Why Rachel Won

I'm still excited.

Even some of the crowd booing her, even Davina asking her on BBBM whether she was going to share the money, neither of these could spoil it for me. Rachel won, and she thoroughly deserved it. Bad editing, persecution from Rex, backstabbing from Luke - none of these could detract from this year's winner. in some respects they helped her.

And, 'member I told you, I picked her on launch night! How cool is that?

But why did she win? What, other than that she deserved it, were other contributory factors? It was incredibly close, remember.

I can't quite get over Darnell coming fifth with 14.9%. With the cut-off being 20.0001% in a five-way vote, Rex must have been just ahead in fourth.

When it came to the four-way vote off, Rex got 22.5%. Even if Sara, who came fourth, got 22.6%, that only leaves 54.9% to be divided between Mikey and Rachel.

In the three way Sara then got 30.1%, which means Mikey and Rachel were then sharing 69.9% between them.

It could have gone lots of different ways. If Darnell hadn't picked on Sara two weeks ago, if Rex hadn't picked on Rachel for weeks on end, if Nicole hadn't entered, if the stories about Vegas hadn't been printed, well maybe....

If Sara hadn't cosied up to Darnell in the last week... if Mikey hadn't had such bad eating habits.

I had a feeling it was going to be close when they showed Mikey eating the bread and cheese in the fifteen minutes of highlights they had early last night. That would have lost him a few thousand votes. It's those little things that make the difference.

Love BB? Get Briffa in your inbox - every day! Click here to subscribe

Indeed, I bet if Lisa had beaten Sara last week I reckon she too would have been in with a shout. Of course, we'll never know.

But why, overall, Rachel, and not say, Steph?

Well Steph was too good-looking. Rachel's pretty, but she isn't glamorous like Stephanie. She didn't swear. She didn't get out the bikini at the first opportunity. She didn't talk about sex, she didn't even like talking about sex.

There were no showmances for Rachel. She was a shoulder to cry, without being a pushover. She smiled and she got involved in the tasks ( unlike Steph ). When she cried it was for a reason.

But why not Alex or Sylvia? Well, they had personality problems too say the least. One was mouthy, and the other way too sexy and glam. Whatever the reasons, black women never do too well on reality tv shows.

Lisa was too old and too... spacey. Jen and Bex too obviously bitter and fiery. So many of the women were bound to cause arguments. Even Kat, a potential winner, was far too much of a gimmick.

But what about the guys? One of the most interesting features of this year's BB was the number of not-very-good-looking men in it. Mo, Luke, Rex, Darnell, Mario? These aren't the standard regular BB hunks the predominantly girl voters go for. They aren't pretty boys like Anthony, they aren't loveable comedians like the two Brians, and they aren't obviously good-hearted chaps like Craig.

The only two good-looking boys this year were Stuart, who came in late and spent most of his time whingeing about wanting to see his daughter, and Dale, who was a pillock. And BB knew it. Not only did they make a big feature of his promise to "nail some f***y" while in the house, it got shown again when the videotapes were replayed to some of the housemates.

Laddish, sexist blokes will never win Big Brother, and BB wanted to make life hard for Dale.

Know one thing about BB winners: they like diversity. We've had Craig the nice guy, we've had Brian the gay funny one, Kate the funny girly one, Cameron the Christian, Nadia the transsexual funny one, Anthony the bloke, Pete the disabled one, Brian the black funny one.

BB has this conviction, that if the game was left to itself, a working-class lad would win every time. They don't like it, and bend over backwards to try and stop it from happen.

Brian beat Samanda last year. Now if they couldn't win, when would a girl ever win? It's been a long time. And a Welsh girl? No one from Wales has ever won this. We've had the foreigner, the Scotsman, and the Liverpudlian. But never anyone from Wales. Mikey was up against it going into the final week because one, he was the favourite, and they wanted a surprise winner. And two, he was disabled. Pete won two years ago, which is too soon for BB.

They wanted somebody thoroughly normal to win this year, and preferably a girl.

Hey, I may be clever in picking Rachel on launch night. But check out dj sunset. He knew Rachel would win. He backed her in February.

Give that man a prize.