House about a new career with the guys at Grey?…

“Dear thorteen in the Big Brother hoose, and the hoosemearts are gettin’ in a tizzy. Torquen canna find his clean short, like, and Helen’s shearkin’ with norves. Meanwhile, Big Brother’s havin difficulty decidin’ howse CV isn’t a tissue of lies.”

And while you’re deciphering that lot, the Diary will get on with the story. It seems that Grey London has come up with a whole new hoop for potential recruits to go through. It’s not an ordinary interview, nor even one of those annoying team-building exercises. Nor has the agency turned to graphology or polygraph tests (“Your handwriting reveals that you use a cheap biro, Mr Beattie. I’m afraid we shan’t be taking your application any further.”).

Instead, Grey will be forcing hapless graduates to spend the final day of the recruitment process holed up in the Big Brother house, carrying out “tasks that will emulate the sorts of things they would have to do in advertising” and being peered at by Grey suits. So the next generation of advertising high-fliers will be those who excel at “spending all day on the sofa complaining they’ve run out of cigarettes”, then…