I'm a Celebrity: Watch out girls, Mark's winning best of the chests
Janet Street-Porter returns to the jungle
For the last week, Ive risen at 3.45am just like the plucky Im A Celebrity contestants. Thankfully, the start to my day couldnt be more different.
They (poor dears) will have had a disturbed night, on hard camp beds or uncomfortable hammocks, woken at regular intervals by Crissy and Marks legendary snoring or Sinitta screaming when bugs land on her sleeping bag.
Rats will have scuttled under their beds and round the fire. Spiders will have dropped on their heads. I know from my own experience in 2004 that once youve spotted one creepy-crawly, you constantly force yourself awake to look for more, resulting in self-inflicted sleep deprivation.
The campers will feel dirty, itchy, and exhausted. The alpha males (Mark and Pat) will be starting their intensive grooming routines, (rather like monkeys) anxious to appear buff from the minute they spot any cameras in the bushes.
Dougie will be folding his bandana perfectly and fluffing out those little bits of hair at the bottom working out how to send a secret sign (wiggling his little finger) to new girlfriend Lara back home. (Like what? Im missing you, I promise not to ogle Emilys upper body bits?)
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I leave my hotel in blissful silence to travel to the set of Im A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here Now!, the ITV2 show which follows the live action, on which Im a panel member whereas the mind-numbing low-level grumbling, score-settling and wittering that is the soundtrack to every Im A Celebrity day will already be under way.
I know from my experience, the one luxury you cant buy in the jungle is silence. Theres always an airhead with a platitude (Mark and Lorraine excel at the working-class truism) to fill any gaps in the conversation. Its like living with a radio you cant turn off. Shut Up! you want to scream, but theyd only look at you as if you are mad.
Janet says I'm A Celebrity contestant Mark Wright excels at the working-class truism
There will be interminable discussions from first light about what day it is, what time it is, whether anyone else is coming in to join the camp. There will be whispered moaning about Fatimas bossiness. Antony will be furious that Stefanie is still convinced she knows what to cook, that Willie thinks he knows the best way to set the cooking pots.
There will be mutterings about who didnt fetch water, why there are no logs for the fire. Maybe Fatima did have a point when she dared to state the obvious in order to cook and run a camp kitchen for 12 people, you need a rota, a few rules. Trouble is, Fatima (like me, I admit) hasnt been blessed with the tact gene, has she?
Antony will be on his normal emotional rollercoaster exuberance after a successful trial, tantrums over cooking couscous, and private tears in the Bush Telegraph because its all getting too much darlings.
The 40-minute drive from my beach hotel up to tropical rainforest and the setting for Im A Celebrity takes place in blissful silence. The light is pink, and theres mist by the wide River Tweed. Fields of sugar cane, a little racetrack where jockeys are already exercising the horses, up through rolling hills, on to a narrow twisting track climbing higher, which ends with a security checkpoint.
This is the outer limits of the massive Im A Celebrity camp. The site covers hundreds of acres of steeply wooded tropical rainforest on the edge of a National Park, on the borders of New South Wales and Queensland.
Its a year-round operation (the German version of the show is filmed here in January), and part of the site is dedicated to building and testing the props used for the trials. Theres a site canteen (where the food is very good), a medical facility, and rows and rows of portable offices, where the production team watch footage of the 24/7 surveillance of the inmates (sorry, contestants).
Bathing beauties: Jessica-Jane Clement (left) and Emily Scott (right)
The site is patrolled by security guards to prevent nosy journalists getting in and stop any contestants trying to escape. The production teams work around the clock Russell Kane, Joe Swash and Laura Whitmore, who present the ITV2 show, arrive at 1am and watch the previous days action. Russell writes a hilarious monologue in the small hours, based on his forensic take on events.
Ant and Dec arrive at 3am to prepare! for the main show. Afterwards, they work through till 1pm filming bush tucker trials a demanding schedule, especially as the teams liaise constantly with the UK, 11 hours behind. Edit teams work through the night, cutting the hours of screaming, tears and tantrums of the bush tucker trials and campsite scheming down to five-minute packages for transmission. Its very impressive and the same technicians work on the show every year.
Before the UK show starts, a group of family and friends volunteer to go into the campsite for several days and all the stunts, the trials and the challenges are completely tested for real, so the camera crew work out how to shoot them for maximum effect. As the live show ends at 8am, the second shows team will have just five minutes to get on to the set (a huge wooden platform suspended on the side of a steep hillside, with a canopy to keep out the rain) and ready to go!
All in silence as Ant and Dec make their way up the walkway through the jungle, talking to you lot back in Blighty, just 20ft away from us. The camp is only 300 yards away down a steep ravine. So near, but so far for the tortured souls trapped there! Im drinking a delicious espresso, eating brown toast with honey and theyre making do with water and a few bits of rice. Boo hoo!
I spend an hour in a portable studio with a blasting air con unit, looking at footage and getting made up a laugh as its 35 degrees under the lights and my hair soon droops. Clothing has to be light and loose as you drip with sweat the humidity is 70 per cent, and huge flying bugs regularly land on your legs. I do quite a lot of swatting, but worry it looks as if Im having a fit, so I wait till the ad breaks to stamp on a hornet.
This years show is proving to be a cracker theres no shortage of material to talk about. Pervy Pat offering to cycle to power the shower so that Jessica and Emily could get their kit off in the traditional battle of the wet breasts that is a jungle tradition. Will they knoc! k Myleen e Klass off her gold medal position in the wet bikini competition?
Never forget there are two sets of challenges in Im A Celeb the trials outside the camp, and the endless internecine warfare in the battle for your votes as we get close to eviction time. This time around, Mark is getting his kit off as much as the glamorous girls can that man keep his vest on?
In Marks head theres just two kinds of women big breasted ones he wants to have sex with, and much older ones, led by his adored mum. Isnt it great to have such a small, simple intellect? A world in which you the perfect specimen are at the centre of everything?
Sadly, the older women in camp, Lorraine, Crissy and Stefanie, are not making any impression. Theyre too nice, and will soon be gone. Every show needs a screamer, and this year Sinitta is the clear winner. Our camp had Natalie Appleton, who was convinced that trees would kill her. And who can forget Gillian McKeith and her famous faint a year ago?
Sinitta, in spite of Paul McKennas tips on self-hypnosis (which involve crossing your arms like a demented nun while chanting happy birthday) is this years sniveller. Shes trembling like a leaf, embarking on her journey to deal with her issues. But we know exactly where shes going back on trial. By 11am, Im back at the beach. For the happy campers, its another day, another trial, and the prospect of eviction. Tough. I think Ill have another slice of toast.
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