Preheat the oven to 220 C. It was pretty hot.
Remove 6 slices of bacon and set aside and then roughly chop up the remain bacon to fit into the food processor (don't bother separating the strips) and put it in there with the onion, garlic, egg, fennel, oregano and paprika. Whizz it around to chop up the bacon. It turns a gorgeous red colour!
Add in the minced meat and whizz it quickly round, not too long. Just enough to mix. Or just mix it all up in a separate bowl.
Cut the dates in half, lengthways, and remove the seed thingie. You will have 18 halves. (My math is awesome, no?)
Take the 6 slices of bacon that you set aside earlier and cut each into thirds. Wrap 1 third a piece of bacon round each half of a date. They won't stay wrapped, but just bear with me. It's easier to do this step and THEN carry on...
Take a bacon wrapped date half parcel and a handful of the minced meat/bacon mixture and wrap it 'round. Like you're making scotch eggs. The meat mixture is pretty sticky, so it's actually rather easy. Encase each bacon'd date half in meat.
Stick them all on a baking tray lined with greaseproof baking paper and bake for about 40 minutes.
When you're happy they are cooked, take em out and let them cool as LONG as you can possibly hold out.... which, honestly, isn't long.