub with Kenzie from Blazin' Squad, or a wish to swap cooking tips with Brigitte Nielsen.

Could she have been looking for material for a new book? Another follow-up to her seminal feminist tract, The Female Eunuch, perhaps? We reckon that two weeks with Bez and John McCririck ought to provide her with more than enough material.