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As any long-time Ouch reader will know, each year about this time we start getting unreasonably excited at the possibility that the latest series of will feature a disabled housemate. Last year's seventh series was, of course, infamously won by , who has Tourette's Syndrome. But what does series no. 8, which starts tonight at 9.00pm on Channel 4, have in store?

Well, here's the gossip that the Crippled Monkey has gleaned from around the web. Twenty "wacky pals", as describes them, have been lined up as potential housemates ... and of particular interest to us here at Ouch are someone who self-harms (or, um, to put it in The Sun's terms, "a butch lesbian who allegedly self-harms and boozes" and "the show's first deaf girl". (There's also, according to , "a child prodigy who could read by the age of two" - though Monkey can't confirm or deny, because frankly Monkey has no idea, whether this is one of those ever so popular geniuses with autism that the media are so keen on these days.)

A deaf contestant and someone with mental health problems could certainly be part of an interesting mix of housemates for BB8, at a time when reality TV - and this show in particular - are under particular scrutiny. Channel 4 are due to screen an unprecedented three apologies during this series for their handling of the Celebrity Big Brother that led to more than 54,000 complaints from the general piublic back in January. Endemol, the company who make Big Brother, have just hit the headlines because of the huge outcry surrounding The Big Donor Show, a reality programme on Dutch TV in which a , selects one of three patients to receive her kidneys. And as if all that weren't enough, the of Big Brother made the news last week following a scandal in which the show's producer chose not to inform one contestant that her father had died of cancer.

So does any of this bode well for BB and its housemates dealing with someone who self-harms? Will that simply become - in the worst sense of the term - a "freak show", or will they manage to shed some light on this difficult aspect of mental health and offer some real understanding of it? And what about a deaf contestant? If she is primarily a sign language user, will that lead to her feeling isolated amongst a group of people who will all rely on speaking? Do you think BB would even go as far as to include a housemate whose primary means of communicating is non-verbal? And, whatever your impairment, would you go on the show, given the chance?

Tell us your thoughts by hitting the comment on this entry link below. Plus, if there's any gossip of interest to Ouch-reading fans of Big Brother that you've picked up on the grapevine, let us know! I'll be updating this entry throughout the day if I hear more. This is Crippled Monkey, tracking down the BB gossip for everybody's favourite disability website ...

Update, 02:50 PM: Well, I've been to my top secret sources at the , just to find out whether anyone from Endemol might have contacted them for some all-important Deaf awareness training in preparation for having a deaf contestant and ... nope. Not a thing. Damn, damn and damn again.