'Remember it's a pantomime'
Leaving home comforts, press officers and personal assistants outside and entering the Celebrity Big Brother house could be a disastrous scenario for today's celebrities. Here some of those who have lived to tell the tale have some words of advice for the batch about to go in.
"Watch previous programmes," warns racing pundit John McCririck, whose brash manner and petulant tantrums were one of the memorable points of the 2005 series. "When I went in Lisa I'Anson was the only one who had seen it, and she had to help us. It worked out badly for me because I was saying some nasty things about Caprice and calling her a cash register and unbeknown to me they played that bit of tape back to her, I fell right into their trap," he says.
John of all people knows that the show will not bring out your best side, and while he says he does not regret going into the house, he thinks it is sensible for the new contestants to be prepared for the worst. "You have to remember that the producers of Big Brother are not there to make you look good. They're there to see when the mask slips, and that's why it's riveting television. You're seeing human beings reacting under stress," he says.
Anne Diamond agrees. She was in the second series of Celebrity Big Brother along with people such as Goldie, Sue Perkins and Mark Owen when there were fewer nasty tricks than there have been since.
"You just have to expect your worst nightmare and double it, think about what is the most horrible thing they can do to you and expect that because that seems to be the way it's played out now," she says.
"I was in the second series and it wasn't really like that then, in those days it was only a week long, it was for Comic Relief, there was no money involved. It was very much a new phenomenon then but Big Brother has got much, much nastier and more devious."
Lisa I'Anson was in a 'nastier' series - when fellow housemate Brigitte Neilson was forced to live under the same roof as her former mother-in-law Jackie Stallone, who Lisa says is her idea of a nightmare housemate.
But she managed to enjoy her time in the house. "I made a friend in Caprice and had some very funny times and experiences. I found it a very fun and positive experience," she says - adding that she and Caprice are still in touch.
But the house is not an ideal place to make friends, according to Maggot from Welsh rap band Goldie Lookin Chain - who says he has only seen one housemate (Rula Lenska) once since coming out of the house.
"Everyone said 'let's go back to our own lives' and I think that's probably for the best. I'm not going to hang out with George Galloway," he says..
Maggot, who is a big fan of the show, adds that the 2006 series he was in was probably one of the best because of the mix of characters there - which also included cross-dressing, sharp-tongued singer Pete Burns and fragile comedian Michael Barrymore - although the noise in the house, he says, was unbearable..
"The low point was the squawking girls - I was in there with Jodie Marsh and Chantelle - all the screaming I couldn't stand it and there's no escape from it in there. People snoring, and people talking when you're trying to get to sleep. I thought, 'I'll be alright, I've been on tour with the boys, this can't be any worse,' but they're angels compared to some of them in there," he says. .
All four former contestants are pleased the show is back on air, after taking a fallow year following the bullying scandal involving Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara..
"It's not too soon at all to go back on air. Celeb Big Brother is an institution! I love watching it," Lisa says..
John and Maggot even think it should have gone ahead last year, despite the furore..
"I think Channel 4 should be much more proud of that because it showed the incipient racism in this country," said John. "Millions of our citizens have to put up with these snide remarks. Not those who say 'go back home' but this innate superiority that some white people born in this country seem to have.
"It showed to people 'do I behave like that?'. It did a real good service to this country that underneath the veneer of politeness and consideration there is a horrible racism," he says..
Maggot puts it more simply. "Channel 4 or Endemol, for want of a better phrase, should have grown a pair of bo*****s, they really should have gone ahead and not been scared about what a group of thick people did the year before," he says.
"Prepare to go hungry," is his advice for the new bunch of celebrities, and of course "don't expect to look as good on camera as you think you look".
"The editing was really bad, they could have edited me better. They put none of my jokes in, I was lot funnier than they showed me, I was so much more intelligent in there than how they showed me," he jokes.
"It's only a game," adds Lisa, while John - whose temperamental ways meant he left the house to a huge amount of booing from the assembled crowd - says it's important to remember that the show is not real.
"When I got out Davina, and she probably says this to everybody, whispered in my ear 'remember, it's only a pantomime', and it is, in the end, when they're all booing and howling - it's a pantomime.".
Anne Diamond's book Winning The Fat War - Expert Ways To Lose Weight In A Fat World is published on January 14 and her documentary War On Fat airs on Sky Real Lives channel on January 13.
Goldie Lookin' Chain's album Asbo For Life is out in March.
