i ♥ Big Brother

Trust Big Brother to lift my spirits after a bit of unwanted melancholy lately. It's always such a great distraction.
Top marks to BB this season. I like the missing prizemoney. I like the trendy ultra-green house made of recycled materials, with a pedal-powered washing machine, and artworks on the walls. I like the way they encouraged preliminary gender bonding (and "bagsing" of potential mates) by grouping the males and females separately at first. I like the fact that the housemates seem to be 'older and wiser'. I like the new peep-thru features of the house, creating fishbowls within the fishbowl.
I especially like the way all the housemates are extremely Nice rather than Naughty. I know this will really annoy John Howard and Helen Coonan as they spend their evenings glued to the screen desperately hunting for signs of moral turpitude. They're completely caught out by Big Brother going highbrow (or maybe multibrow).
Here's this year's bunch:
HAYLEY, 24, lawyer, bold, high-maintenance blonde, single;
TJ, 22, barmaid, Bohemian, doesn't like "plastics", calls herself "real" and "eccentric", seems a bit timid, single;
REBECCA, 24, events manager, Mormon, conservative, non-drinker evidently eager to prove she can party as hard and act as silly as the next alcoholic, single;
KATE, 25, lawyer, voluptuous, possibly bossy, potential 'love-her-or-hate-her' character, single;
EMMA, 24, fitness instructor, "black sheep of family", claims she wants to subvert the dumb blonde archetype, single;
ALEISHA, 20, hairdresser, sweet, innocent, hippy, small-town girl next door, single;
JAMIE, 29, karaoke host, cuddly SNAG, video gamer, wants to win it "for all the nerds out there", single;
BODIE, 24, model, Rod Stewart lookalike, larrkin, cheeky, self-described ADHD "shallow attention seeker", single;
ANDREW, 28, firefighter, reserved, smart, friendly, SNAG, admits to fractured family relationships, single;
JOEL, 24, restaurant manager, Young Liberal, athletic, ladies' man, joker, athletic, possibly a little machismo, single;
THOMAS, 27, real estate agent, traditionally handsome, separated from wife and from recent girlfriend;
TRAVIS, 32, truckdriver, heart-of-gold, ordinary Aussie bloke, married with kid (and I'm tipping Travis to be an early favorite).
There are two more housemates to be voted in and I think producers intend for DEMET(Muslim bellydancer) and ZORAN(romantic stirrer, admitted liar), both late-20s or thirtysomethings, to enter the house. It seems hard to imagine viewers voting in the others, who come across as naive dags, but it may still happen. And would still make for interesting viewing, especially if, as it seems, the current group are relatively well-educated and probably fairly politically savvy.
Oh, and the two 'secret relationships'? Surely gotta involve Thomas, who was introduced as currently trying to decide between going back to his ex-wife or his recently exed-girlfriend. Do you think the wife and girlfriend might be in there? I'll pick Kate as the ex-wife and either Hayley or Emma as the girlfriend.
So, let the games begin....

update OK, I was way off the mark with Thomas, but my radar correctly picked up that Hayley was involved somehow: turns out her husband is Andrew, with ex-boyfriend Billy now also sent in, to complicate the couple's attempt to keep their marriage hidden from the other housemates. I was also wrong about new housemate Susannah; now that we've had a closer look, she appears to be the polished, classy "high society" type, not so much a dag, and clearly a big hit with the blokes. I predict a match with Thomas. The other new housemate, as predicted, is Zoran. The remaining four contestants have been inducted into the White Room, a monochrome place of supposed potential mental torture; the one who remains in the room the longest may then enter the house proper. I wonder if they'll make a reality show inside the reality show, with the real housemates watching a package of the housemates interacting in the White Room for entertainment each night?