Plot summary edit
The events in the book are written below in chronological order. They do not occur in the book in chronological order.
Timeline (useful for building this section) edit
1) The ten contestants enter the house.
3) Layla gets angry after David eats some of her cheese. The duty editor resigns, because he feels that his job is pathetic, and takes his assistants with him. Bob Fogarty and his assistant Pru take over the editing.
4) Layla and Dervla set up a house rota for cleaning. Several housemates protest that they make less mess than others or don't mind the mess. Woggle refuses full stop to be involved, insisting that it is "domestic fascism" and that "any kind of group organisation is fascism". The other nine agree to work as part of the rota.
5) David and Layla, who had become friends, argue over a poem that Layla wrote. Dervla, while brushing her teeth in the morning, receives communication via condensation in the mirror. It is from a cameraman who offers to help her. She becomes worried that it may be a trick by Peeping Tom or outside media, then decides that, as all she is doing is reading, she isn't doing anything wrong.
7) Dervla jokingly asks the cameraman in the mirror "who will be the winner of us all?" She is shocked to be answered. Woggle is number one. Kelly is number two. She, Dervla, is number three. She blows a kiss to the mirror as a gesture of appreciation.
8) Geraldine Hennessy appears on a chat show, The Clinic, to promote the show. House Arrest has defied expectation that it would flop. Dervla confronts Woggle about the amount of pubic hair that he leaves in the shower. Dervla is worried it'll affect her public rating. Woggle appears unrepentant but is upset as he quite fancies Dervla. Kelly tells Jazz about her dream to be an actress. David tells her to get a more realistic dream.
In the evening the housemates make predictions about who will be left in the house at the end of week seven and anything else they think will happen. Afterwards the housemates compare tattoos. Everyone has one except Jazz, who is too black, and Dervla, who doesn't want one. David, after considering suicide, had the first four lines of Hamlet's soliloquy To be or not to be tattooed around his ankle.
That night the girls discuss Woggle and his strange behavior. Moon calls him a "nutter" and says that "he should be in a loony bin". Sally reacts angrily, saying that he's not mad, he's just filthy and politically unfocused. Kelly supports Moon and Sally snaps at her, saying that she knows nothing about mental illness and she shouldn't joke about it. The world stigmatises the mentally ill and blames them for all of society's problems. Moon claims to know that the mentally ill are dangerous and reveals that she was commited for two years after her uncle sexually abused her. She says that he was a doctor and had friends in high places so, when she accused him of abuse, he made it seem like she was lying and had her commited.
In the editing box, Geraldine is impressed by Moon's trick and lets the editors know that she's lying. Geraldine wouldn't put an abused woman on her show; Woggle's as mad as she'll go. The editors originally believe Moon and were quite worried. Geraldine says it would have been obvious anyway because people in mental hospitals are sedated and quiet. Bob Fogarty, the senior editor, is instructed to change the time codes so it can be shown later in the show. Back in the house, Moon reveals that she was lying. The other girls are horrified and Sally cries quitely.
9) Jazz, Kelly and David relax in the hot tub around midday. They talk about knowing themselves, when Kelly whispers to David that she knows him. She reveals that she knows he is the porn star, Boris Pecker, from a movie in which she was an extra: "Fuck Orgy Eleven". This is not audible to anyone else but it is obvious by sight that David is terrified.
10) The housemates tackle Woggle about his fleas. Woggle insists that killing them is murder and draws comparisons to fox hunting, which the housemates all find abhorant. Kelly says the difference is that foxes are cute and fleas aren't. David jumps in, saying that foxes do very little harm to humans, whereas fleas do. Woggle angrily calls David "O Adolf of the animal kingdom" and "Lord Blood Sport of Bastardshire", insisting that his fleas stay.
11) The housemates nominate two other housemates for the first eviction from the Peeping Tom house. All the housemates except Dervla (who knows he is popular) vote for Woggle. The two housemates up for eviction are therefore Layla and Woggle. All the housemates assume that the viewing public find Woggle as disgusting as they do and he will be evicted.
After Woggle returns from the confessions box, the other boys jump on him and undress him. They burn his clothes on the barbeque and cover him in flea powder. In the editing bunker, Geraldine insists that Bob Fogarty closes the show with the image of Woggle sitting in the garden, naked and crying.
14) Layla is evicted from the house, to everyone's shock. Woggle is secretly thrilled and swears at the other housemates, who tried to evict him. Layla howls with anguish and shouts angrily to Peeping Tom in the confession box, accusing the makers of having "made [Woggle] the victim" of the situation and making the other housemates the butt of "the joke". She swears to get even with Geraldine, calling her "a complete and utter shit". She behaves with a bit more dignity when she is interviewed by Chloe after eviction.
David and Moon threaten to walk out before spending another day in the house with Woggle and insist that the rest of the housemates will join them. Peeping Tom promises that Woggle will be gone within two days.
15) Geraldine decides to "get [Woggle] out sharpish" to ensure that the other eight housemates stay, so she sends photos of Woggle kicking a young girl to the police. Woggle had previously given her the photos, hoping she'd defend him if he got into trouble. The attack occured during a hunter-sabotage operation by Woggle and other animal rights campaigners on a kennel in Linconshire, where she worked as a stable hand.
The police arrive quickly and Chloe asks Woggle to leave over the tannoy. He refuses to leave on the grounds that he hasn't been voted out. He and the other housemates are stunned when Chloe reveals that the police want to interview him. Originally some of the other housemates, especially Dervla, jump to Woggle's defense but recoil when his crime is described as "the serious assault of ... a girl of fifteen", which they assume to mean rape. Woggle is taken away by the police, insisting that the girl deserved it.
After supper the housemates are set a topic for discussion: their deepest feelings. Garry tells the others at length about his three-year-old son, Ricky, whom he loves deeply. Kelly insults and embarrasses him by asking why he volunteered to be away from his son for two and a half months if he loves spending time with him so much. Garry is speechless with rage but does his best to contain it.
17) Layla finds herself broke and returns to her previous job as a shop assistant. She leaves in less than an hour after members of the public harrass her. She watches tapes of herself on House Arrest and burns with fury at those who nominated her: David, Dervla, Garry and Kelly.
While the housemates discuss their first loves, Geraldine declares to her editors that the reason the housemates aren't having sex is because they haven't had enough alcohol. She separates the food and alcohol budgets, insisting to the public that the housemates be treated like adults, which fools no-one. To keep some semblence of order in the house, alcohol is only available at the weekend, which Geraldine defines as Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
18) It's a Thursday so normally the housemates would nominate one of themselves for eviction. However, with Woggle's departure, the eviction is cancelled and the housemates have a party instead with the new-available alcohol. Moon goes into the confession box at the start of the evening, while the others are drinking, and makes a rambling apology for the lies she told on day eight about being abused and institutionalised.
Jazz makes a series of jokes about drinking and Derlva, confident now the cameraman had told her that she is second to win, flirts with him. Jazz tells her she gives a lot away about herself when she brushed her teeth and Derlva jumps, thinking that Jazz is aware of her communication with the cameraman. Jazz clarifies that he means anyone brushing his or her teeth and Derlva relaxes. He correctly identifies everyone's toothbrushes and the other housemates are impressed.
Kelly, who gets progressively more drunk, spends the evening flirting with Hamish. She decides to go to bed but falls into his lap. They kiss and decide to go to the Copulation Cabin, where Kelly falls asleep, refusing to have sex with Hamish. Hamish is by this time extremely sexually frustrated and touches her up under the blankets, invisible to the infra-red cameras. He suddenly feels incrediably guilty, knowing that his "digital penetration" was a crime, and replaces Kelly's g-string. He pretends to wake up and tells the camera that he probably fell asleep first. He then returns to the main house.
19) Kelly wakes up, feeling defiled, but convinces herself that nothing can happen without being recording on camera. Geraldine is furious that nothing sexual has happened. kelly goes into the confessions box and asks Peeping Tom exactly what she did last night. The final cut makes her look like a "sad, drunken old slapper".
20) Outside the house, Woggle skips bail after his respectable parents pay up. He is attacked by self-rightous thugs and starts to dig a tunnel under the house. Inside, Sally dyes her hair red. Geraldine manipulates the footages to make a "half decent lezzo moment".
23) Sally cuts her hair short.
24) Housemates start to build the sweatbox.
25) Dervla objects to having to be naked in the sweatbox. Peeping Tom insists that she perform the task naked and that, if she doesn't, the food budget will be cut. Geraldine knows how cynical it sounds and refuses to let the conversation be aired.
26) Bob Fogarty threatens to quit because he feels that they are blackmailing Dervla into stripping. Geraldine says he'll get no payout and has no grounds for suing the company. Fogarty stays.
27) At 8pm the housemates start drinking and explore the food and sex toys available. At 10pm they finally get into the sweatbox and continue to drink heavily. They start a game of truth or dare, and Sally leaves to go to the toilet after an argument with Moon. Everyone selects their preferred partners: Jazz and Dervla choose each other, Moon chooses Jazz, Kelly and Hamish choose each other, Garry chooses Kelly, Sally chooses Dervla and David jokes about only loving himself.