Who ate all the pies...?
Newspapers love a diet story... you see at least one a week. Five stones lost here, four there, plans they swear by, the 'before' and 'after' menu, the old, wide trousers held out to show the gap now the tummy's reduced, etc.
All very well and good, as long as the stories don't involve the (often fat) editor.
Until an old mate decides to tell an old story about who ate all the pies. Well, not quite pies, but seven Big Macs, a cheeseburger and a jar of cockles... I know, it sounds 'orrible, and I rather hoped it was long forgotten.
But I didn't count for the memory of my old mate Phil Upton, now at Radio WM, but 23 years ago with me doing A-levels at Matthew Boulton (then Technical) College on Sherlock Street.
Bored teenagers at lunchtimes, we used to end up at MacDonalds, then relatively new, and some of us used to over-indulge. Cutting a long story short, my taste for Big Macs was noted and fellow students dared me to try 10 in a row. Not healthy, not clever... but memorable for anyone there.
Phil was one of them laughing (and paying). And on his show last week, when discussing 'Record Breakers', he called me on air to take the Michael. In fairness, it was a laugh. But how embarrassing that the upstanding editor of the Birmingham Mail was once gorging Big Mac after Big Mac.
Truth is, I ran out of space at seven and had to resort to a cheeseburger before giving up. That said, I felt a bit peckish on the way home and got the car we were packed in to stop at a Bristol Road chippie for a quick jar of cockles to wash it down.
There. Secret's out. I just hope our Political Editor Jonathan Walker never tells of the day he challenged me to a curry eating comp...
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Steve Dyson - Blog from the Editor on recent issues and events.
Proverbs 23:2 "put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony."
Quite the trencher-man Mr. D.
Truly , a disgusting episode , you must have frightened many old people and mewling babes with your gustatory brio.
If this was a tale about binge drinking , I can envision the Birmingham Mail editorial now , " yob culture " " lax licensing laws " blah blah , ad infinitum.
However this is binge eating - so that's OK then.
Shouldn't you be paying double on airline flights?
Have a nice heart attack.
Let's see. 23 years ago would be 1985. The year of Live Aid. Watched by a global audience of 400 million people across 60 countries.
Tell me. Were you thinking of the starving people of Africa when you tucked into burger number seven?
"the upstanding editor of the Birmingham Mail"
Now I didn't get that bit!!!
"Have a nice heart attack."
Now there's an idea!!
;-)
You fat b*******!
That said, you must have got something right as it's got a great link for the Mail site here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/sep/23/trinitymirror.pressandpublishing
Wo... did the grauniad have to use such a big pic?!!
How old is that picture? He looks about 10 stone lighter there!
In the words of nineteenth-century Russian Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov:
"Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance."
So is the suggestion that I diet?
Or you could always do some running - like the Birmingham Mail Fun Run - O , you already did that