A regional daily journalist ate cat food while reporting on a luxury hotel for felines on her newspaper’s patch.
Lauren Ballinger, social media editor at the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, took up the challenge by Ings Luxury Cat Hotel to sample its latest menu.
While visiting the hotel, near Dewsbury, Lauren tucked in to haddock risotto and asparagus with a side of cat nip.
However, she found its other culinary offerings too much to stomach.
Lauren gets ready to try some of the food at the hotel
The cat-loving journalist’s reaction to trying the food was filmed and later uploaded to the Examiner’s website.
Owners Jo and Phil Ounsley opened the hotel in 2013, and describe it as ‘Center Parcs for cats’.
Lauren told HTFP: “These days I don’t get to do much writing, but as a cat lover nothing was getting between me and this story – including having to share a meal with one of the guests!
“I’m not a big fan of seafood – the haddock and asparagus risotto was OK, even with a sprinkling of catnip, but I had to draw the line at the wheatgrass and cat milk smoothie with king prawns on the side.
However eating cat food wasn’t nearly as traumatic as having to be filmed doing it – I can’t see a move into television in my future.”
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“…I can’t see a move into television in my future.”
I can, this is exactly the quality content that Mustard Tv in Norwich are crying out for, beats their current drivel hands down
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I feel a five minute worldwide internet sensation coming on!
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Miaow!
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And they wonder why journalism is dying. You know, if local papers just stripped away the rubbish and actually stuck to the core – politics, crime, developments, people’s achievements and things that make a difference to reader’s lives, they may well have a future. Going down this path of dross is just tiresome.
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To be fair could have just stopped the headline at ‘journalist eats cat food’ and it still would have made sense.
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Forget about the tales of old people eating cat food.
With the way salaries are going, journalists eating cat food could become a regular occurance.
It won’t be Whiskas either! But a supermarket’s own label.
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I have to admit I was dreading the comments section today but it’s not too bad!
Newspapers are there to entertain as well as inform and hopefully people found me sharing food with a cat pretty entertaining.
Our paper is full of ‘traditional’ news – including two pages every day about our campaign to save Huddersfield’s A&E.
But there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun too.
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Doom, gloom, doom, gloom….. yep. Doom, gloom. (adopt croaky voice) Back in my day it was soooo much better….. doom, gloom etc
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I just hope she doesn’t come round scratching up the bulbs in my garden.
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Good fun story – nothing wrong with it at all – made me smile and I’m a miserable bxxxxxx!
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A story right out of the 1970s along with skateboarding ducks, and they say the quality of the content in the uk regional press has declined
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IT wasn’t even cat food though, was it? It was haddock risotto. A wholly different kettle of fish.
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Good yarn, well done Lauren. Nowt wrong with a bit of fun. I am staggered though – STAGGERED – that tedious old dullard Dick Minim hasn’t cropped up yet to make the same poorly thought-out argument he makes every day.
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Roger Jones, you’re as bad as these joyless idiots who post “Is this news” under every lighter story. Not everything has to be a hard-hitting council expose or crime exclusive, and never has been. Light and shade.
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Here’s another yes vote. Loved it. Guaranteed the best read piece in the edition.
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I liked it too. There’s nothing wrong with lighthearted stories in a local newspaper
This story serves its paw-puss as a purr-fect bit of entertainment. (Thank you, I’m here all week)
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Purr purr….
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Personally I am just saddened to see Slate Grey, West Midlands hasn’t offered a viewpoint.
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