WHAT a difference a couple of days can make. My Swap Shopper challenge is well and truly back on track.
As I glumly reported on Monday, my swap trail had gone cold. The early momentum had slowed right down and I was worried the whole mission might grind to a halt.
Since then things have picked up very nicely and I am once again confident of eventually hitting my £1,000 target for charity.
After four and a half years of sharing my flat with two successive friends, I am having to advertise for a new roommate.
My current flatmate is moving in with her boyfriend and now in my late 20s I have been unable to find a friend or friend of a friend who was looking to rent.
Our society is becoming more and more obsessed with appearance and this is demonstrated perfectly in the story about Lin Miaoke miming to a song by Yang Peiyi at the Olympics because seven year old Yang was not deemed pretty enough.
On the eve of the challenge - the day of days - I looked to my friends for some words of encouragement.
Advice ranged from "don't think about that man who choked to death" to "swallow some petroleum jelly before you start eating."
Finally I got some sense out of someone whose shadow I have stood in for the last six years.
These are the words of Ambrose Mendy, the current world record holder for cream cracker eating who in 2002 achieved an incredible, but beatable, time of 49.15 seconds.
He kindly shared his winning philosophy with us:
"Everyone can do something well. It's all about concentration and telling your mouth to have saliva in it.................Then it's just bite and swallow, bite and swallow."
I'm sure you'll agree - Both rousing and 'a'rousing.
As my challenge deadline approaches I have been starting to get slightly nervous.
My attempt is to be recorded on video and posted on News Shopper's website for all to see.
When I am retiring as Britain's most successful ever daredevil in 40 years time, and appearing on This is Your Life, they will drag out this video and talk to me about my first ever dare. So it has to be good.
I want it to be stored in the same box as fresh-faced David Beckham scoring from the half-way line against Wimbledon in 1995, or Freddie Mercury stunning his Live Aid audience at Wembley in 1985.
I want it to be labelled as that defining moment. That moment when people sat up and said: "Yes - now that was something really special."
But, if I am honest, I'm a bit worried about throwing-up on the internet.
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