OK I draw the line at Big Brother--and I'm ashamed of my sneaking weakness for I'm a Celebrity.

OK I draw the line at Big Brother--and I'm ashamed of my sneaking weakness for I'm a Celebrity, obtain me out of here!,

in which a assign places to of celebs eat creepy crawlies and brave snakes in the Australian jungle

further I have to admit to having been traped on two recent--and very different--strands of reality TV

The Apprentice pitted 14 would-be emperor of japans against each other in a series of challenges designed to touchstone their suitability for a piece of work with the British multimillionaire businessman Sir Alan Sugar. At the extreme point of each programme one contestant was 'fired'. The participants displayed considerable enterprise, creativity and ingenuity in their attempts to avoid this fate--and, at times, jaw-dropping grades of nastiness.

A vast contrast then to The Monastery, which followed five men as they worn out 40 days with the Benedictine monk of Worth Abbey, joining in their routine of prayer, work and silence. 'They were asked to listen continuously and profoundly to themselves, to other persons and to God,' writes the Abbot, Christopher Jamison. 'Forty days later, this lively listening had reshaped their hearts and minds.'

And, as discovered at a follow-up programme, the weights lasted. One of the men had get backed to an earlier aspiration to become a priest; another, an ex-offender from Northern Ireland, was visiting prisons; while a third had given up his work at jobs making trailers for sex chatlines. His strange beliefs, he said, had created riddles for him: 'I know when I'm doing unfit whereas before I was oblivious. in such a manner I have to forgive myself and accept myself, which I do by dint of asking for forgiveness and acceptance from God'

The monk were astonished and reaffirmed by means of the response. Forty thousand folks visited their website in the month following the first programme and centurys of people signed up to follow on retreat, testifying to the colossal spiritual thirst of our age.

Now, as we travel to press, it's the women's make go round The Convent follows a driven career woman, a recovering alcoholic, a free-living atheist and a mother of three as they lavish 40 days with the Poor Clares, an enclos order of nun For them too, the onion-layers of armour and fabrication are beginning to peel away, as they discover the courage to be their loyal selves--giving 'Reality TV' a whole of recent origin level of meaning.

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