Day 20: Celebrity showdown! The Jim versus Linda bonanza
If there's one story dominating the CBB headlines this series, it's not the Lee, Casey and Jasmine love triangle â though that still rumbles on to some degree. The real talking point setting the nation's tongues wagging concerns two light entertainment stalwarts going at one another, every night on our screens.
This is a subtle war of attrition on a scale we rarely see inside those four walls. Usually warring factions are explosive in combat but this pair generally sail along fairly pleasantly, even complimenting each other and conversing on a level. However, no matter how smoothly they seem to be progressing, you can guarantee they'll crack and subsequently snipe at some point. Passive-aggressive character deconstruction is the name of the game with this pair and it's so ruddy complex we're almost too frightened to dive in.
But to hell with it â let's look at the defining moments since Day 1 in this volatile friendship.
Frank Carson's dressing room
"What happened in Frank Carson's dressing room?" For a brief but bubbling 24 hours, this was the question on everybody's lips. We soon found out (and we don't need to cover that ground here) but the way in which the topic was raised caused quite the hullabaloo. Was Jim bringing it up to try and fan the flames or was it a deliberate attempt to rake over past problems? Was Linda making more of the historical reference than was maybe necessary - or was her genuine sadness interpreted as tactical by Jim and some of the audience? We'll never know, sadly, as we can't clamber inside Jim's head or Linda's head to find out. Curses!
Girls vs Boys
"Don't you miss a man in your life?" Jim asked Luisa when the Apprentice runner-up was talking about family life. It sounded perfectly innocent at the time but Linda is a woman who is always alert to Jim's self-confessed 'male chauvinism' (as is Luisa) and she didn't like his tone. Thus, an argument (largely based on misheard sentences) and confusion broke out in a scenario that might otherwise have been as peaceful as any other. The blue touch-paper can be lit at any time when it comes to Jinda.
Cherry brandy
The most recent spat was over an innocuous brandy liquor. When Jim showed solidarity with his husky HMs, telling them he refused to drink his brandy, was he purposefully trying to expose Linda as selfish, somehow, as she suggested? Why did he neglect to mention the wine he'd quaffed? And why did Linda feel the need to even mention that she'd sipped her beverage?
We've raised more questions than we've answered, which is unhelpful - but that's probably because this is a feud based on past associations we'll never fully understand, a hefty personality clash, oppositional principles and a dual campaign of calculated offensives, back-biting and constantly shifting group dynamics.
Basically, it's all out war, so we're climbing back into the bunker to keep on rubbernecking. Feel free to join us and try not to cop any flak.
