Gracious in defeat

You've got to feel a little sorry for Vinnie Jones this weekend - he clearly thought he'd got this Celebrity Big Brother thing in the bag, only to be beaten by Alex Reid and Dane Bowers. If his vocabulary stretched into double figures, I'd suggest he look up the word 'ignominy'.

Displaying about as much self-awareness as Henry Jekyll, Vinnie maintains that he emerged from the show as the 'people's champion'. When asked about the boos that greeted his exit from the Big Brother compound, he confidently stated "I was sitting there and I looked around and I arguably had more banners than everybody. Leeds fans, Watford fans, all with banners saying, 'Vinnie, we love you'."

To be fair, he was the early favourite to win, although no-one seems to be entirely sure why. Perhaps they figured that he might actually bully Big Brother into letting him win, in much the same way that he managed to dominate proceedings inside the house.

As the self-appointed leader and arbiter of right and wrong, he even holds himself personally responsible for Alex Reid's alarming victory: "I've taught him everything I know so hopefully he will win his next fight and hopefully you lot will go and watch him."

All very fair and noble, I'm sure you'll agree. But not entirely true. Since leaving the house, Vinnie has been expressing dismay at the quality of celebrities locked in there with him.

You see, Vinnie was apparently promised a much higher calibre of contestant - namely A-listers like himself: "I thought the level of celebrity was going to be much higher to be honest. I could have mingled a bit easier. I went in as the most recognisable person really. I really struggled."

It seems that spending all that time in Hollywood has gone to Vinnie's head (not that there was much else there to begin with). He's appeared in quite a few movies, although it's telling that he's usually employed to scowl, look threatening, and under no circumstances try to tackle dialogue. In fact, if he wasn't so aggressive, he might have had a chance of playing Wilson opposite Tom Hanks.

With most of his oeuvre heading to straight to the 'previously viewed' barrel in Blockbuster, movie super-stardom will continue to evade him - unless someone's planning a film about the origins of the Easter Island statues. As the big man admitted in his exit interview with Davina, "The truth hurts sometimes."