Day 53: Round-up

An interesting day in the Big Brother House, to say the least. But then, with eight up for eviction, it was always going to be.

Things didn't get off to the best start when Luke A blanked Becky and Caroline over breakfast. Talk immediately turned to the pending eviction, with housemates wonderingwho was set to leave the bungalow by the time the day ended. The Outsiders made up for their lack of one-on-one time with God and said a little prayer to end the morning, as has become traditional for the gang from the smoking pit.

Given Caroline's shopping task sabotage, breakfast wasn't going to be the easiest meal of the day, but Luke S set about baking a cake for Conor's birthday with what they did have - the man from Derry turned 25 on the fifty-third day. An anniversary that Big Brother was soon to exploit.

The Lies On The Prize task saw Conor tasked with fibbing his way through the afternoon in the hope of winning himself a party - a mission he set about with fervour. In the midst of his campaign, Sara and Deana crossed their wires in epic fashion, starting an argument that rumbled slightly incoherently through the rest of the day. But good news soon came along when Conor learned he had earned his chums a party - and lo, there was much rejoicing in the form of football, snacks and delicious drinkables.

Then the evening arrived and it was time to find out who was safe and who got the boot.Caroline was the evicted housemate after seven had been pronounced safe. Sara was first to get the good news, then The Outsiders in turn. Brian gave Ashleigh and Conor a free pass after that, and Luke S wriggled away from the front door just as Caroline exited.

She left a bit of a mess in her wake. Some bloody noses, a real lack of tobacco and only sweets to eat all week. No wonder the housemates were down when she went. And what's more, the Deana and Sara argument piped up again, with the two friends trying to negotiate an agreement into the early hours.

Will things settle now the arch stirrer has gone? Maybe. Or perhaps another housemate will see fit to slot into the role of trouble-maker with gusto just as soon as they raise their bleary heads on Day 54.

Last night, in a bathroom outburst to Sara, wildcard Becky showed both the 'wild' and 'card' side of her character. In the tone of a storyteller who wants to scare children, she growled that she has a winning game plan which involves being silent and taking up smoking and... no, that was it .  

Obviously, this is not the most sophisticated gameplan the world has ever seen. It's likely that it's just an extended piece of anti-Outsiders dramatics rather than anything remotely serious. After Deana, Adam and Luke A received crowd cheers during last night's eviction show, she and her Insider pals, who take the reductionist view that the trio do nothing but smoke and stare, are unsettled and confused. It seems that Becky's response is to satirise the situation in a one-woman-show.

But can Becky put her money where her mouth is? The bubbly Boltonian has a voice that astronauts report is detectable from space. And was the fag-promise nothing but (the apparently impossible) smoke without fire? Although she shows no signs of smoking, Becky has had an impressive bash at the 'silence' part of her plan since waking.

She got up in silence, sunbathed in silence and had breakfast in silence.  Now she's back to sunbathing in silence occasionally sighing dramatically or pouring her personality into hand gestures.

Scott thinks this behaviour is too alien to her character for her to possibly keep it up but what do you think? Is this serving a secondary purpose as an audition video for a mime troupe? There's only one way to discover how this weird and wonderful scenario plays out and that's to keep checking the website. You know it makes sense.

Later today, housemates will play a round of Standing on the Shoulders of Prizes. Intriguing name but what does it mean? In short it's an endurance test with the chance to win an extraordinary prize. In long, well...

Big Brother has delivered nine presents which have been placed in the garden. Each of these presents is labelled with housemates' names and each present contains a different prize.

All housemates have to do is stand on the presents to win the prizes inside. However, only the housemate that manages to stand on their present the longest will actually get to win the prize inside.

The housemates will not know which prize is in their box, but the prizes that are up for grabs will be on a big board in the garden.

The majority of these prizes are luxury gifts that will be delivered to their homes if won.

When housemates can stand it no longer, they must say their name followed by "is no longer present".  They can then open their present to see what they could have won.  They must then move their gift to the ‘LOST’ section on the prize board in the Garden.

 The prizes up for grabs are:

- Weekend break for two to Barcelona
- £1,000 cash
- 50" L.E.D. television
- Mountain bike
- One year's gym membership
- Spa day for two
- Day of flying lessons
- Coffee machine
- Toilet brush

 As ever, in this unpredictable world we call Big Brother, there is a secret spin in the mix. Earlier, Adam was called to the Diary Room and given the power to allocate specific prizes to specific housemates. He shuffled pictures of his nine homies round the board and as you may imagine, the Insiders have not come out of this bathed in glory.

Adam is not allowed to mention his manoeuvres to any of the housemates so he's just going to sit back – or rather than stand tall – and watch it all unravel. Why not come back here later and join him.