"Go Now" - Moody Blues, 1965

I see that a new descriptive word has entered the British vocabulary.

I received an e-mail this morning from the online travel company lastminute.com. The subject of the mail was: "Don't Do a Shabhaz - Leave the House Now". And then they go on to advertise their travel specials.

What's/Who's a "Shabhaz", you might well ask? He's the manic gay Pakistani/Scottish housemate from this year's edition of UK's Big Brother, a very popular TV show on Britain's Channel 4. Well, let me be more precise. Shabhaz Chauhdry was a housemate...past tense. He voluntarily left the Big Brother house last week on Day 6, after suffering what can best be described as a mini-nervous breakdown, live and in color, in front of the BB viewers' eyes.

But as Shabhaz spent quite a lot time in front of the TV cameras -- being more and more hysterical and bizarre -- before finally living up to his threats to voluntarily leave the Big Brother house, it appears that "doing a Shabhaz" might be finding its way into the British lexicon as a descriptive term!

It make me think of the use of the term "going postal" in America...except nobody got physically hurt in the BB house. Thank God for that.

By the way, Shabhaz was reported to have had another "incident" in a Borehamwood hotel last weekend....well, that is, if you believe "The Sun" newspaper. And I rarely do.

Janet

PS I have just noticed that today's post is my 200th for Lord Celery! Who would have ever thought that I would keep a blog going for so long...and post with such regularity???