Have I spent the last few days poring over the live footage to ensure I give a fair and balanced view of the new housemates? I'm afraid not. Not a bit of it. Instead I've been off sampling the delights of Torquay, Brixham and Paignton as the summer sun finally decided to show itself.

I have watched some live streaming on my return but frankly the five hour drive to the English Riviera on Saturday morning, complete with traffic jam after traffic jam, was a tad more interesting than what was on offer on the red button on Tuesday.

However, I've not been totally oblivious to goings-on in the house, thanks to the early morning repeats of BBLB and the highlights show so I will attempt a quick character assassination of the new intake.

First though, there's the departure of Chanelle to comment on:

Getting Chiggy with it

They have been referred to as "Chiggy" but if you take the "C" from "Chanelle" and the "ack" from Zack, you get "Cack" and that's pretty much how I've felt about the whole sorry saga which got old really quickly and was then allowed to rot for weeks on end.

What to Read Next

Fair play to Chanelle for bringing the whole thing to an end by falling on her sword. The relationship was always going to end in tears, her genuine tears of emotion, Ziggy's crocodile ones and most importantly the tears of boredom shed by many devotees of the show.

The problem is that the tale of their doomed tryst has been the only real narrative of note in the entire series. Couple that with the removal of the biggest character in the house in Charley and there is now a gaping whole to fill, meaning that us viewers genuinely want the new arrivals to plug the gap.

Can they?

Jonty

We do love a good old-fashioned British eccentric but would you really want to be locked up twenty four seven with one quite as disturbing as Jonty?

While I can just about cope with Gerry's overly close relationship with his – ahem – monkey, there's something just a tad Norman Bates about the way Jonty relates to his inanimate playmates. I suppose we can hope against hope that he just puts it on for the cameras but really, there's a limit to just how creepy you want someone to be when he's sleeping just yards from you.

I'm sure there are plenty of positives to come from Jonty and maybe now I'm back in harness, I'll notice more of them but there's something of the night about him and that's for sure.

Amy

I either wanted to Amy to be all sweetness and light and be a housemate we could all get behind or preferably turn out to be a complete nasty bitch so that we'd have something to chant now that "Get Charley Out" – the mantra of BB8 – has become redundant. Sadly, she falls between two stools.

Being a bitch is nasty but does provide a degree of entertainment. There's a line between being bitchy and being a bit of a whiner, and so far Amy seems to be more of the latter than the former.

David

Finally Gerry gets a housemate he can really communicate with and goodness me, doesn't it bring out his nasty side?

David just seems so full of venom and it's not as if it's all directed at housemates he's been watching on the show before entry, he's been down on those he entered with as well.

He should probably have let us viewers get to know him a tad better before wading in with his snide comments on those we've grown to "love" over the last two months.

Shanessa

She does remind me just a little bit of an unmade bed but that doesn't mean she hasn't got a heart of gold. It doesn't mean she has either.

I've yet to make my mind about her, but if the deadly Carole has her in her crosshairs, I may not get much chance to.

Kara Louise

I'm absolutely positively sure there's a point to this housemate. Absolutely no idea what it is though.

What’s up?

I'm finding all this Halfway House rubbish really tiresome, when I suspect the intention was that it would add a dash of excitement. The sooner it's over the better.