As the last season of Big Brother begins to heat up, it's important to reflect on what was a remarkably groundbreaking television series. I watch it to examine the social interactions of people from across a wide spectrum of British and Irish civilisation, purely anthropological interest. Ha ha! No I don't, I just watch it to check out a load of weirdos getting drunk and screeching at each other. There are no guilty pleasures in trash TV, only pleasures. Big Brother turned Andy Warhol's hypothesis that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes into reality. Or at least into reality TV. It influenced celebrity culture by turning ordinary people into celebrities and in turn celebrity culture influenced it, as the programme became less of an experiment and more of an outlet for wannabes who saw it as a brief meal ticket to F-list infamy.

Big Brother's pioneering beginnings have been smudged somewhat, as real life and life in the Big Brother house began to overlap. I mean, imagine living in a constructed society governed by impractical rules and random surreal pranks by an unseen and seemingly pointless but all encompassing power while surrounded by exhibitionists and thicks... oh, wait. George Orwell's 1984 gave the production company Endemol the name and a few vague reference points for their television series. And as for watching a dozen people grow slowly more demented and obnoxious every summer for the past decade, real life has gradually echoed the programme and the prophecy too. Everyone is now monitored as we've volunteered our personal information, communication and location via social networking. Awful things are announced in trivial ways. Just last week Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff announced via Twitter that convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner would indeed be executed. "I just gave the go-ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims," he Tweeted. Maybe he should have done it on Facebook where his 'friends' could press the 'like' button and give a thumbs up to his decision. Orwell's phrase of 'doublethink' gave rise to 'doublespeak' in every industry from PR to politics to war. But the main point of Big Brother the programme was never just surveillance, it was rules. And never, ever, have there been so many rules outside of the Big Brother house, and it's the tyranny of such senseless rules that resonates the most.

Big Brother finishes up this summer, and to commemorate this, I've come up with a list of The Top Five Rules We Should Bend.

Rule #1: No Playing In Parks. A while ago myself and my friends were ejected from a park in Dublin. Our crime? Not drug dealing, or lighting fires, or chopping down trees, or operating some sort of unfit terrorist training camp amongst the trees but, I'm sorry, I don't know how to say such a horrible deed... KICKING A SOFT FOOTBALL TO EACH OTHER. I would like to apologise now to the people of Dublin for corrupting the city with the atrocious actions of a bunch of girls passing a football around. We'll never do it again. Promise.

Rule #2: No Public Drinking. You know when you go abroad and there are loads of good-looking people enjoying a few beers in a public space, or having some wine with a picnic and you think "sure if you were allowed do that at home everything would be wrecked"? Well, of course it would be, because if you restrict people from enjoying themselves, they go crazy when they are given an inch. And if you tell people they can't be mature with alcohol, then they won't be.

Rule #3: No Pets On Public Transport. A dog is not going to hijack the Luas and drive it into a building, no matter how amazing an Adam Sandler film that would make.

Rule #4: Booking Fee Culture. This is an actual conversation I had recently over the phone to a certain Irish theatre: "Now there will be a charge of €4.95 on each ticket for booking over the phone" What? Why? "There's no booking fee if you pick them up yourself." Will you pay me a fiver per ticket to pick them up? "Eh. No." Then why am I paying you money to do nothing? "It's a booking fee." But you work in a box office. It's your job to book tickets, why should there be a customer charge for you to do your job? *click*.

Rule #5: Banning Pitch Invasions. Or indeed anything to do with that disgusting modern joy-killer 'health and safety' that infringes on spontaneous fun.

With all of our rules and regulations, we don't so much have a hand-holding society as a wrist-gripping one, the kind of yank your ma gave you as a child after she saw you stroking a Club Milk off the shelf in Superquinn (what? Just me?). The oxygen of rules is acceptance. But if you accept things that don't make sense, then you might as well be competing with the rest of the nutjobs in the Big Brother house.

umullally@tribune.ie