LOVIN' LOVE ISLAND: MY GUILTY PLEASURE. BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

LOVIN’ LOVE ISLAND: MY GUILTY PLEASURE. (2015- THE PRESENT DAY) ORIGINAL TELEVISION NETWORK: ITV2.

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

Well, I can’t be highbrow all the time, can I, watching subtitled black-and-white Eastern European films about the meaning of life and death? Sometimes, even an intellectual like myself likes to kick back of an evening and watch a bunch of girls falling out of their bikinis in an effort to attract the attention of a group of (mainly) dunder-headed blokes with washboard abs.

I’ve only started watching it properly this summer, but I’m as hooked as a fish on a… well, on a hook, I guess. What’s it all about, anyway, Dougal? Well, Ted, it doesn’t really have a story as such, it’s just about football and that. Oh, you mean, what’s Love Island all about? Well, you see, Ted, it’s like this…

It’s basically a British game-show about romance and dating, right, the only kind of game-show I could physically tolerate. It’s been going on for a few years now and it has something of a chequered history, with some contestants and even a host, Caroline Flack, committing suicide in recent years while under its possibly leaky umbrella.

Since then, I believe psychological supports have been put in place to help contestants cope with the vagaries of the show and I can totally see how such would be needed. It’s a brutal system they’ve signed up to, after all. But it’s only a game, you say…? Don’t you believe it. You’d have to be as tough as a Russian spy to withstand the slings and arrows- especially the arrows- of Villa Love.

Twelve or fourteen young British women and men in their twenties undertake to live in a fairly luxurious villa on an island in Mallorca for two months of the summer, usually June and July. They are referred to as ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ to keep things light and playful. The sexes have to ‘couple up’ with each other and try to stay together, because being single on the island makes you vulnerable and you could be ‘dumped’ and sent home at a moment’s notice.

Molly was the Queen of the Villa until earlier this week. A blonde beauty who was well aware of her appeal, she played Mitchel and Zachariah, two beefcakes with barely a coherent sentence to rub together (seriously, why can’t we have subtitles? I don’t speak London!), off against each other until she eventually captured Zach in the coupling-up she’d been wanting for weeks.

Oh, I love being coupled up with Zach, she cooed and purred to anyone who’d listen. This is the real thing and I can’t wait to see where it’s going. They kissed and cuddled every night in bed- yes, coupled-up contestants must share a bed- and even dopey Zach seemed to be all loved-up wiv ‘is ‘Mully.’ Then comes the hammer blow…

Kady McDermott, a brunette bombshell from a previous series, waltzes in and snatches Zach right out from under ‘Mully’s’ nose, then the newly single Molly is ‘dumped’ from the island immediately without so much as a by-your-leave. By the very next day, Zach was trying to kiss Kady, even while knowing Molly would be watching the show from the outside. I said it was brutal in there, did I not…?

The show is as sexist as hell, with the girls dressed in thong bikinis that show most, if not all, of the buttocks, and the new style of bra that just requires you to cover the nipple and nothing else; you can show your entire under-boob now as well, the bits below the nipple, just as long as you’ve covered that pinky-brown villain…! I pray that this highly dubious fashion doesn’t filter down to the High Street…

The guys, on the other hand, wear long shorts and don’t show any butt cheek whatsoever, just the abdominals are on show and every single male contestant has got them… The double standard leaves the girls practically naked, but never mind about that, it makes for great telly! No-one wants to watch a bunch of fully dressed sheilas sitting around nattering, innit!

There are a lot of silly ‘challenges’ to occupy the contestants during the day, such as the recent one where each ‘gel’ had to kiss each blindfolded guy and the guy had to rate the kiss out of ten. So many mouths, all French-kissing like the end of the world was imminent and the only way to save yourself was to latch your tongue tightly onto someone else’s. Yuk. It sure wouldn’t have been allowed in the COVID days of good mouth hygiene and sanitisation…

Then there was the so-called ‘dancing’ challenge, where the ‘gels’ had to shake dey scantily clad tiddies and booties over the guys’ crotches while making meaningful eye contact. How can you make meaningful eye contact with someone when you've got your back to them? 

Hasn’t so-and-so got the most beautiful eyes, the boys all chorused afterwards, but we know where their own peepers were alighting, folks, and let’s just say it was a little south of the corneas, heh-heh-heh. 

Exotic television presenter Maya Jama hosts the show this summer, a job that Irish colleen Laura Whitmore used to have, and now she (Laura) is married to Ian Stirling, the Scottish comedian who currently does the funny commentary while the house-mates are pottering about the house doing silly little house-mate things.

Ooops, I said ‘house-mates,’ a Big Brother term. But, let’s face it, Love Island is just Big Bruvver wiv tits, and strict rules that would gladden the heart of Uncle Harvey Denton from another great show, THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN: ‘In this house, we don’t masturbate…!’

But, if Love Island doesn’t allow any actual hanky-panky between contestants on the show, as per its rules, then how come it’s provided the horny islanders with two hundred and fifty condoms- between them, mind- to last the whole way through the show? This is what I’ve heard through the grapevine, anyway.

I’ll leave you with a snatch of possible conversation between a Love Island ‘gel’ and ‘boy,' so-named even though some of them are pushing thirty. Naturally, I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty:

Gel, adjusting sound mic to draw attention to massive knockers- Fanks for pullin’ me for a chat, Kelvin. I’m so surprised. I fawt you wuz only into Kayleigh.

Boy- Kayleigh’s a fit bird, innit, but I don’t feel the same way about Kayleigh as what I do about you, see?

Gel, stroking own hair, feigning surprise- So, you and Kayleigh ain’t completely closed off wiv each other then…?

Boy- Well, I’m about ninety-percent closed off and about fifteen percent open to new experiences, innit?

Gel, sighing- That’s a hundred and five percent, Kelvin.

Boy, looking pleased with himself- Is it? Wicked.