Here at Winging It, we’re all big fans of Charlie Brooker, the highly amusing Guardian columnist.

We also love Big Brother.  Okay, okay, that’s actually just me; the others have more refined tastes, if you overlook their unshakeable devotion to Kevin McCloud.

So it was a happy day – for me, anyway – when I read that Charlie, master of pithy penmanship and brilliantly vivid flights of fancy – has written a TV series set in the Big Brother House.

The premise is something like this: the UK becomes overrun by zombies but, locked away from the outside world, the BB housemates are utterly ignorant.

Sorry, par for the course – the BB housemates are utterly ignorant of the situation.

So in a bizarre twist of fate, this turns the Big Brother House into a place where even sensible people are clamouring to enter.  Not for long, though, because an eviction night is looming…

Brooker describes the series thusly: “‘Dead Set’ isn’t an out-and-out comedy, but an unashamedly populist horror-thriller with blackly comic undertones.

“Think ‘24′ with zombies. And housemates. And gore.”

‘Dead Set’ is due to start on E4 later this month, and features cameos from some former real-life contestants; is it bad to hope that they come to suitably gruesome fictional endings?

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When markets fall people get nervous, sit on the sidelines and wait for things to bottom out.

Calling the low point of a market is, however, very tricky, which is why most experts will tell you that the best possible scenario is to buy close to the bottom – better to make a small short-term loss than to be on the wrong side of the upswing.

Yesterday’s announcements on interest rates and mortgage funding are good news for the housing market, but are they enough to convince people that the worst is over?

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What would happen if the head honchos at our high street banks had to pitch to the fire-breathers on Dragons’ Den?

iBallTv reckon it would run like this …funny, sharp, and all too true…

The latest example of Elf & Safety gone mad is the news that young children shouldn’t be allowed to keep hamsters as pets.

And it’s not just the humble hamster that’s been deemed a dangerous health hazard; also in the firing line are lizards, turtles and hedgehogs.

Fair play re: hedgehogs, given that they’re formed almost entirely of spikes.

And I can’t really see turtles or lizards topping my list of suitable household pets for children, either.

But, seriously, where’s the harm in hamsters? I had one when I was little; so did my brother; my best friend – oh, the horror! – had two.

As far as I’m aware, we’ve all made it into adulthood with no discernible side effects from our time spent looking after these little furry creatures.

The anti-hamster argument, which comes from a report by the American Academy of Paediatrics, is that they carry germs.  (And kids don’t?!)

So, because children spend a lot of time chewing on their fingers, they’re more likely to ingest said germs, yada yada yada.

The good news, however, is that once a child reaches the age of five their immune system is better able to cope with potential risks from dastardly rodents.

Ah – but then they have to go to school…and who knows what dangers lurk there?

This morning, I got woken up, not by the familiar sound of my alarm, but by a series of thumps on my front door.  Not knocks: thumps.

By the time I’d recovered from leaping out of bed at high speed, scrambled for my dressing gown, and stumbled down the stairs, two workmen were emerging through the door.

Fortunately – otherwise I’d have zoomed back upstairs and been onto the police pronto – I remembered that the meter was due to be checked, and the landlords had given out the spare keys.

That, I’d presumed, was because the meter people would be coming when I was out at work – but this was 8.15 in the morning, for god’s sake.

Anyway, all was fine, no police time was wasted, and I headed back upstairs to get ready.

About twenty minutes later – it seems meter checking is a long process – one of them hollered up to ask if he could use the bathroom facilities.

Our bathroom is next to our bedroom.  We have thin walls. Cue an immense amount of whistling, humming and banging on my part in a desperate attempt to avoid hearing any untoward noises.

Shortly afterwards they bade a cheery goodbye, leaving me to continue my morning routine uninterrupted.

Or so I thought. Just before heading out, I went into the bathroom to check on the position of the toilet seat – men, y’know – and found a farewell token.

Mercifully, it was of the liquid variety, and he’d obviously been embarrassed that it hadn’t flushed away – there was toilet paper and the lid was down.

But honestly – rude awakenings and lasting impressions – and there was nothing wrong with the bloody meter in the first place.

Have you had any unfortunate experiences with workmen?

We’d like to hear your horror stories…

As of today, Energy Performance Certificates become mandatory for all new tenancies, and landlords will face charges of up to £200 per property if they don’t provide them.

The certificates, which will be valid for a period of ten years, must be issued by an accredited energy assessor, and provided free of charge to tenants.

EPCs rate a property’s energy efficiency using an A-G system of grading, with an ‘A’ rating being an all-singing, all-dancing top score and a ‘G’ being the equivalent of a ’see me after class’ scrawled in red ink.

The certificates were introduced last year for homebuyers, and so far, the average rating has been a ‘could do better’ ‘D’.

While recommendations to improve a property’s efficiency rating are given as part of the EPC, landlords are under no obligation to carry out any improvements.

However, if tenants are faced with a choice of properties with different ratings, it seems likely that they’d opt for the more energy efficient one, as their fuel bills would be lower.

We’d be interested to know what you think about EPCs:

Tenants:

Would a higher energy efficiency rating influence your decision about renting a property? Yes No View Results  Loading ...

Landlords:

Do you think mandatory EPCs will make any difference to your ability to rent out your property? Yes No View Results  Loading ...

Would you be prepared to implement any improvements suggested? Yes No View Results  Loading ...

It was Miguel de Cervante’s birthday yesterday (happy birthday Mig, me old mucker) and so in honour of his most famous character Don Quixote, here are a few choice windmills for sale for him to tilt at.

Sadly they’re all lacking their sails, but I’m sure the Don would still have had a pop at them … “Charles Potherington-Smythe woke up one morning to find a mad Spaniard in his garden poking holes in his windmill.” What will the neighbours say!

Now here’s a novel notion: a church built out of beer cans.  Yep, that’s right.  A church. From beer cans.

Although it may sound like something straight from the mind of Homer Simpson, this is actually a true story of ecclesiastical architecture.

Having lost their main church building to developers, the parish of Colston Milton in Glasgow could soon boast Scotland’s first recycled place of worship, pending the results of a feasibility study.

Of course, the new church wouldn’t be made entirely from recycled alcohol receptacles, fabulous though that may be; there’ll be all sorts of other stuff used, from old tyres and windscreens to earth and wood.

But the specific idea of using beer cans, according to the parish’s Reverend Rowe, came from ‘a wonderful group of men and women who drink in the woods’.

That’s a very sweet euphemism for what we Glaswegians call ‘jakeys’.  The English definition, courtesy of the Urban Dictionary, is: ‘members of the street drinking fraternity’.

Yet praise where praise is due, as these wonderful winos have fully embraced the recycling concept and are regularly delivering their empties to the church hall for use in the project.

However, when the good Reverend revealed to the BBC that he hoped the locals  would help in the actual building of the new church, it gave me pause.

Heavy drinkers? Drunk construction? Brilliant!  This could unintentionally end up as Glasgow’s answer to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

No, it’s not a regular blog posting (yet), but to be quite honest, with the amount of dubious data out there it easily could be.

The questionable claim that has caught my eye on this occasion comes courtesy of a survey into the saving habits of first-time buyers.

Finance site Fairinvestment.co.uk surveyed around 2,500 individuals and found that they put away around £139 a month, equating to £1,668 a year.

This, they pointed out, would be a mere dent when it comes to stumping up for a £26,127 deposit on your first home (average deposit of 15 per cent, average house price of £174,178).

So with all that scrimping and saving just how long would it take before the Holy Grail of property ownership was attained?

“15 Years!” screamed the headline, “15 Years for first-time buyers to save a 15 per cent mortgage deposit.”

That’s 15 years of saving at a consistent rate of £1,668 a year, obviously ignoring the pesky little matter of inflation and the unending variance in house prices – oh, and let’s not forget the see-sawing of mortgage rates and lending criteria…

You get my point.  Unfortunately, as dull as they may seem, all those variables added to the mix are important and have and will continue to have a massive effect on buyer affordability.

Of course it could well take fifteen years for a first-time buyer to save up to buy their first home, but it could easily be less if mortgage lenders start to relax their LTVs and fees a bit. Sure, it may look improbable right now, what with LIBOR going up again and banks collapsing and merging left and right.

But the point is it could still happen between now and 2023, as could any multitude of economic outcomes that could affect the housing market.

And let’s not forget that a saver’s personal circumstances are more than likely to change massively over this time. I for one have no intentions of remaining the sole contributor to my future mortgage over the next decade and a half, and I’m usually incredibly pessimistic in that department.

But with first-time buyers undoubtedly facing a real struggle at the moment to claw their way onto the ladder I think it’s important not to depress the situation further with misleading hysterical claims.

The advice for FTBs, however, remains the same wherever you look. Sit tight and save. After all, tomorrow is another day…

Amy Winehouse is reportedly saying No, no, no to London life and upping sticks to a sedate village in the Suffolk countryside.

Tired of the temptations of the Capital, and in a bid to get her life back on track, the singer is supposedly just days away from completing on the purchase of a seven-bed period farmhouse set in three acres of land.

There’s even a readymade recording studio in place, should all that fresh country air reawaken her creative senses, and she allegedly got the new pad for a song – £750,000, reduced from nearly a million.

The exact location of the house – and the village – is being kept under wraps but it’s believed to be close to the prison where her husband, Blake, will still have to live for the next few months until he’s released.

In the meantime, I have a great mental image of La Winehouse striding around village lanes dressed in tweed, headscarf and wellies, and thoroughly embracing her new incarnation as Lady of the Manor.

Encouragingly, the locals seem to have taken the news remarkably well, with a spokesperson insisting that not only will the pop star be given a warm welcome but that her privacy will be respected, too.

Hmmm.  I wonder whether or not Amy will be capable of displaying mutual respect? Somehow I doubt it; in fact, I reckon it won’t be long before the once sleepy village is party to some crazy nocturnal antics.