Just when you think that the Big Brother producers have finally realised what makes the show worth watching (almost), they go and take a massive dump in your soup. Thus far, Celebrity Big Brother 7 has been a relatively jolly affair. Apart from watching Jonas Basshunter show all the sexual mental maturity of a 13-year-old.

Anyway, apart from that, and not including Heidi Flewhocareswhatshe’scalled? being as grumpy as anyone with a face like hers should, it’s been rather pleasant and silly viewing.

Then, the Big Brother producers start to slowly put the thumbscrews on.

Last night, in an attempt to rattle everyone, the show decided to conduct a crossword puzzle. Nothing wrong with that you might think. However, the answers to this game revolved around the insults that had flittered around the BB house about their housemates.

So whilst the wry Stephanie Beacham took it all in her stride, regardless of the fact she was trying to guess whether someone had called her an old ‘whore’ or fool, the rest of the house let it get under their skin and the spats almost immediately started to brew.

Just as I was prepared to forgive BB for previous misdemeanors and pat it on the head as it died its TV death, up reared that ugly boil of idiocy.

Naturally, it’s fair to say that it’s inevitable that, should you lock a load of people in a house together they’ll eventually start to snipe, but this was a concerted effort to pull the rug from under the feet by the harebrained producers of the show. Last night we saw tears, bullying, rows and backstabbing…

… it was ugly old Big Brother making upsetting TV all over again. As such, I’ll probably avoid it like a dose of the bubonics. It’s been given too many chances (especially by me in the name of being a critic) and now it’s time to starve it of the oxygen of publicity it so clearly thrives on.

Until next time I tune in to slag it off.