January is a swamp of disappointments, bitterness and rage. If you’re not broke, bloated or bored, you’re on the 5:2 diet, trying to negotiate your way from one end of the day to the other without a meltdown.

And the clever telly executives know this: that’s why it’s the perfect habitat for the daily dose of bonkers and barbarism that is Celebrity Big Brother.

And it’s a hit. With an average 2.3 million viewers a night, that’s a hell of a lot of CBB deniers secretly tuning in. Because, aside from the morons standing in the rain, booing and holding up dodgy banners, you’ve got to admire those numbers. This, the 13th series, is so popular that Channel 5 has postponed the final to January 29 to prolong the ‘fun’ for everyone involved.

People get snotty about Big Brother. Yes, it’s vacuous and sometimes depressingly shallow. Newsflash: people are! What do you do in your downtime; discuss finer points of philosophy with your children? Course you do! Go and watch the news, then.

Remember: this is basically a wildlife show where oddballs from the jazz-hands world of showbiz are imprisoned for our viewing pleasure. Make no bones about it: Celebrity Big Brother feeds everyone’s sadistic streak. But how you choose to feel about it is your business.

Your own sense of how you’d cope in the bling-lined mock-Versace Borehamwood hellhole is pushed to one side from the minute the housemates trot in. This year, in punishing rain, prisoners were handcuffed in pairs and led into the surreal ark. In a world of spin, pap-stunts, ‘directed reality’ and apathy, Big Brother offers viewers a rare slice of control. Here are another batch of self-deluded fame-hungry twazzocks for you to judge, says Channel 5, and it’s your democratic right to eject those you deem too much of a failure — or cynical plotter.

But, it’s a laugh innit? More than anything, I’ve lost count of the times CBB has given me the heartiest laugh of a dreary day. The execs must have rubbed their hands with glee when they saw the chemistry between their fruit ’n’ nut assortment was so explosive serious drama would kick off without any props. Remember Kittygate when George Galloway lapped milk from Rula Lenska’s ‘saucer’? That was the (admittedly surreal) highlight of hours of viewing back in 2006. This winter, barely a few hours had passed before there was rutting, bitching, self-revelation (Jim Davidson wins the award for best ice-breaker: ‘I’m a year late: I was arrested as part of Operation Yewtree’) and a drunk American starlet offering to ‘fingerbang’ Lionel Blair.

Whatever they bleat about – including unlikely lothario Lee Ryan of Blue fame who blames everyone except himself for his fate – this is as unedited as TV gets. Remember: Lee is the man who, in between confessing toilet masturbation and coming out with such gems as ‘falling in love ain’t like going to Nando’s’, feels like the victim in spite of being pounced upon by two brunette hotties. Where else can you can see people (other than your own family) in such warts-and-all detail that crazy-eyed Daily Mail columnist and self-confessed sperm-stealer Liz looks like the most normal contestant?

Husband-and-wife double-act Linda Nolan and Jim Davidson’s hourly rows, sparked by anything from a damp teatowel to sex, started the Twitter trend: Frank Carson’s Dressing Room.

And Apprentice saucepot Luisa Zissman has done her best to bend people’s minds out of shape – not to mention Jim’s.

If a minute goes by when she’s not getting enough attention, she’s reminding everyone of her sex parties and squirting breastmilk at people. As she and Dappy (who wins for best ‘accidental’ boast, about his penis) argued about how many people it was OK to shag in a night, hypocrisy, prejudice and downright horniness was exposed more tellingly than yards of column inches.

Politically incorrect, rambling and sometimes repellent: that’s the way most debates are carried out in pubs and homes across Britain.

Big Brother is watching. Are you?