Ben’s World: Fishfingers, reindeer-burgers, and gun-toting mothers

Content editor Ben Raza’s weekly look at local life - follow Ben on Twitter @ben_raza_tc

Nothing exotic. Nothing weird and wonderful. Nothing that would make it onto Man Vs Food. I just miss fishfingers.

I have also had to adjust my mind to regarding apples as a mid-morning snack.

And - this is where it’s actually pretty cool - I have been told that steak and eggs is an acceptable breakfast.

A month or two ago, my colleague (the ever-excellent Hayley O’Keeffe) asked if I fancied doing a month-long feature.

We’d go to the gym, we’d adopt a new diet, basically we’d try to re-invent our lifestyles. Hell, we’d even give up the famous Times & Citizen Tuesday treats, which have made working late into the evening an actual highlight of the week.

I don’t think about things like this nearly as much as I should do before agreeing to them. So I just said yes, and then didn’t think any more of it. Until I got back from El Salvador, and Hayley started asking me when I was ready to start...

So five or six times a week we’ve been at the DoubleVision Conditioning Centre - a gym in Miller Road, Bedford.

We have switched to a ‘paleo’ diet, which Hayley will explain a lot better than I can here when the feature appears in your T&C later this month.

Suffice to say, we’ve cut out a lot of junk from our diets. I’m not just talking about the obvious chocolate and cakes, but the bucketloads of pasta I usually have for lunch or the baked beans that sit proudly on the side of my plate virtually every dinner time.

I already drink pints and pints of water throughout the day, but trying to do that has been one of Hayley’s biggest challenges.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about the other sessions of pint after pint - that’s this weekend’s Bamberg Beer Festival in town.

But it’s enough to say that I already feel a lot better. I’ve got more energy, I’ve lost a bit of weight, and it’s only been a week-and-a-half.

I’ll keep you posted as to how Hayley and I get on.

> ONE of my friends has just had a baby.

She went to the bank to set up a savings account for the little bubbah, but when she got there she discovered that the bank still had her registered at her previous address.

The bank would not accept household bills as proof of where she lived.

But they told her that they would accept... A gun licence.

Yes, according to their logic you shouldn’t take the word of anyone who pays their utility bills, but gun-owners can definitely be trusted.

Banks are run by idiots.

(also: Amy, how do you look so good so soon after popping out your gorgeous little girl?)

> TOP marks to everyone from the Castle Quarter group for Monday’s medieval festival.

Despite the dreary weather it was simply great fun, with loads to do. Plus it was all free and run by volunteers.

Even more fun was chatting to the team in the pub that evening where, buoyed with enthusiasm from their success, they were plotting the rest of their events for the year.

Whisper it quietly too, but one idea that was touted for the Christmas event was... Reindeer burgers.

Is that in poor taste (for poor old Rudolph and pals) or the best idea of 2012?

My money says it’s simply brilliant - but please do write in and let me know what you think!

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