Best of British, chaps!
El Reg assembles mighty Quid-A-Day Nosh Posse
El Reg's participation next week in the 2015 Live Below the Line challenge – to survive for five days on one pound a day for food – is set to be more entertaining than ever as we've assembled a mighty Quid-A-Day Nosh Posse featuring no fewer than 11 brave souls. I first did the challenge back in 2013, in support of Malaria No …
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 07:33 GMT Tim Worstal
"Well said, sir. As I write this, we've already raised a splendid £360 for Malaria No More UK, before the Live Below the Line challenge has even kicked off. This bodes well for our 2015 fundraising total, and we invite readers to chip in a few quid in support of the cause."
A little bit more I think, once El Reg's invoice paying department kicks into action?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 12:31 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Damn...
This is where I'm glad that I have my tea black. So no faffing with milk required. I was considering muesli for breakfast, but I put quite a bit of expensive (for the challenge) dried fruit into mine - so I decided to go with toast instead. I don't normally eat brekkie, but maybe this challenge will make me hungrier, so I'm budgeting for it.
It's a good point about the farm shop, perhaps I'll go there in search of spuds. As they're just a bit too expensive otherwise. My brother got some squirrel from them a while back, so I guess I could even score some cheap meat. His wife deemed it too cute to eat, so he wasn't allowed it again...
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 16:19 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Damn...
More of a darjeeling man myself. But for the purposes of the challenge I'm probably going to go for Sainsbury's Red Label, which is still very nice, and save a few pennies. I think I'd rather go without something than go for value teabags. I'm assuming bags are cheaper than the loose leaf I normally use, but haven't checked yet.
It was a travesty when Lester ran that poll on how to make the perfect cuppa and came up with something with milk and sugar in it, made from a bag. But I'm not sure I know anyone of my age (or younger) who uses leaves.
I guess the diabetic thing complicates this a lot for you. And means you have to think a lot more about food in general.
I might calculate how much my muesli costs, now you've said yours is 8p. I'd always assumed it was much more than that, but as I make it myself, I've never counted.
I'm planning to price next week up tonight - and see exactly what I can afford. So I'll have to go round the kitchen with scales and a calculator. I always think of things like muesli as expensive, as a bag of oats is £2-£4 - and the seeds and dried fruit are a fiver a big bag. But you don't use all of them each time, and once mixed it lasts for ages.
You have been a source of many ideas for this, so thank you.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 12:34 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Free meat!
What was the trick from 'Danny Champion of the World'? It was something about soaking raisons and then putting a thread through them or something I think. It's a very long time since I read it.
However, I'd have to be very hungry indeed to fancy tackling the London pigeon. Much better to cut out the middle-man, and run in cirlces in Trafalgar Square and try to catch the bread that the tourists throw to them.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 13:52 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Free meat!
Hmm. There's some poor spelling in there. That is the raisin d'etre for spellcheckers...
I've not even done the week of near-starvation yet, so I can only put it down to the fact that I've started eating salad now the sun's come out. Perhaps I should go back to bacon, to get my strength up?
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 16:29 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Free meat!
My Nan bought some rabbits to breed, and cages for the garden. This was in London, and so welcome off-ration meat. The only problem was letting Mum play with them first.
When came the first Sunday dinner where they decided to eat the fruits of their labour, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And no rabbit eaten by the children.
Nan told me that she sold the rabbits to the dustman, as his kids could eat them having not been introduced first.
She also told me that she'd despatched Grandad to do the deed, but that his attempts to finish the poor buggers off failed and they resorted to her brother's bayonet. I'm assuming this would be in knife mode, but I've always had the mental image of the Bosch bunny at the wrong end of a Lee Enfield 303, fix bayonets and charge...
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 11:47 GMT launcap
Interesting wrinkle..
.. would be trying to do the challenge in a way suitable for a type-2 diabetic - ie restrict the simple carbs heavily - so no rice (except small portions of Basmati - it has a different starch type to standard long-grain that has a much lower glycaemic load), limited use of potatoes or pasta (both quite high glycaemic load).
Of course, lentils, chickpeas et. al. are still suitable so I suspect a more Mediterranean or Indian diet would be more suitable.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 13:43 GMT Ugotta B. Kiddingme
is it just me
or does Lester's nephew resemble Arthur Darville, albeit with a beard? Which then leads to the next question regarding any potential resemblance between Matthew's significant other and a certain bonnie Scottish lass.
And, of course, best of luck to all participants in the challenge. While I lack sufficient commitment to restrict my diet that severely, I shall be contributing to the cause monetarily.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 16:41 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Baking bread
Nope. As I understand it, the global poverty line is measured at $1.50 of purchasing power parity consumption. So that's not just food, but everything.
But more crucially it's an estimate of the value of goods consumed, not what was paid for - so includes grub grown by people and stuff bartered for.
My bank won't be accepting my mortgage payment going down to 20p for next week, so I'd fail the challenge before I even started. And I guess my charge from Thames Water alone is about £4-£5 a week too.
On the other hand I struggle to buy the purchasing power parity bit at that point. Even a one roomed wooden house in the middle of nowhere in the UK is going to cost more than £100 a year. Although obviously there are lots of things that the poorest in the world just don't pay for, because they don't get. Such as the clean water and sewerage that's so cheap here.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 14:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Why oh why oh why?
Last year it was on a canteen week, this year it's on a canteen week and on top of that the family have decided it's time to celebrate my mother-in-law's 95th birthday that week, supposedly it's on the 27th but I don't think even she knows properly. I swear she's been 95 for the past ten years but it looks as if she won't get past that until she gets her party. Now this sounds like the ideal excuse for me not to spend too much time, or even any time, with an entire dysfunctional family from the back woods of Spain who would make a cross between the Beverly Hillbillies, the mountain folk from Deliverance and Cyclops look normal. However, last year, a quid a day was far too easy and having just had a wok buffet accompanied by couple of jugs I feel I could go the five days on a pound.
So if I'm allowed, if any one person donates 73GBP I'll sign up and do just that. Why 73? Then I'll know it's not a random 20/25/50/100 donation and that someone likes me enough to save me from a fate worse than a family gathering yet hates me enough to want me to suffer for it.
Have I thought this through? Of course not, those couple of jugs may actually have been four or five.
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Wednesday 22nd April 2015 16:47 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Why oh why oh why?
Lester,
Doesn't this suggest that El Reg should start doing charity auctions? Andrew Orlowski could offer to have "I love Google" tattooed somewhere on his person for say £10k.
An El Reg journo could attempt to sneak into Apple's next press event through the toilet window for £100.
Maybe £1,000 for calling Apple pretending to be The Guardian, so they actually phone you back and give you a quote for a story...
There are many options for merriment.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
