As part of their Refreshers Week 2014, Lonsdale College held the first ‘I’m A Lonsdale Get Me out Of Here’ eating challenge on Wednesday of Week 1. Based on the the popularised Bush Tucker trials, Lonsdalians filled the bar to watch fellow students Ben Houssan, Romano Dos Santos, Ziggy Thomas, Joe Neal and Daniela Clare compete in this eight part challenge for the chance to win a £50 cash with a £20 bar tab for the runner up.
With a sick bin at the ready, the first three rounds of the competition began with the contestants eating a pot of peaches with no hands, a shot of tabasco followed by a tablespoon of chilli powder and a mixture of cat and dog food. To end the first half, the competitors were given 3 eggs and had one minute to impress the judges. While Joe and Ben chose to eat their eggs, including the shells, the others opted for the more sensible option of juggling and cracking the eggs on their heads.
After a much needed interval, contestants had to eat a plate of chillies, followed by a special dirty pint consisting of lager, tabasco, chillies, beans, egg and even lasagne sauce. Unfortunately, at this stage in the competition Clare pulled out, leaving the four boys to battle it out for the money. They had to then eat a teaspoon of cinnamon powder.
When asked what the worst challenge was so far, finalist Thomas said the dog food, whilst surprisingly Houssan chose it as his favourite meal of the night. For the final challenge, contestants were presented with a cup of five or six live crickets. It was at this point Dos Santos also retired from the competition.
For the final three, the task was to put the crickets into their mouths and hold them there for thirty seconds and keep them alive. For an extra five points they then had to eat them. Due to how easy the contestants found this, they had to repeat the challenge, but this time they had to see who could keep the crickets in their mouths the longest. To make the situation even more difficult, they also had to keep a raw egg in their mouth followed by baby food. To end the competition they had to eat it all. After a consistently good performance throughout the eight challenges, Houssan came first, with Neal as the runner up.
Speaking to the Lonsdale Social Secretary and event organiser, Olivia Lohoar Self, she said she was “impressed with how everyone stayed in the competition for so long” and commented on the final challenge saying “I didn’t expect everyone to do so well, we had to be quite spontaneous and add stuff to the challenge to make it harder”.
As part of Refreshers week Lonsdale have also competed in a Bar Sports competition against Fylde, which ended with a night out at the Dalton rooms. As for the rest of the week’s action at the bar: from 9pm on Friday night House DJs Michael Sutton and William Grimwade will play a set, this will be followed by NafroB and DJ Snakeyhips who perform at the same time on Saturday. The weeks action will be rounded up on Sunday by ‘The Big Quiz’, which is set to start at 8pm.
