Big Brother update: Sam’s first weekend in the house!

Day 1, Thursday 13th June

Nine housemates were introduced to the house – including Sam Evans, who is deaf!

According to the show’s website, Sam fancies Julia Roberts, he’s played for Great Britain and Wales’ Deaf football teams, and he wears hearing aids. He has 70-80% hearing loss, which his parents discovered when he was 3 years old. He wants to become a role model to deaf kids who are too ashamed to wear their hearing aids.

Here he is about to walk into the house!

We did not see on camera exactly how Sam told the other housemates he was deaf. He did the usual thing of bluffing his way through the introductions – exactly the way I would have. He seemed to integrate well and have a few conversations.

Sam gravitated towards housemates Michael and Callum initially.  (Michael, I should point out, is in fact not a “real” housemate and is in fact “the peoples puppet”, which the other housemates do not know!)

Later, Sam was shown on camera talking with Jemima, aged 41 who owns a “golddiggers dating website” who seemed to flirt with him by talking about his body! A lot of drink had been consumed by this point and, encouraged by Jemima, Sam took off his shirt…

Later, Sallie and Dexter gave him advice not to get too close to Jemima. He seems to getting on quietly with the other housemates and emerged as the bookies favourite to win the show on the first day. Of course there is still a long way to go!

There does not seem to be any adjustments to accessibility for Sam in that when Michael was in the Diary room which was then screened to the housemates in the living area, it did not appear to be subtitled. Therefore Sam has to lipread, which I know myself is no easy task. I am assuming that when Sam goes into the Diary room himself some form of captioning will have to happen.

One major event that happened on this first day was focused on Michael in his role as the ‘peoples puppet.’ When given the choice to either save his own suitcase and shred the other suitcases belonging to the housemates, or save theirs and shred his own, obviously he chose to save his own as part of the game plan. This led to us all watching their suitcases literally being shredded and seeing Sam realise his hearing aid batteries and related items were also being shredded!! It was later revealed to viewers only that they were not in fact their real suitcases!

Day 2, Friday 14th June

Six more housemates arrived. Sam was shown to be mingling and interacting well with the new and old housemates, although again I didn’t see on the edit how Sam told the new housemates about his hearing loss.

The housemates saw Michael being told “in secret” that he was to nominate the housemates up for eviction in a few days but not to let the housemates know! This is in fact a double bluff as Michael knows the housemates know, but the housemates don’t know he knows they know!! (Hope you are keeping up with this!! Of course, it is the viewer that will nominate them and not Michael but they don’t know this!)

Sam again had to lipread the tv while this was happening with no subtitles. I am still unaware of what accessibility Channel Five are giving Sam and I even raised this with them on Twitter with no response. I also cannot see on camera if he asks the others for help, or even if the others are helping without being asked. It may be of course that he has asked for no allowances at all to be made. It may be that his hearing aids give him enough support without any additional help. Hopefully this will become clearer over the next few days as we get to know him.

At this early stage Sam seems to be portrayed in the editing as some sex mad young lad – just my own honest opinion. Editing can be biased sometimes and the truth is not always clear.

There was the first bust up of the series – between Sallie and Gina – with Gina being formally warned for aggressive behaviour. First time ever in BB history a housemate has been formally warned on their first day!

Day 3, Saturday 15th June

Day 3 started with another argument between Sallie and Gina. Nothing like a good argument to wake up to! Consequently throughout the show there is a lot of focus on those two housemates and the affects throughout the house. Elsewhere we see the different groups bonding – including Sam.

Today we had the first task of the series! In line with the running theme of the series, the task was to do with a secret each housemate had. They were shown three secrets for each housemate and had to decide between them which they thought was the real secret.

The 3 secrets the housemates had to choose from for Sam were A) Related to Ryan Giggs B) Won the 2011 Air Guitar Championships or C) Won thousands on a Gameshow. The correct answer was C! (Discovered this was on Deal or no Deal and he won £7000 plus a holiday).

And that’s the update so far! Watch this space for more updates as Sam’s time in the house continues…

The Limping Chicken’s Big Brother correspondent is Michelle Hedley. Michelle is a Geordie originally from Tyneside, now living just inside the border of Northumberland. She loves discovering music and also has a love of the theatre, especially musicals. She’s a fan of science-fiction, watches anything on TV that is subtitled, and is now reliving her childhood renting DVDs! She is also a geocacher, and is on Twitter as @Shelle02

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