Big Brother 8 gets under way

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LONDON, May 31 (Reuters) It was ladies' night on Big Brother yesterday, as 11 female contestants entered the house in a live launch show.

The girly group including the first ever set of twins, a member of the Women's Institute (WI) and a bisexual political protester made their way through the crowd and into the new-look house at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire yesterday.

A single man is expected to enter the house tomorrow to join the contest for the 100,000 pound prize in the eighth series of the Channel 4 reality television show.

The first 11 housemates are, twins Sam and Amanda, 18-year-old social work students from Newcastle.

The bubbly duo describe themselves as ''twincredible'' and have their own ''twin song'' to introduce themselves to boys.

- 60-year-old Lesley, a retired headhunter from Gloucestershire.

''I like to think that I'm intelligent, eccentric, perhaps a little unpredictable,'' says the WI member.

The mother-of-two, who also has two grandchildren, has been married twice, first at 16, and her second husband is 23 years her senior.

- Charley, an unemployed 21-year-old from south London.

She dropped out of art college and has been sacked from numerous jobs. Her cousin is Manchester United and England football player Kieran Richardson.

- Tracey, 36, a cleaner by day and self-styled hippy raver by night from a small village in Cambridgeshire. She has never been on a plane.

- Victoria Beckham-obsessed Chanelle, 19, a student from Wakefield.

- Shabnam, 22, a temp receptionist from north London, who would like to be reincarnated as ''another enigma'', such as Michael Jackson or Johnny Depp.

- 19-year-old student Emily. She says she could read from the age of two and rates her intelligence as 10 out of 10.

She and her 17-year-old twin sisters are apparently known as ''the Hilton sisters of Bristol''.

- Laura, 23, a nanny from south Wales. Her ambition is to become an embalmer as she believes that when you are dead you should still look good.

- Nicky, a 27-year-old bank worker from Watford, who was adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in India when she was aged one. Her adoptive parents are Irish and Anglo-Indian.

Love, she thinks, is ''for losers''.

- Londoner Carole, 53, an unemployed sexual health worker.

She is actively involved in politics and welfare issues, is staunchly anti-war and has spent most of her life protesting.

Newspaper reports said Big Brother producers were desperate to make the latest series of the show, hosted again by Davina McCall, fun in a bid to bury the bitterness of the Celebrity version's race row earlier this year.

Regulator Ofcom said the broadcaster had made ''serious editorial misjudgements'' after the eventual winner, Indian actress Shilpa Shetty, was subjected to a tirade of abuse from fellow contestants.

The new camera-filled house is also designed to have ''nothing where it should be'', with the fridge in the garden for example.