40. Eating Competition

40.  Eating Competition

with guest challenger Scott and leftover clearer Lotti

The discussion about which eating challenge to do was an incredibly long and sometimes heated one.  I tried long and hard to get Anett to agree to a two foot sausage roll but she was having none of it!

Anett: Can't we just go out and buy a bucket of chicken each and time how long it takes to eat it?
Phil:  No because I don't like meat on the bone and there is no free t-shirt at stake.

In the end we settled on the Infamous Beast Burger Challenge at the Clapham North, mainly because it was near us and we didn't have to sign any waivers.  We'd not seen the burger in question but knew it would contain a chicken breast and pulled pork as well as a regular beef burger, and 'its own weight in hand cut chips'.  Oh and it had to be eaten within a time limit of 12 minutes.  How hard could that be?

We adopted fairly different preparation strategies: Anett ate a decent breakfast and an early lunch and then fasted; Scott only ate apples for most of the day; I had a pub lunch and a fair few biscuits over the course of the afternoon.  All of us were united in one thing though: by dinner time, we were all starving!

HUNGRY!

As the food came down in the lift, we all craned our necks to see whether the waitress would manage to carry all three burgers in.  She could not carry all three burgers.  Uh oh!

The Infamous Beasts

The waitress told us that only one girl had ever attempted the challenge before and she had failed miserably.  All of the serving staff seemed to remember the one guy who had completed the challenge.  If we cleared our plates in the 12 minutes (they weren't too fussed about the salad garnish) we would join that guy on the wall of fame and earn ourselves a free drink.  High stakes!  

Man vs Food

We were told that the best tactic was to get through the chips first and then attack the burger, but when the timer started none of us could resist the urge to go straight for the meat.  Scott recoiled in horror when he realised that there was not only a tomato, but also a mushroom in the burger!  There was also a bonus slice of bacon and melted cheese in there.

The Beast close up

The pulled pork was succulent, the beef cooked perfectly.  The chicken breast nearly killed me and turned out to be hiding a gherkin, aargh!

At 6 minutes gone, it was clear that Anett was never getting through her mammoth pile of chips.  Scott and I were still in it but he was starting to struggle.

At 9 minutes Scott looked tired.  I was our only hope and still going strong.

The 11th minute crept up on me much faster than expected and I was frantically shoving as much of the bun as I could in my mouth when the time was over.  Gutted.

Time over!  Our finished plates (clockwise from top left: Phil, Anett, Scott)

The waitress declared me the winner and while I didn't make the hall of fame, she did get me a free drink which helped to soothe my wounded pride.  I'd made a promise to myself to finish even if it took longer than the time so took my time on the remaining 5 chips.  Lotti swept up Anett's leftovers and still couldn't get anywhere close to the finish.  Scott continued to stare at the mushroom.

Victory drink (sort of)

GIN!

Leftovers proving too much for Lotti

The closest we came to a clear plate

Eating competition list trumps!

Cost: 4/5 (£20 for literally all you can eat is pretty good value)

Originality: 3/5 (people do this all the time but not many of them are size 8 women)

Fun factor: 3/5 (entertaining, delicious for about 5 minutes, painful for the remaining 7 and some serious food baby repercussions were suffered by all)

28. 90s dress up

28.  90s dress up

*events may have been paraphrased a little*

Saturday, approximately 12pm:

Phil: Hey Anett, do you want to come geocaching with me and Jill this afternoon?

Anett:  No I'm tired and I want to stay inside and do yoga

Phil:  OK that's fine but you're not allowed to be boring all day so when I come back we're drinking margaritas and going out to hunt Irish boys

Anett:  I hate you.  Buy limes.

And so it came to pass that at 10pm we were drinking margaritas and looking for something from the to do list to tick off.  We briefly considered getting tattoos but Jill wasn't up for it (apparently the margarita stare-down wasn't an effective persuasion tactic) and then settled on 90s fancy dress.  Perfect attire for a dance in the Swan!

Lookin' fresh!

We donned our best leggings, crop tops, denim shirts and hi-tops then accessorised with colourful sunnies, slightly too much make up and the highest ponytails we could manage.  At this point Jill decided we were definitely crazy and went to bed.  Apparently it's not cool to drink on buses these days so we walked to the Swan and upon arrival for no apparent reason some boy paid for me to get in.  Thank you, random boy!

From that point in it all gets a bit hazy.  It turned out that the random boy at the door wasn't the only one who was appreciative of our retro outfits and we were bombarded with free drinks all night.  Naturally we fended off most of the men by flashing Anett's engagement ring and telling them all we were getting married soon.  Thanks for the drinks, random men!

No idea who this guy was.  Didn't even remember taking the picture.

Anett was wearing her Fitbit and it told us that by 4am we had reached her daily steps goal of 10,000 steps.  By 5am we'd hit 12,000 steps which is equivalent to 8.56km of dancing.

At the end of the night I turned around to see Anett with a boy and so followed suit in order to avoid playing third wheel.  Crafty!  One of the boys was Irish.  One wasn't.  Still, we took the obligatory photographs.

Irish boy

Not an Irish boy

90s Dress Up List Trumps!

Cost: 5/5 (Lots of free drinks + free entry for me meant between us we spent about £30)

Originality: 4/5 (Nobody else was wearing what we were but obviously everyone did back in the day)

Fun factor: 4/5 (Outrageously entertaining night and so much dancing but we did both seriously regret the boys the next day)

48. Kiss a Spanish Boy

48. Kiss a Spanish Boy

When: 23 March

Location: Castelldefels, Spain

We put this on our list when we knew we would be in Spain for a Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Something we took for granted was that it was a women's tournament and boys would be scarce. 

Our Team of Ladies... Where are the boys?

However our trusted captain decided to hook us up.

El Capitan/ Match Maker

So straight after winning the final and doing some skinny dipping, she dragged us over to a male friend and asked him straight out if he wanted to kiss a couple of fine ladies... 

He said yes... 

We said yes... 

Here is the proof!

Kiss a Spanish Boy Trumps!

Cost: 4/5 (Free, but it did cost some of our pride needing a friend to arrange it for us)

Originality: 2.5/5 (Act of kissing a Spanish Boy not original, the situation was)

Fun: 3.5/5 (Would have been more fun if we had found our own Spanish Boy) 

9. Skinny Dipping

9. Skinny Dipping

When: 23 March

Location: Castelldefels, Spain

Our Beach

When we decided to put this on our to do list we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would be doing it alone. No one else would be silly enough to undress in public and frolic around in the sea, especially not in March.


We were wrong. In fact 7 out of the 8 people on our team went for it. And I don't mean we just half undressed at night and secretly went into the sea. We went for it in the middle of the afternoon with a beach full of people. The entire team ran from the beach towards the sea undressing, then holding hands and screaming threw ourselves into the sea. It was cold, we didn't stay very long.

Skinny Dipping Trumps!

Cost: 5/5 (Free)

Originality: 3/5 (Skinny dipping while not original, it was a team effort. It was also in broad daylight in March... brrr) 

Fun: 5/5 (No modesty, just complete hilarity)

10. St. Patrick's Day - Kiss an Irish Boy

10. St. Patrick's Day - Kiss an Irish Boy

Date: Monday, 17 March

Location: Wahaca, Maple Leaf, Porter House

Annual Guinness

I am not sure what we were thinking when we decided to add "kiss an Irish boy" to our To Do List. Maybe it was just to spice up our St. Patrick's Day, or maybe we just felt like we needed to kiss a boy, who knows? What I will say is that it was one of the more awkward moments in our lives as we stood in a corner of a crowded Irish Pub (Porter House) essentially playing hot or not, and trying to gather the courage to speak to some Irish Boys.

So let us start from the beginning. It must be said going out on a Monday after work was not what we originally intended by putting this on our To Do List. Nonetheless, we put on our green leprechaun hats and set off for what would be an interesting evening.

We're Ready!

As seems to be tradition when we need to gather up some courage, we started our evening with some Mexican food from Wahaca and a Margarita. Why we turn to tequila for liquid courage, I will never understand, but it worked for our Speed Dating so it was going to work for Irish Boy snogging.

After our delicious and lime flavoured start we decided that as it was St. Patrick's day, we must drink our annual pint of Guinness. However we didn't feel brave enough to enter into the Porter House just yet, so we turned to the trusty old Canadian pub, Maple Leaf for our pint. The bar lady was lovely enough to take our picture.

Preparation 

Then on we went across the street and into the maze of drunk Irish men at the Porter House. Now we turned our sights to tequila beer, Desperados, and 8 rounds of tequila beer. What can I say, we needed a lot of liquid courage. Now this is when it gets creepy, and we felt like creeps as well. We started to prowl the many floors of the Porter House, looking for suitable prospects and failing miserably to speak to anyone who even came close. Lurking in corners, playing the world's worst drinking game between the two of us, and feeling like teenagers again wishing someone would come and speak with us.

Eventually two Irish boys did speak with us, however it only resulted in a peck on both cheeks for Philippa and nothing for me. Despite what Philippa will tell you, a peck on the cheek DOES NOT count! Then came more lurking, more prowling and more beer.

Did we fail in our attempt? Yes and No. We did meet a boy (Daniel) and his friends (Aly and Mark).  And the guy on the left, whose friend took our picture and I think one of them might have been from Oman.  His name might have been Omar.

Our New Friends

Was he Irish, sadly we must admit no he was not. However we did put an Irish hat on him and made him pretend to be Irish. Then yes we kissed him. Actually both of us kissed him, so it is a good job we're friends, otherwise that could have been awkward. To our embarrassment, but true to form... here is the proof.

Anett's Turn

Phil's Turn

Kiss an Irish Boy Trumps!

Cost: 1/5 (Getting the liquid courage cost a lot of money, after 10 rounds of alcohol our wallets were not happy)

Originality: 2/5 (Everyone goes out for St. Patrick's day, but not many go to stalk Irish boys)

Fun Factor: 2.5/5 (It was embarrassing and creepy but we still had a lot of fun!)