I must remember to smile the next time.

The day I ate 10,000 Calories

28th- April- 2006. Sligo Town. Ireland

It started like any other Friday morning. Fried breakfast in the college canteen. The rest of the morning is hazy. I assume there were lectures. I always went to lectures. It was a big day. My friend was coming over from Dublin for the weekend. We had, within the last year, started the tradition of sharing family sized meals. KFC Family Bucket. Done. Four star pizza meal for four. Done. Even a trip to the cinema needed two family sized “Sharing” bags of sweets. Each.

I came back from college in the afternoon to an empty apartment. Put on neighbours. For my dinner I cooked one of those dried pasta things you add boiling water to. “Serves two” the packet read. Not this afternoon. I added some chicken pieces and and ate it with four slices of bread and butter (brown bread obviously, I was eating healthily lately)

Late that afternoon my friend arrived. We discussed that evening’s meal. “Four star meal for four” I said. Yep my friend agreed. A moment’s silence. Then, in unison, we both said “I was thinking”….. “you go” no “you go”, “Well” my friend tentatively suggested, “How about a meal for four……each” The exact words I wanted to here. This was it, the ultimate challenge. A marathon. This was Everest.

What’s a meal for four you ask? Well it is 1.5 litres of Coke. 8 chicken goujons. A generous helping of potato wedges. Two pieces of disgusting garlic bread. 3 dipping sauces. And a pizza. A large pizza. A pizza designed for four. A 16 INCH pizza. EACH. I was ready for it. I’d been training my whole life. BUT it was never going to be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. We needed an extra challenge.

It arrived in the shape of my friends parents. They happened to be in town on a weekend break, and being good people, they decided to treat their son and his friend to their dinner. They knew nothing about our prearranged dinner plans and we, being good people, decided not to risk causing offence by rejecting the offer.”We are still getting pizza” we agreed. So before the meal for four could begin, there was the small matter of fish and chips to get out of the way. Fish, we reasoned, was light and healthy. Fish in thick batter. Fish deep fried in oil. With chips. The type of chips that were potatoes cut into 4 pieces and deep fried in oil. A bag of them. This was consumed with relative ease and we made it back to the apartment to ring Four star. I wasn’t really hungry.

Two meals for four I ordered. When the delivery man arrived at the door I told my friend to turn up the radio and the TV and make lots of noise. This man had food for 8 people with him. I don’t know why, but I wanted him to think 8 people were going to eat it. Was I embarrassed? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted society to at least keep up the pretence of long established norms. A meal for four was 26 euro. I paid the man 52 on the button( I don’t tip) and brought the food upstairs. I don’t remember much of what happened next. We ate obviously. Ate. Ate. Ate. About 3/4s of the way through as I was eating, what was conservatively my 7th meal of the day, my memory goes completely blank. I entered a higher plane, I encounter the monolith, I reached the tipping point and it was now no longer about eating, it was a spiritual experience. I’m sure I learned some valuable lessons.

I think my friend got sick.

Oh it just another stupid blog, they all say. The guy who writes that has no power. His opinions are rubbish. No one respects him. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

The above image is from the guardian website, life and style section, article on people’s attitudes in relation to chocolate, white, milk and dark. I commented twice under my andyrew5000 moniker and check out the first comment I made. 44 recommends. My comment is the fourth most popular comment out of 133 comments. Oh yes. I am currently the fourth most popular contributor to the most powerful left leaning news outlet in Britain. That’s what you’re dealing with. Having the fourth most powerful opinion in Britain means, by default, I’m the most important voice and opinion in Ireland.

The people have spoken. There is weight to my words.

Hot Topic Hot Topic Hot Topic Hot Topic

X factor is really heating up. Down to the final 12. But who will win?? The early stages of the competition this year have been fraught with controversy due to a shake up in the categories. This year they finally settled with:

Soft spoken middle class homosexuals

Working class poor + drug problem

Sexed up teen with baby

Old weird and/or fat with a booming voice

The daily mail demanded the creation of an additional category, BLACKS, citing the rampant filthy racism at UTV as the reason but once the final 3 were selected, they demand the BLACKS be sent back to Africa. How dare they take over the nation’s
favourite singing competition?

Other highlights included

Young Mother Sheena Sheers was booted out at boot camp due to the baby not actually being hers but her sisters. She was then spectacularly brought back into the competition in a different category when she quickly developed a drug problem. “This smack will give me a better life” she drooled to reporters.

67 year old Geraldine caused controversies when, after a booming rendition of fly me to the moon, Cowell quipped “its good but you’re not really mental enough” “I am mental” Geraldine screamed as she stripped off, forced Dermot O’Leary to get on all fours and rode him around the studio like a horse. “One trillion percent yes” Cowell declared.

The three soft spoken middle class homosexuals are soft spoken middle class homosexuals. I think one of them wore a hat.

Sexy sexed up 15 year old mother of three Kylie James, who was eliminated at the judges houses when she failed to hit the right notes, apparently offered childless judge Simon Cowell one of her children, if he put her through to the next round. Cowell refused the child, as he is developing a new show in which contestants sing for his sperm. Then the four winners have a baby, which he will market as the ultimate baby band. Look out for it on UTV next summer. Kylie James subsequently killed herself.

I love the x factor it’s totally Mega LOLZ. Who is your favs?

Failed attempt to derive humour from the fact that some men know nothing about sport and yet will attempt to join in conversations about it

My brother expressed disbelief today, to one of his work colleagues, at the fact that liverpool football club has been sold to an American organisation, only to be told they were already under American ownership.

I was going to write an amusing piece about some essential things that people who know nothing about football should know in order to have a normal life and fit in with the rest of society, but that’s already been done in an episode of the it crowd, so I'm not going to do it.

My version would have been brilliant though. I was going to start with the premiership results being on page 303 of ceefax. That’s a taster. Imagine where else I could have gone with it. Or watch that episode of the it crowd.

Four and a half men

Had to go into a hardware shop today. It wasn’t like a woodies or large chain store, but an independent “building providers”. I’m not manly enough to garner any respect from the men working there. I annoy them. I’m wasting their time. They want to talk to my dad. Not me. I disgust them on many levels. Firstly my appearance. Short. Chubby. Glasses. Balding. Wearing runners. Secondly, my general air of nervousness. I don’t know the etiquette. I have no idea of the rhythm of the building providers. I’m not one for banter. And thirdly, my general ignorance to most things building related. I’m not a complete fool. I did get a c1 in honours building construction for my leaving cert. But then so did the boy who used to snort chalk. (Chalk isn’t some slang term for a drug you don’t know about. It was actual chalk. Crushed up chalk) But I’ve also worked several summers on building sites, its just that I didn’t take the slightest bit of interest in anything that wasn’t my job. That included talking to other people. Anyway today I had to buy a tap. A sink tap. I went into the shop, asked the lady did they sell taps, she yes but that I’d have to go out around to the back store. So I went out the back, missed the store and walked across the yard. I met a man in a yellow jacket (thinking about it now, he was a fellow customer not a member of staff) and asked him “TAPS?” He pointed to the door I had to go in. I went in and there were four men standing around discussing tiles. I walked in, and when they saw me they froze instantly. After a couple of second’s silence one of them said “Ah” (this was the last time one of them spoke to me) I said “have you got any taps?” Man turned to other man and said “have we got any taps?” man said “yes taps came in yesterday” Other man said “I wonder does he need the tap or the fitting” I reached in my pocket and pulled out broken tap. I said “It has stopped catching the fixing when you twist it” Man said to other man “he needs the tap” Man also said to other man “how much is that” Man said “7.50”(to the other man, not to me) We exchanged tap for money and I left. Was upset on the walk back to work so I got a packet of Milky Way magic stars to cheer myself up. Then I put the new tap on and washed everyone’s dishes.