Sandra Harris Writes

LIFE LESSONS FROM LOVE ISLAND, or, THE JOEY ESSEX EFFECT. BY SANDRA HARRIS. © Oh God, I love LOVE ISLAND. I love watching it, discussing it with my kids afterwards, thinking about it when I go to bed and then going on Twitter when I wake up to see what the millions of fans thought about the previous night’s episode. It’s not even my guilty pleasure any more; I’m quite open about that the fact that I practically live for it during the months of June and July.  We’ve reached the halfway mark in the show and it’s making me reflect on the morals and ethics (and carnal forebearance?) of some of the contestants. Well, one of the contestants in particular, a tanned, muscular thirty-three-year-old bloke called Joey Essex. Sound familiar? That’s because he is familiar. He’s been a reality television star since 2011, when he appeared on popular television show, THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX. Since then, he’s been on pretty much every reality television show except THE X FACTOR . He has his o...

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 somethi...