Are we dreaming or is 'Big Brother' now green?

It's the summer, which means it's raining. Once again you don't have tickets for Glastonbury, and once again it's time for Big Brother. The reality show that spawned an entire genre of voyeuristic despair is returning for its ninth season next week. SmartPlanet would normally let the Big Brother bandwagon roll by unremarked, but it's the Noughties, and even Big Brother appears to have succumbed to the green impulse. Or has it?

According to the BBC, house-mates this year will have to grow their own vegetables and herbs, and the kitchen will feature "a large recycling bin." So that's it then. Big Brother's gone 'green.'

I was excited to hear about the reality TV programme's conversion to the cause and immediately set my heart on some sort of strategic hook-up. With SmartPlanet's guide to green and ethical products and services and Big Brother's proven ability to get millions of people excited, how could I go wrong?

But the Channel 4 press office is admirably keen not to oversell the show's green credentials, and has sadly poured water on my burning ambition. I rang them, full of excitement, to check up on that large recycling bin. Turns out, it's not, well, all that large. "It's a recycling bin," said a Big Brother spokesperson. "I don't know about large..."

What about the vegetables? Will the entire cast be forced to grow their own lentils, adopt a strict vegan diet and generally get with the ethical food program?

"There's an area in the garden where they can grow their vegetables -- if they choose to," was the sheepish reply. "At the end of the day it's a TV set, so it can't really operate as a greenhouse." So it doesn't sound as if the whole thing is being turned into an allotment or anything.

Okay, fine -- burst my bubble. By the way, my tip for the person who will win Big Brother this year? It's a dead cert: the accountants at Endemol and Channel 4. Pretty much everyone else involved will be a loser.

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