A SMASHING reception is on the cards for Big Brother reject Sophie Pritchard who will return to her local pub to find 17 packets of dried mashed potato.

Fan Sunjay Kakar planned the homecoming gift to welcome homee his favourite star after she was ousted last Friday from Britain's most talked-about TV show.

He planned to greet Sophie with packets of her favourite food as a belated present for her 25th birthday celebrated while she was in the house.

But when he arrived at the Litten Tree pub in High Wycombe, instead of Marlow's Cross Keys, he was told the area was better known for a recent spate of violent crime than for its links with the Ibiza-loving recruitment consultant.

The town centre pub in Frogmoor had been picked as a venue by Channel 4's breakfast show Rise which broadcast some of Sophie's friends trying to persuade viewers to support her in the public vote.

Mr Kakar confessed he caught a cab back to his home in Hounslow, London, armed with the 17 packets of Smash, which was all he managed to wangle out of confused storeholders who feared he filched his peculiar load.

He said: "The shop assistant thought I was mad. I think he thought I was a shoplifter. I never realised how many different types of mashed potato there are you can even get some with liver flavouring. And the bags are really heavy."

Unperturbed by his Frogmoor faux pas, Mr Kakar embarked on a staggering £90 return taxi trip the next day to the Cross Keys in Spittal Street a pub frequented by Sophie and once owned by her grandfather to deliver his £10 present.

He added: "I realised if I didn't do it then I would never have the courage to do it. I just went in there and handed the bags over and walked out quickly."

Mr Kakar, 35, said he felt an immediate affiliation with Sophie having had a wide experience of recruitment consultants during a chequered career in journalism, human resources and teaching.

He added: "I don't normally like recruitment consultants. They are just interested in sales targets. But Sophie was not like that. She seemed really warm and friendly. She was given a hard time in the house. She should have won. She seemed like a genuinely nice person and she made an effort to get on with people.

"Even if I never get to meet her, I have finally done something in my life I can be proud of. I have been to Marlow, even if it was just for two minutes."