Go on: I dare you!

A 66-year old man died after he was dared for £5 to try eating four pickled eggs in a minute in a pub in Devon. According to an article in the Exeter Express & Echo, the licensee and pub regulars desperately tried to clear his airways but he suffocated and died after the egg became "like cement". There is apparently a pickled egg challenge on Facebook, and at least two other people have died doing it.

I have never liked dares, and have usually refused to do them. This has included drinking races, even though I can probably get a pint down more quickly than most people I know (which has occasionally been useful at chucking out time). Unfortunately, it seems that alcohol does lead some people to accept dares to do silly things, or be called 'chicken', or whatever the current terms is.

I have heard of dares to neck bottles of spirits. While the quantity - around a pint and a third - is manageable, the consumption of so much alcohol in a short time can lead to alcohol poisoning and even death - the human body is simply not equipped to deal with a chemical that in such concentrations becomes toxic. The fact that we can drink that amount, or even more, over several hours doesn't mean we can drink it in five minutes. Just type 'died during drinking competition' into a search engine to find some examples.

Though not necessarily alcohol-related, I have also read of people plunging to their deaths trying to take selfies in extreme places.

Perhaps some of us see ourselves as indestructible. It's not as though these activities are enjoyable in themselves: eating four eggs at once must be revolting (and I like eggs); gulping down a bottle of spirits rapidly cannot be pleasurable either. The question remains: why accept such utterly pointless and potentially harmful challenges? Call me chicken if you like but I'd rather lose face.