Prize fund plummets 8 grand

Dan miffed as jackpot plummets

06:03 13 June 2004

Big Brother's prize fund plummeted a further GBP8,000 last night after four housemates failed a physical endurance challenge.

The task involved hanging from a bar above stinging nettles for 90 seconds.

Although blonde student Shell completed the challenge, Marco, Ahmed, Victor and Nadia miserably slumped off before the time was up.

Big Brother warned contestants that two grand would be axed from their GBP85,000 prize money for every person who failed.

The total prize fund now stands at GBP77,000, some GBP23,000 grand down on the original GBP100,000 figure.

Unconvincingly, hairdresser Daniel angrily blurted out: "We're not bothered about the money, when are you going to f***ing realise that?"

"We may as well just f*** off now - if they're going to start moving the goalposts, we can soon start swearing and mentioning brand names."

Earlier in the evening, four contestants - Dan Jason, Stuart and Vanessa - had to take part in a human wheelbarrow race.

The housemates were paired off, with one housemate becoming the barrow and the other, the pusher.

In relay style, one of the teams raced to the end of the course to collect "tokens," which were placed in the ring at the beginning of the course. That done, the other team would go and collect a token.

Each token was worth ten seconds of time towards the second part of the task.

In total, the teams collected nine tokens, totalling 90 seconds.