The only thing I’m finding boring about Big Brother as it begins its ninth full series is the debate about whether or not it’s boring.
As I read Cilla Black’s thoughts in the Metro this week and recognise echoes from elsewhere, I think of that other dull debate that surfaces every year: what Christmas is all about. Every year the resurfacing of that old conversation is inevitable, and it doesn’t matter who’s going to say that they don’t like the commercialisation of it or who’s going to remind everyone that it’s based on a Pagan festival, or who’s going to explain that they think it’s just about having fun, as long as everything gets said in the end.
What is it about people that makes them need to pick sides, and therefore choose the dullest possible response to a question? Do any of us really think about what we think, or do we just pick the ready-made answer that seems to fit best?
Where do our ideas come from?