On Wednesday night 36-year old policeperson Lorette Mostert was voted Soul Survivor of Survivor Malaysia at the Finale that happened live from Carnival City.
I've never been to the place before so I was quizzy to see it and had a chuckle when I discovered it looks like a circus on acid - it was the perfect set-up to end the show considering all reality shows are always a circus.
The other trippy thing was that on the way there the Tribal Council set literally jumped off the stage and onto the highway - a plane crashed on the middle island thing just off the offramp to the Carnival. I took this pic against great odds - the dude directing traffic was fuming with me for being scene-of-the-accident - I wish I could have stopped and gotten in further to show you more but as you can see he was in the way:
The front side window was smashed but other than that it didn't look as crashed as you'd expect - apparently the plane had to make an emergency landing and the pilot and his passenger got taken to hospital and Survived unhurt.
The FinaleThe live part of the Finale started at about 19h40 in the Big Top Arena with the audience being welcomed by BB SA1 winner Ferdinand Rabie who MC'ed.
I didn't hear what he was saying properly - I was too busy fighting with a guy who said I couldn't take pics (I didn't win unfortunately) and my chair. The back of the Carnival chairs slam into the seat the moment you shift forward slighty so I spent copious amounts of time trying to free myself while oggling the audience.
Seen from my seat ....I spotted Big Brothers Ofunneka and Tatiana, the Idols Top 5 and
Khanyi Mbau and was tickled when I discovered that she is actually related to Mandla. It turns out she's his niece - his sister who visited him on the island - she's Khanyi's mom.
Survivor 1 winner Vanessa Marawa was also in the audience but I couldn't see her - I heard she was there through the grapevine before the lights dimmed for the show. I didn't concentrate on the first episode with the boring recap stuff obviously but rather conserved my energy for the showdown that delivered one surprise after another.
3 votes to 2I really wanted Grant to win for his skullduggery and humour but never imagined that he would so when he made it the final two and seemed to have the odds stacked on his side I was surprised and too scared to hope and believe he'd actually win - right up until just before Angie's vote.
In those few moments before, I allowed myself to believe it was gonna happen and then Angie pulled the wild card decider and everything turned upside down into million buck chaos.
The Press Conference
Thinking about it all afterwards I realised that the set-up was a total Yin/Yan showdown. It's like it came down to the masculine versus feminine: Grant's rational strategy, his objectivity and ability to control his emotions and him not trusting anyone versus Lorette's need to trust people even in the context of a game that resulted in her getting emotional when she was let down.
She spoke about her need to trust people at the press conference afterwards and it struck a chord with me thinking about my own relationship with it and how it's a natural instinct that I try to fight generally. Like I think it's the wrong and most dangerous thing to do but it's hard work not trusting people so seeing someone win something for it gave a sense of relief almost.
All in all I ended up reconciling with everyone's Yin/Yan - Lorette's, Grant's, Mandla's and Amanda's - I decided all of them could have won and had a groovy story and then I hit the party to booze and be one of the last to leave.
The After Party
The first crowd I saw when I hit the party were Ofunneka and Tatiana who were dancing together. I took a pic of them but didn't chat to them to give them a break. They seemed happy enough to chat to people but their bodyguard was adamant they were there to relax, which they were - they needed time to relish the suffering of other contestants for a change.
Whenever I spotted them throughout the night I felt re-iffy about Ofunneka not winning and during one particular spotting my eyes almost popped out of my head - just before I took this next pic, the bodyguard put his arm around Tatiana's shoulder and rubbed his hand up and down the top part of her arm at least four or five times.
I then saw Mark Bailey out of the corner of my eye and made a beeline to have a perve while getting the goss on the lucky peep who's breaking our hearts by being his fiance.
As you may or may not know Mark's gotten engaged to his long-time love Gabi who'll become Gabi Christy Bailey once they're married - which they'll be by 2008. They're tying the knot at the end of the year.
Also into the whole marriage thing was Ferdie and his wife Colene - I've never met or seen her before and reckoned you might be the same so I snapped away.
I then tried to get my clutches on Mandla which took forever - trust me when I tell you that he was surrounded by people all of the time. Chicks, guys, you name it - they wanted him.
They asked for autographs ...
They asked questions they pretended they wanted answered ...
They got mesmerised ...
This guy even used the excuse that he's a friend of Lorette's who wanted to thank him for taking care of her ...
Eventually I got him! The pic's 'specially postcard size for you in case you want to print-it-to-keep for slurp purposes:
Of course I quizzed him on Khanyi being his niece and he said they're very different - making it clear he's free and available and not planning on marrying a sugar mommy anytime soon.
Nicola and Rijesh had clearly minced out their island differences - they were in the thick of things and seemed to be tight:
Nicola was also with one of her seven, Tarquin:
In between holding hands with Rijesh Elsie drew me into her edgy web of frak-youness.
And Nichal turned me Strong Man - as you probs know, I've always wanted to be a boxer so it was right up my street.
Viwe and Irshaad were locked in lawyer-client priviledge for ages discussing Irshaad's court case that's still In jutico (I can never remember the word).
Lisa was there and followed Grant around in a boobisome dress that I'm convinced she wore for him. I didn't capture the dress properly in the pic but hopefully you saw it on the box.
I chatted to Grant about his fab strategy and Survivor junkiedom and as expected he's a huge fan of the show. I also caught up with him a second time later on - he was under the influence of Dyke and insisted I pass along the message that he's brilliant in bed. Grant - not Dyke's reputation with Grant LOL.
I chatted to Angie about her radical vote to see if she made it 'cos of being in lurve with Grant - I thought it's a possibility with all that feeling stuff she confused on about in her final speech. She said she'd voted the way she did for two reasons: the first being that Lorette wouldn't make a million bucks in the police force and the second being that she'd wanted Grant to trust her more. From what I could work out she was meaning she wanted him to let her in on his strategy in the same way he let us in type thing.
I looked for Hein and spotted him once but was in the process of Strong Manning and then he disappeared. I looked for him again later and after doing some snooping I heard he was outside smoking with friends - I don't know if he was smoking or if his friends were - I went looking some more but couldn't find him. The other person I didn't manage to catch up with was Angela - I think she left early with being pregnant.
Nomfundo spent time swapping reality experiences with Ofunneka.
Nomfundo and her beau were also among the very last party animals to leave the party at the very end - at about 4h30. After missing out on the Maxato goss that happened at the BB Finale there was no ways I was leaving the party early to miss a thing and ended up staying until I couldn't keep my eyes open. The other die-hards still up partying before I scraggled to sleeeep: Nicola, Ferdie and Amanda.
Millionairess Lorette stayed until about 1am or a bit later and before she left I made sure I secretly told her that there was noo ways Hein threw challenge.
Extra goss:
Vanessa's moved to Cape Town - apparently she's followed her beau.
Some Survivors said Grant had lots of fun lines we didn't see.
None of our reality winners need to pay tax on their prize.
Lorette's going back to policing today (Monday, 19 November).
It would have been cool if the housemates had watched Survivor while they were in the house don't you think?
Also spotted:
Kwertha.
You can catch the BB Africa 2 Finale goss
here if you missed it.