I’m curious – tell me what you thought about The Block last night

So what did you think about Scott Cam fining Dan and Dani $1,000 for breaking the rules and using power tools after the noise curfew was in place?

Do you think it was harsh? Not harsh enough?

Do you think they were cheating or breaking the rules? I got in quite a discussion about this on twitter last night. Are we branding them as cheaters or rule breakers?

If you were in the same situation what would YOU have done (regardless if there was a camera on you or not)?

I asked Dan and Dani what they thought about it last night. They were travelling whilst the show was airing (which was probably a good thing as social media was very unkind), but they wrote to me late last night saying they felt pretty awful about the whole thing. I’ll ask them to come over here on my blog today and comment if they can.

I’ll weigh in on this subject later today, but would love to hear your thoughts first before I do…

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Dani emailed me and this is what she said (I have her permission to publish this):

Dan and I watched the episode in full this morning so we could bring ourselves up to speed with what everyone watched last night. We are both strong characters and had no problems admitting that we had done the wrong thing, although I think the difference with cheating and breaking the rules is that cheating tends to be done in secret or hidden from people and we made no attempt to hide what we were doing and freely admitted to it. I think at the time we were mostly disappointed that our neighbours had kept their feelings to themselves rather than come and express their concerns as I know that both Dan and I would have if it was another team struggling, but that is beside the point.

The Block is such an extraordinary situation that you often find yourself saying and doing things that you would never normally say or do, but I am not using that as an excuse for our behavior in this scenario as we knew that what we were doing was a violation of council noise restrictions and The Block rules. At the time however, we only considered the fine side of things and not the possibility of losing work on a Saturday, which as Lara stated was “selfish”….and it definitely was.

A lot of people are commenting that Dan and I think we have our own set of rules. I don’t believe this is an accurate take on things as we were not the only ones to go over noise cut off times that week whether it be at The Block or not, and whether its 5 minutes or 5 hours (which admittedly is much worse) it’s still a rule breaker and therefore we broke the rules on a number of occasions that week.

We discussed for a long time what we would do if we had won; would we donate the money to charity, split it evenly between the other teams, give the whole prize to the team that got second place or keep it for ourselves, however lucky we didn’t have to make that decision. The best team won fair and square, well done Brad and Lara!!

It’s difficult reading the more personal comments regarding mine and Dan’s personalities because as you well know people are basing their opinions on a small amount of footage from each day that is often the most dramatic. People that have met us have had only nice things to say and have encouraged us for the rest of the competition. As the old saying goes “You should never judge a book by it’s cover”. Now this doesn’t mean that I am an angel but we both take pride in our honesty and willingness to help others, however I am also guilty of judging characters on reality TV programs without thinking or realising that what I am watching is a snippet of someones day and life who is currently in the most unusual of circumstances.

Anyway I could go on forever about this, but it doesn’t change the fact that what Dan and I did was wrong and if we had our time over would definitely go about things differently.

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 UPDATED 3PM:

Here is what I think:

To say that I felt sorry for Dan and Dani last night was an understatement. I really did. I’ve walked the walk so I know exactly how they are feeling.

I can guarantee you that at the time (remember the show is not live) they were feeling a bit yucky about it, copped the fine and then moved on. I bet the rest of the contestants moved on too.

But as they wake up today, it’s like reliving a bad dream. They’d be shaking their heads and wondering why people are so serious about it. To them, the event was probably minor in the whole scheme of things. There is a lot of drama on The Block and this was probably just another day for them.

When Amie and I had our main bathroom dramas (with a tradie we sacked) and we thought we weren’t going to finish, it was a 24 hour drama. Stressful at the time, but over in the blink of an eye.

But parts of this drama have me wondering… Dan and Dani MUST have known they would have been fined/punished. They knew they would NOT be disqualified. They had to have known that.

Why do I say that?

It’s a tv show. Camera’s followed their every move, they would have known camera’s were asking the other contestants to comment on the noise, and they obviously still ran with it.

IF they were going to be disqualified I know they wouldn’t have gone through with the noise.

I know exactly where they are in ‘the game’… about halfway through, they’ve settled in to a routine, they are becoming friends with the camera guys, soundo’s and producers. You start to forget you’re making tv and you just settle in. This is where you can come unstuck. This is probably WHY Dan thought it was ok to break the rules – a bit of a laugh was had at the time, who will really care, oh I forgot I’m making tv…. This is what makes AWESOME tv though.

So this is where I stand…

At the time of the drama, they would have known there was a fine, they would have made a decision to cop the fine no matter what and their priority was to give it everything they’ve got. This is a game. Not real life.

If there were going to be serious issues from real neighbours it would have been dealt with and they would have stopped. But obviously there wasn’t.

I’m not sticking up for what they did. I do think if I was up against them I would have been really ticked off too. It wasn’t fair or good sportsmanship. I thought Dan and Dani would have known from last years series the audience can be so unkind, so let’s not give them any reason to hate us…

But I know, in their mind, they wanted to give everything within their power to get that room done. I have no idea how they fell behind, maybe I missed that? But the reality is, they weren’t going to finish… and they knew they had a good bathroom and desperately wanted to win.

They have been dealt a harder punishment from the Australian public than any $1,000 fine from Scott Cam. They’ll be forever known as cheaters and will find that hard to get around.

I can’t wait to see how the rest of the show unfolds and whether the other contestants alienate Dan and Dani now. I really hope they don’t. If they do, that shows bad sportsmanship on their part too. Anyone who personally attacks Dan and Dani though needs to get a serious grip. It’s tv, it’s edited and it’s not REAL. I will defend them as ‘people’ right until the end. Their little hiccup may not have been the best decision, but they’re still human.

It’s a game. And no one knows what will happen at the end of this game.

Amie and I sold our house for ZERO profit. Would we do it again knowing there was no prize? Absolutely!

Run with it people, be kind and move on. It’s only a game!

How good is this show?

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So now, what do YOU think? 

I’m so glad Dan and Dani ‘owned it’. Good on them. Onwards and upwards!