Back in 1985, when Bob Geldof was inspiring millions of us to ‘feed the world”, what was future Birmingham Mail editor Steve Dyson getting up to? Well, the world wasn’t getting a share of his nosh (in a non Giles Coren sense, you understand). He was stuffing himself full of seven Big Macs, a cheeseburger and a jar of cockles… for lunch.
Writing on his blog last week, Dyson explains it happened when he was doing his A-levels.
‘Bored teenagers at lunchtimes, we used to end up at McDonald’s, then relatively new, and some of us used to over-indulge … my taste for Big Macs was noted and fellow students dared me to try 10 in a row. Not healthy, not clever… but memorable for anyone there.’
Sadly, Dyson wasn’t up to the task. ‘I ran out of space at seven and had to resort to a cheeseburger before giving up. That said, I felt a bit peckish on the way home and got the car we were packed in to stop at a Bristol Road chippie for a quick jar of cockles to wash it down.’
Unfortunately, Dyson made the mistake of specifying when this incident took place, and a far from amused reader, Bob Waldorf, comments: ‘Let’s see. 23 years ago would be 1985. The year of Live Aid. Watched by a global audience of 400 million people across 60 countries.
 Tell me. Were you thinking of the starving people of Africa when you tucked into burger number seven?”
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