Are you worth watching?

Many of us have considered auditioning for Big Brother at some point over the past seven years. No work, fame, money and the chance to see if people like us are all pullers.

Then you realise your gran might see you snog someone in the Jacuzzi or that the old flame you cheated on could do a 'kiss and tell'. Worse still, you could get drunk and replicate the Kinga 'bottle' incident - or Jade's 'kebab' episode.

Nonetheless, this year 25,000 people decided to put themselves forward for Big Brother 7, which kicks off for a 16-week run tonight.

Cheesily interested in being part of that whole 'social experiment' thing, a friend and I set off one Sunday morning in March for the London auditions and joined about 2,000 rather normal-looking wannabes waiting patiently in line.

Two energetic producers, one male and one female, were there to meet every one of us to see if we had the special 'Big Brother quality' - we were intrigued to see what that entailed. It has been said time and again but, surely, past contestants haven't been the most interesting they could have chosen?

The producers don't go for stereotypes, presenter Davina McCall told the press recently. They go for big personalities and that means the show could end up with, in her words, 'four gay men because they're brilliant personalities or four blonde girls with boobies because they're really fun.' No stereotypes there then.

Queuing was, on the whole, cold and uneventful, punctuated by messages over the loudspeakers such as: 'Big Brother would like to remind auditionees that it is an offence to smoke.'

There was a deranged guy in shorts, wig, shades and a glittery T-shirt splashed with the slogan 'BB you want me' dancing around with his ghetto blaster; a quiet bunch of girls who had no idea why they wanted to go on the show; and a gay hairdresser who had sent videos in several years running but thought presenting himself in the flesh would win the over producers (it didn't).

Finally, there was a slightly unbalanced Eastern European who turned up with a stash of lager at 10.15am and told us he intended to queue up again later that day if he didn't get in the first time.

I was pulled up in front of the female producer, a ballsy East Ender in her mid-to-late thirties who clearly didn't want time-wasters. 'Why do you want to be on Big Brother?' she asked. Friends had suggested loads of answers but, in the end, I went with: 'I want to show the British public that you can be a political lesbian like Kitten, but also be fun and not annoying.'