CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (8)

By: Nikhil Singh
July 23, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of reconsidered passions, reassessed hates, and reversed feelings everywhere in-between. Series edited by Adam McGovern.

Illustration by the author. Click for larger version.

HATE ISLAND

Previous aversions to reality television aside, I attained various peaks and troughs during the epic vistas of lockdown, wherein I allowed myself the luxury of sampling previously forbidden fruit (entirely self-imposed). As is often the case, I discovered a hitherto unknown sweet tooth (or three). One being Love Island UK. (One simply doesn’t watch American reality television, because reality itself is a scarcity, thereabouts. Another story, another time. Meanwhile…).

I was lucky, I suppose, to begin on the infamous second season. I’d heard the rumours, seen the writing on the wall. Three suicides came out of the early series — one being the host, Caroline Flack. She’d beaten her lover over the head while he was sleeping. Apparently, he was cheating. Forced to endure a show trial of epic proportions, entirely due to the celebrity afforded her by the televised isle, Caroline later hanged herself in a Stoke Newington flat — only a few hours short of Valentine’s Day. Hard to believe, watching “The Flack” swagger into her villa. Every inch its sovereign queen, there to dispense random destinies and cruel fate. How those flinty eyes must have watered, alone on February 14th. Was Aphrodite so enraged by these tight pantomimes, enacted so gaily in her name, that she reached down a finger of doom to mark her envoy?

Another victim: “Muggy Mike.” Michael Thalassitis, favoured by Eros, entered the villa, sounding all the “tall, dark and handsome” bells, stoking maiden fire, from Derby to Deptford. After attempting unsuccessfully to poach someone’s (temporary) girlfriend, he earned the nickname that was to hound him to his self-inflicted death — in a cold North London park. “I’m not really muggy, I’m a good bloke” — epithets like this.

Two other queens haunted that villa, in the summer of 2016. A former Miss Britain, and circus performer, Sophie Gradon. She played it safe — found a “long-term” partner for most of the show. Hanged herself in 2018, blitzed on cocaine. Another less-fatal fatality of the lewd and louche season was the other Miss Britain, Zara Holland. At the time of the show, Zara was reigning queen. In those days, the cast were permitted to drink and smoke. In true, working-class British style, most were slaughtered by lunch, hazed by a bluish patina of cheap tobacco. Zara came on prim and icy, as befitted her station. Later, she dropped her guard. In one night of drunkenness, she allowed herself to partake of the wild nectar of Love Island, engaging in “romantic asides” (of a significantly carnal nature…) with a beau (whose name currently evades me). She was dethroned shortly after — on live television. Her crown, swallowed by turquoise seas, white-sanded beaches and smiling cupids. What’s rhe secret ingredient that drives Love Island, makes it vital and, in the final solution, so catastrophically British in character? Born of tabloid culture and class warfare, spawned by the fading memory of deb balls and royal envy — the secret ingredient, then, is hate.

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CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (8)

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