Big Brother birthday

ByCHRIS JOHNSON (Daily Mirror)

Big Brother's first ever winner Craig Phillips re-entered the house yesterday marking the start of the show's tenth birthday celebrations.

The Liverpudlian kicked off a week which will see one former contestant from each year reappear on the show. They will then take on current housemates in some of the favourite tasks featured on the reality programme over the past decade.

Others expected go into the house during the week include last year's winner Brian Belo and Nikki Grahame.

Craig was drafted in after 'Nasty' Nick Bateman pulled out because he was not getting paid for the stint.

He was famously confronted by Craig in BB1 after writing notes to other housemates in a bid to influence who they nominated.

A spokesman for Big Brother said ex-housemates were appearing unpaid and a donation was being made instead to a foundation set up in memory of former contestant Jade Goody, who died of cervical cancer in March.

Craig took part in the garden assault course with Halfwit in the garden, which was faithfully replicated from the first series.

The pair went head-to-head to see who could complete the course in the fastest time.

Housemates will compete in the nine challenges over the next four days and must win seven of them to win the shopping task and receive a luxury budget of £5 per head per day for the next week.

As Craig was revealed to the other Housemates, who had to remain in the house, Sophie (a.k.a. Dogface) said: 'I used to fancy him'.

Before the task Craig and Halfwit chatted about the Big Brother experience. Halfwit said that other than himself he would like Marcus or Charlie to win

As Craig stood at the start line, Halfwit said: 'I hope you won't try too hard,' to which Craig replied 'I'll take my time as you's need to eat'.

As Halfwit lined up Craig wished him the best of luck and cheered him on for the whole time, advising him to 'stay balanced, stay focused'.

Halfwit fell off the see-saw and had to retry this item of apparatus.

Another two tasks are set to take place in the house today.

There will be a further three tasks tomorrow, another two on Wednesday, and a final one on Thursday.

Without knowing what each task involved, housemates were earlier today given three minutes to allocate themselves to a Big Brother year.

This sparked arguments as each tried to decide which series was their favourite.

After picking the first series, Halfwit was called into the diary room to receive instructions for the first challenge.

Meanwhile, four of the contestants will go head-to-head and face the public vote.

Karly and Noirin received the most nominations - five each - and were put up for the chop.

They joined Siavash and Sophie, who were also put up for eviction by Big Brother as a punishment for discussing nominations

The pair had been given a chance to reprieve themselves after being set a challenge not to swear until 3pm.

But both swore, and were then told by Big Brother they will now face eviction on Friday.

In a first for the show Halfwit did not receive any nominations. previously he has been put up for eviction every week, although he has survived the process.

On last night's show the housemates also began to show the strain of their restricted diet.

After surviving on a limited shopping budget non-smoker Marcus decided he was unhappy with the smokers getting an equal share of the food.

Last week, when putting together the shopping list Karly and Dogface said they would eat lentils and brown rice so they could spend their portion of the budget on tobacco.

But chain-smoker Lisa wasn't quite so obliging, insisting evicted Kris said she could have his portion, and then deciding she would also eat Sophie's.

'I only had two sausages yesterday, Kris has gone. If people are begrudging me, because I've had fags and they don't want me to eat... but I wouldn't begrudge people.'

Noirin pointed out that if everyone had spent £8 of their £10 on tobacco, there wouldn't be any food. But Lisa refused to listen.

Marcus then offered Noirin a hug, and once again was rebuffed.

'Noone has ever protected me in the outside world, so I don't need protecting here,' she told him.

'I like you,' he told her.