'It's all such drivel'

John McCririck likes to portray his wife as the downtrodden embodiment of all that he believes a woman should be. He calls her "the Booby" because, like the South American bird of the same name, she is "not very bright", she "squawks around a lot" and was "easy to catch".

In a video screened the night McCririck went into the Big Brother house, the docile Booby was shown waiting on her husband hand and foot while he barked out his orders. McCririck is not what you might call a new man. He does not cook, clean or drive. He despises feminism; it has given women ideas "above their station".

He thinks men should date ugly women ("they're grateful"), and he likes a big bosom (which is why one of his dogs is named Double D). "Flat chests?" he harrumphs, as if he were Hugh Hefner himself. "No chance."

But the real Jenny McCririck is very far from being a doormat - though she is rather beige-looking ( resplendent in brown knitwear, she sports a furry hat so ugly she might well have pinched it from her husband's wardrobe). In fact, today she is behaving suspiciously like an old bag.

First, she makes me stand out in the drizzle while she takes a telephone call (she and McCririck share a tiny mews house in Primrose Hill). Then she keeps the phone clamped firmly to her ear while we walk to a nearby café. Once we sit down, and I begin asking questions, she treats me as though I am simple.

Given that her husband is currently a star of live reality TV, she is also bizarrely secretive. "Are you from Yorkshire?" I ask, struck by her conversational resemblance to Geoffrey Boycott. "Never mind about that," she snaps, ferreting in her handbag. Oh, well. Perhaps this is just her way of enjoying a bit of freedom.

The Booby - "You can be called a lot worse" - has been married to the Channel 4 racing correspondent for more than 30 years; they met at a party when they fell to talking about Labradors, a breed of which they are both fond (she tells me that she fell for the "whole thing, really"). So, while the rest of us are still pop-eyed in amazement at his antics, she is the last person in the world to be surprisedby anything her husband says or does. She was, though, amazed when he agreed to do the show.

"The only reason I can think of is that he thought of it as a job," she says. "He said: 'Well, they've offered me a decent fee, and I'll be out in time for Sandown on Saturday.' He believed what the press said, which is that there would be voting after 24 hours. He thought he'd be voted out. He thought it'd be a nice little earner." She rolls her eyes, wryly. "But it hasn't quite worked out that way."

At the time of writing, McCririck is in a huge sulk due to the fact that Big Brother has not kept him in diet cola. He won't speak to the other " celebrities", or help them with their tasks. Does she think he will walk? "I would, wouldn't you?"

Still, she admires him for making a "statement"; the producers, she insists, have reneged on a verbal contract to which she was a witness. "He's overweight. He wanted to make sure he didn't have lots of sugary drinks." Couldn't he just drink water? "Not much, no." But why has this seemingly small matter made him so babyishly furious? The Booby is all sympathy. "It's hot in the studio, and he hates the food. If he hadn't taken in his own tea, I don't know what he'd be doing."