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his sleeves up and joins in. If the tribe goes hunting, he goes hunting. If the tribe get dirty, he gets dirty. And if the tribe indulge in a bewildering array of sadomasochistic rituals from flagellation to deliberate self-poisoning, he … well, you get the idea.
    Those sado-masochistic rituals form the centrepiece of this week’s instalment, in which Parry immerses himself in the life and culture of the Matis, a tribe of hunters from the Brazilian rainforest. The Matis were only ‘discovered’ by the outside world in the 1970s: within a few years we’d introduced them to T-shirts and rifles and – oops – hundreds of diseases they’d built up no immunity against. Lots of them died, so they’re understandably wary about letting outsiders back into their midst, and even warier about outsiders with cameras. Interestingly, they complain that previous film crews had ordered them around; told them to strip off and pretend they didn’t wear clothes to make for a racier documentary. Seems the ongoing TV fakery scandal has now reached as far as the Amazon.
    Parry wins their trust by undergoing four excruciating trials that wouldn’t look out of place in one of the Jackass movies. First, they squeeze some incredibly bitter fruit juice directly into his eye. Then they whip him. The fourth and final trial (being stung all over with some vicious form of nettle) looks unpleasant, but it’s not a patch on the third, which involves having a powerful frog poison smeared directly into a fresh wound on his arm. Before long Parry’s on all fours, spewing stomach contents with the force of a broken pump. (Thankfully, the camera doesn’t capture the next bit, where he runs behind a bush and virtually blasts his own pelvis through his arse during a spectacular anal evacuation.)
    Occasionally you suspect the Matis might simply be fucking with our Bruce, having a laugh at his expense – at one point they teachhim some local phrases and stand around howling as he repeats them, parrot-style (naturally, they’ve taught him a load of obscenities). Suddenly I imagined a show in which a foreign reporter befriends a ‘tribe’ of ‘authentic’ Glaswegian teenagers, and enthusiastically participates in a series of ‘rituals’ they insist are genuine – drinking a pint of phlegm and sewing a ribbon on his bollocks.
    It’s a testament to Parry’s skill as a gung-ho, immersive presenter that even as a viewer, you quickly acclimatise to the tribe’s way of life, truly seeing them as people rather than exotic aliens. And there’s plenty we could learn from them. The Matis have a regular ceremony in which men disguised as ‘spirits of the forest’ dance into the camp and mercilessly thrash all the children with canes – for no particular reason, it seems, other than to shut them up. If that’s not the work of a truly utopian society, I don’t know what is.
A moody shot of an inanimate object [25 August 2007]
    As the overlong, overcomplex, ratings-challenged Big Brother 8 enters its final week, it’s time to roll out the red carpet and introduce the annual Screen Burn Housemate Awards – coming to you live from a laptop in London’s glittering south end. Fanfares, golden envelopes, and a host of stars from stage and screen – none of these will be featuring. It’s just me, typing with an achy elbow. Whoopie doo.
    Anyway, let’s kick off by doling out the Biggest Waste of Space Ever to Enter That Godforsaken Building Award – which goes to Billi, the insignificant monotone gonk who drifted across your screen for about 10 minutes, mumbling about hair straighteners like the world’s most tedious ghost. You know how every so often the Big Brother editors like to open a section with a moody shot of an inanimate object – an outdoor chair with dew glistening on it, or a spoon on the sideboard – as though they’re constructing an arthouse masterpiece? Well each time Billi appeared on screen, I hoped it would cut to one of those.