I’m telling you this because I remembered it last night and it’s not like I can bore my mates with it (again) down the pub, is it? So you’re copping it. Bad luck.

A few years ago, I ate an entire dried Trinidad Scorpion pepper at a BBQ off the Occy Road. I wasn’t even pissed, I just like showing off and thought it’d be a laugh (it was not a laugh).

These things are the second hottest chillies in the world at 2 million Scoville heat units. Apparently, that’s the same kick as 400 jalapeños or 10 Scotch bonnets. For those of you reading this in Whitley, that’s around half the potency of pepper spray.

I forget the exact ‘rules’ of the challenge, but it was something like ‘chew the bloody thing for 30 seconds, wait five minutes, then down a pint of milk’. So I did (because I’m hard and cool). And it was fine. For a bit. I mean, it was fuuuuuuucking hot, but you kind of expect that. It wasn’t pleasant tasting, but it was manageable. Mostly because my brain had kicked me into a trance-like state to help me cope. Feelings of euphoria washed over me as I disassociated and started trying to eat leaves off a nearby hedge and dreaming of a skip full of Soleros.

Post milk my mind settled a bit. I could talk again. Blimey, I’d eaten an entire Trinidad Bastard and gotten away with it. I was, presumably, the new hero of the two dozen people who’d witnessed and congratulated me in what was clearly my finest hour. What a man.

Now all that was left to do was double up in unbearable agony and spend the next twelve hours shitting explosive lava out of my arse while worrying that I’d inflicted permanent and irreparable damage to my digestive system.

The diarrhoea wasn’t optional and time was very much of the essence. The issue was that our host’s was a small-ish terraced house and there were loads of bloody people there. What my guts had planned wasn’t going to be conducive to a party with a happy atmosphere. But this needed out. My house at the time was too far away and I could’t risk a cab. It’s £50 cleaning fee in those things, y’know.

I had to go to a pub. It was either that or foul the car park of the Castle Street Vets and not even ill old Labradors do that FFS.

The Horse & Jockey (as it was then) was the nearest pub I could use. So I made a dart for it.

Jesus Christ, this was going to be close. I got there, still feeling a bit like I was sedated and very much like my arse was seconds away from going Full Vesuvius. I pushed the door. The fucker was closed. CLOSED! What kind of pub is closed at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon?! Well, the answer is ‘the kind of pub that’s just about to shut down’.

I was running out of time, shite-wise. It was getting like that film Speed, except instead of a bus, I was on foot. And Sandra Bullock wasn’t there. But there was a bomb.

Momentum was key, I couldn’t afford to stop and think. I had to push on before the intestinal pressure became too much to bear. I carried on running (well, cry-jogging while holding my backside). The Sun was now my only hope.

The Sun… was OPEN. I was able to evacuate in peace/agony. There was, of course, no toilet paper. So I had to use my trainer socks. Us English are nothing if not resourceful, Eddie.

I then had CRIPPLING stomach pains all day and all night and seriously considered calling a doctor. Don’t do it, kids. Don’t eat an entire chilli pepper that measures 2,000,000 on the Scoville Scale at a BBQ. Just have a burger or some potato salad or something instead.

This image should help paint a picture of my epic journey…

Cheers for reading. Sorry it’s come to this. 💩 #content