Operation Koala!

Dear Octopus,


How things can change in a day! I'll start at the beginning.....


We had a long discussion about Neighbours this morning, after which I spent a good (really good) hour wondering whatever became of Serena Bishop, Harold's angelic granddaughter lost in the Paul Robinson-orchestrated plane crash back in 2005. A casual internet search revealed that not only did she clearly survive the crash, but she's changed her name and become a television actress, appearing in various programmes and adverts since her apparent 'death', and is now studying at Monash University in Melbourne. Given my 18-month imaginary romance with her at university, coupled with the fact that Clare is an alumni of said university's prestigious law faculty; I instantly saw an in-road to finally pursuing the woman of my dreams. 


Oh Serena! How many nights I've cried myself to sleep at the thought of you floating aimlessly on a shark-mauled boogie-board across the Port Phillip Bay, praying that you would be washed ashore (with total amnesia, ideally) like your dear old grandfather Harold! (Bit of an irony that....you probably should avoid the sea in your family. Seriously, look at yourself.) How happy we could be, now that I know you're alive!


I've provisionally booked seats for Clare and myself on a Qantas Airlines flight departing London Heathrow at 9pm this evening, based on the proviso that Pongo can pull some strings at the Foreign Office to have my Visa restrictions revoked. (Just for the record: I've always maintained that the CCTV in that sauna was too blurry.......it could be me, sure, but it could also be Chegwin. And he was the one with the car battery found in his en suite bathroom, thank you Lord Justice of Appeal. That's all I'm saying.)


Anyway, the plan is for Clare and I to leave London at 9pm, arriving in Melbourne at 9pm tomorrow - which will actually be 9am on Wednesday in their time - then get a taxi to the university and hopefully arrive at around midnight. Or midday. On either Tuesday or Wednesday.


Maybe this mind-bending time-irregularity is why Serena and I have been kept apart until now....


Wish me luck!


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

There's Nothing Like Living In A Bottle, And Nothing Like Ending It All, For The World

Dear Octopus,

If the bottom of the bottle wasn't quite found on Wednesday night, yesterday not only was it located but I booked in at reception for a long holiday. My three-day bender culminated in a post-midnight, utterly inebriated rant at the (admittedly odious) barman of an extremely down-market local tavern; forcing our untimely removal from said premises and a junior colleague to slip in a puddle of vomit, land in the vomit, and possibly break her elbow. Nobody ever said that the media industry isn't glamorous. But they should have done. Because it isn't.

(While I remember; Clare came in today with a big graze on her chin. I've told everyone I know that she cut herself shaving. Guys from The Telegraph, Channel 4 and Facebook all believed me. Imogen from Google was too canny. I used to work with her on The Samaritans though, so her knowledge of my methods constitutes an extenuating circumstance...)

Now though, a lovely weekend of serenity and calm. I'm hoping for another of my Secret Sundays; which can only be achieved when everyone is out, the living room window is open behind the curtains, and all is at least satisfactory in the world, if not right. The required conditions are:

• Sofa
• Either sunshine or heavy rain outside
• Book (in this case Emma by Jane Austen, which I'm actually really enjoying)
• Cigarettes
• Green tea
• Janis Joplin on Honksy's record player
• Tottenham Hotspur winning on the television set (muted)

Possible perfection? Maybe not. But I've always believed that it's the small pleasures that make life bearable......and while mine certainly isn't worthwhile, at least in these instances it isn't worthless. 

On that note, although I've probably experienced it a hundred or so times in my life, I've discovered the most amazing smell. Recently extinguished birthday candles. Don't know how it escaped me previously, but I think I'm hooked. Cheaper than crack I suppose. But less discreet to administer in the alley behind the supermarket.

Finally, I wrote this today:

'Cowboys wear chaps and shiny white spurs,

Undertakers tie their ties gravely,

Jockeys with hooves wear horses in shoes,

But I wear the smile that you gave me.'

Stupid, obviously. And awful. And not intended for you. I would even go so far as to say 'heinous,' but I've been informed recently that said anachronistic adjective appears too frequently in these letters, so due to my lack of a suitably varied vocabulary you may just have to settle with dire. My apologies.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid

(....)

.....the fire was burning furiously at the end of the branch and Mowgli struck right and left around the circle and the wolves ran howling, the sparks burning their fur. At last, there were only Akela, Bagheera and about ten wolves that had taken Mowgli’s part. Then something began to hurt Mowgli inside him, as he’d never been hurt in his life before. And he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his face.

            ‘What is it? What is it?’ he said. ‘I do not wish to leave the jungle, and I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?’

            ‘No little brother,’ said Bagheera, ‘those are only tears such as men use. Now I know thou art a man, and a man’s cub no longer.'

            'Let them fall Mowgli, they are only tears.’

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

Dear Octopus,


What's the best way of dealing with a shocking shitter of a day? I've realised this week that I don't know. The simple truth is: I'm tired (haven't slept properly in three nights), I hate my life (never have any cellotape, lost the handle to desk drawer and can't remember what's in it, book is shit, Tottenham aren't winning) and I need to find some way of either tackling this existential malaise or intoxicating myself so comprehensively that I can no longer say or spell either 'existential' or 'malaise.'


In search of some inspiration then, I took the question to the team, asking what they would do. The results were as follows:


Becca: Go to bed. Sleep puts misery on 'live pause'


Simon: Drink. Heavily. Beat up the wife (in a friendly way)


Rozi: Buy something expensive, eat something expensive


Jeremy: I'd probably go home, put on Rachmaninov's third piano concerto loud enough to annoy the neighbours, open a nice bottle of red, maybe even go really risque and taste it before it's breathed properly


Clare: Straight to the pub, drink lots


Aysha: Watch a feel-good movie


Mark: Strip club. Do not pass go, do not collect £200


A diverse and tricky collection of solutions, I think you'll agree. I know what you would do.....but frankly I'd struggle to get through Keanu Reeves's entire back-catalogue with a bottle of Chablis on a good day, let alone the Bruce Bogtrotter that is this one. The general consensus though does seem to revolve around my original idea of alcohol, so with the help of my good and excellent friend Mr. Alex Humpage I intend to retire to one of the West End's direst bolt-holes and aimlessly avoid the answers to life's petty miseries at the bottom of a bottle. The absolute bottom.


Wish me luck on getting home, if not enlightenment.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

Roots Will Reclaim The Bricks That We Lay

Dear Octopus,


An uneventful weekend. The Goat's birthday on Friday, which after a long lunch in Yauatcha with ITV (and at least two White Russians too many) was something of a heinous display of wretched inebriation that I would not advise anyone who has friends to wilfully repeat. On Saturday I wrote a short story, for which I have enlisted Honksy to devise a title. In the evening went for a Thai on the Northcote Road with the Bear and the Toad, fresh from their excursion to 'the boat show that shall not be mentioned.' The Bear got food poisoning from his green curry, which to me sounded like a hearty dose of much-needed karma. We talked about house prices.


I've been thinking a lot today about my clothes. When I went down to steal her swipe card and then claim Alex was using it to chop crystal meth, Becky told me that she liked my jumper, to which I honestly replied, 'I absolutely and unreservedly hate this jumper.' Quite rightly perhaps, her response was, 'well why are you wearing it then?'


I had nothing. Why was I wearing it? Why do I wear any of my clothes? They're all rubbish. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure that I like clothes any more. 


Epiphany. 


Is that it now? Am I destined to be one of those people who wears things just because they're comfortable, rather than fashionable? Will I find myself in years to come watching University Challenge in a pair of Marks & Spencer's Blue Harbour chinos with an elasticated waistband? Fleeces? Sandals? Where does it end? The sad truth is that I know where it frigging well ends.....it ends with me spending my Saturday wandering aimlessly around the Homebase on Dog Kennel Hill, muttering to myself about how maybe I should get some new dimmer switches for the living room, pushing a trolley full of Dulux emulsion that I don't need and worrying that the ticket on the parking might expire, even though I know it has another hour. A mirthless life lived in the shade. Vast aisles of infinite nothing.


As I'm typing this I know for a fact that there's a bottle of bleach in the bathroom that I could easily drink before Honksy and Fobbs start watching Glee. As tempting as it sounds....


......I can't. If I spilled some it might ruin my jumper.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

Drink Up Baby, Stay Up All Night

Dear Octopus,

You may have noticed a post yesterday on the subject of office-based tomfoolery, which I have now deleted due to its failure in 'The Speller Process,' the litmus test by which I assess my letters' suitability for publication. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Due to a series of circumstances too unusual to fully describe, I spent Tuesday night lounging around in an extremely posh London hotel. I felt like something of an imposter; wandering into its impressively neon-lit lobby among businessmen and tourists, considering that I (a) could never have afforded to stay there on my own merit, and (b) had no real need to stay there, as I live only seven miles away. Siegfried - the acne-enslaved deputy manager with an excessively high-pitched laugh - instantly saw through the intended charade, and treated me as the proletarian flotsam that of course I am. He did however give me a room at the end of an empty corridor. At first I thought this a favour (keeping me away from unsavoury types making loud and disconcerting noises), but in the lift I was faced with the shocking realisation that it was actually a profound insult; that I was the unsavoury type, and Siegfried clearly believed me the sort of person who would make noises so loud and disconcerting that I had to be ostracised to my own wing of the building. I explained this to the American with the handlebar moustache opposite me in the lift, but his mind was evidently elsewhere.

The room itself was wonderful.

An hour later Pongo came to check on me, finding me lying on my massive bed, reading Jane Austen in a silk kimono, with the remnants of a delicate cucumber and honey facepack still noticeable around my heavily moisturised and exfoliated visage. Needless to say, he had some comments on his abhorrence for this absurdly feminine pose of relaxation, all of which were too graphic / explicit to reprint here. I couldn't disagree with his analysis though, and accompanied him down to the bar for some much needed hetero time.

The bar itself was lovely; huge leather armchairs, delightful ambient music, a host of affluent and powerful individuals reclining with various cocktails. Pongo and I set up camp in a dark and sinister corner, ordered in a couple of Maccallans and set the world to rights. Half an hour later I was heinously shitfaced, had lost Pongo, and found myself watching the moustached American trying to pick up what was CLEARLY an Eastern European prostitute. Happily / sadly he succeeded. I saw no money change hands though, so left the bar none the wiser as to how skilfully he managed to haggle. Maybe she took a VISA.

On the back of having witnessed this seedy transaction, I sloped up to my room feeling irrevocably disillusioned. Man's operations certainly are strange......particularly in the anonymous purgatories of swanky hotel bars. Still, 'different strokes for different folks,' as Clare would say.

Anyway, at least I didn't have to listen to them consummating their short-lived romance.

Taking clients to watch a show being filmed at ITV tonight. Enrique Iglesias is performing. My mother is apoplectic with jealousy.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid

Peroxide, Blazers & The Way Of the Dragon

Dear Octopus,


A busy few days for Action Squid. Almost fell through the front door last night to find Honksy and Fobbs in the midst of a monstrous hair-dyeing frenzy, a strange assortment of female apparatus (cling film, towels, various bottles with demonstrative chemical warnings, cereal, wine) littered across the coffee table and surrounding floor. Frankly I was aghast. It was only when the two girls scampered upstairs and the house was filled with, 'it's fucking GINGER.....oh shitting fuck it's gone fucking ginger Honksy...' that I noticed Pongo sitting alone in the corner of the living room, heartlessly emasculated, in a blank-eyed, distant reverie that I've only previously witnessed in war films, when the scarred veteran who endured some seriously heavy shit has to return to normal society. 'Hours,' he muttered mysteriously. 'Hours and hours.'


It is also incumbent on me to wish the eldest Squid brother a very happy birthday; twenty-eight years old today. I'm told that the celebrations are taking the form of a table tennis tournament in which Party Squid is partnering with the auspicious and much-vaunted Stuart 'The Captain' Winks, so I'm sure they will at least provide a strong account of themselves, if not emerge victorious. It has emerged this week though that one of their hallowed circle is a former Devonshire under-14 player (and any follower of contemporary sport will know that the Devon under-9 to under-18 leagues are a hotbed of exceptional quality), so realistically their chances are slimmer than a bulimic heroin addict born without a full digestive tract. That being said, Party Squid has used the internet to buy a bat, 'hand built by Shaolin monks,' so hopefully he can show off the latent design quality of said exotic acoutrement to offset the shame of defeat. Let's just hope that  he doesn't follow the way of the samurai so seriously that he uses the bat to commit suicide after having lost. 


I had a phone call this morning from the Toad, where he casually mentioned that he and the Bear were just arriving at 'The Boat Show,' for which they had both gone to the trouble of buying new blazers. I asked why, and he simply replied that the two of them go to it together every year, and every year they buy new blazers, just for the occasion. To the untrained mind this might seem like only a minor infraction on the long road of criminality, but the Toad, the Bear, the Mountain Goat and the Squid have been the very closest and best of friends for many a tough year....so to not be invited to this event which has been going on - and I quote, 'forever' - made me feel hugely ostracised. The conversation concluded thus:


Squid: Well I just can't believe this. I.....just...can't believe it. This is totally unacceptable.
Toad: But you don't even like boats.
Squid: I could learn to like boats.
Toad: You've actually told me before that you hate them. I specifically remember you saying they feel like poorly designed spacecraft.

Squid: If I said that then it was only in passing.

Toad: Maybe Hitler only hated Jews in passing.

Squid: Is that why I'm not invited to your boat show? Because you're comparing me to Adolf fucking Hitler?

Toad: And you don't like wearing blazers.

Squid: You know damn well that I love my corduroy jacket...

Toad: ....well that's not a blazer, so....

Squid: ...well I think you're kind of splitting hairs, so...

Toad: Look, I've got to go, we've just lied our way onto a Sunseeker. The Bear is pretending he's Jude Law's agent.

Squid: Tell him to get some new fucking material. I was using that in 2005.

Toad: No, you were saying you were Shaun Goater's publicist in 2005.

Squid: I love the fact that you can't even remember what month my birthday is in, yet you can remember that. Seriously.

Toad: Seriously, I have to go.

Squid: You are a deeply callous man, you know that? Tell the Bear I expected this from you, but not from him. The Goat is going to be mortified...

Toad: [to someone else] ....errrr....I'll have the Sauvignon please....

Squid: You are so not getting your copy of Waterworld back

Needless to say, I'm hurt.

I had a dream last night where the drawer in my bedside table was filled with severed hands. Strangely I was more concerned about what to do with them than how they got there. I think I settled on anything-other-than-giving-them-away-as-birthday-presents. Explain that one Freud.

Anyway, I hope you are well.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

Abercrombie & Fitch At The Battle Of Guadalcanal

Dear Octopus,

I hope you're well. I went to the aforementioned clothing store on Saville Row this evening (in pursuit of a hideously-overpriced familial birthday present), and found myself asking a lot of hypothetical questions, in the style of the narration from The Thin Red Line. It went something like the following....

'....this great evil....where's it come from? How'd it steal into the world? Why is it so fucking dark in here? And why is the music so loud? Is this a shop, or a subterranean Hoxton Square warehouse party? Why are all the windows boarded over? Is this your idea of progress, of the future, of how shopping should be in a grim world where everyone is perfect? Who's doing this? Who's killing us: robbing us of light and life, mocking us with the sight of what we might have known? What is this toxic drum and bass; reverberating the rough chunks of ice in my pineapple smoothie? Am I supposed to find this experience so disorientating? And why is everyone so fucking good looking, and smiling at me with such perfect teeth? 

Do you enjoy working here? Does it satisfy some cruel desire to see people's applications rejected when yours was accepted; to be exceptional, to fit in?

And why are these clothes so expensive?

Are they ethically-manufactured, are your workers paid fairly? Do you know from which tropical  locale or distant antipodean clime this fine American stitching originates? 

Do you even care? Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, or the sun to shine? 

Is this the life you saw yourself living? Do you long to leave after me, as you hold open the door? Do you feel this darkness in you too? Have you passed through this night...?'

Deep. The fact remains; it's a shit store. I argued with a tramp today, about cigarettes. He wanted one. New Year's resolutions are faring well, by the way.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid

30 Resolutions

Dear Octopus,


A happy new year to you. I have made a list of resolutions, which are as follows:

1. Finish editing my book (and at at least attempt to con someone into reading its fundamentally unreadable drivel, perhaps with a view to getting it published)
2. Organise my music collection to more accurately reflect what I actually like
3. Be better at my job
4. Do more cleaning
5. Do more vacuuming
6. Do more dusting
7. Do more throwing away of things I don't need
8. Start opening my post
9. Eat more healthily
10. Give up drinking
11. Smoke no more than five cigarettes a day
12. Have greater control of my finances
13. Understand the basic concepts of how I might have greater control of my finances
14. Spend less time watching television
15. Go to at least one art gallery, museum and cultural attraction (Jesus...I think the last one I went to was with you)
16. Get better at staying in touch with my friends, most notably; Caitlin and Jeddy, John and Jo, Stuart and Annabel, Nicole and Andy, Pete and Rachael, Jim and Sarah, Tizz and Jo,  Colin and Phil, Dan and Kristin, Sam and Sam
17. Get some single friends
18. Spend more time with my brothers
19. Spend less time worrying about things that have no future (ie: Catfish)
20. Stop sending prank emails from other people's computers
21. Understand that I am not the centre of the universe and my opinions, moods, whims and frustrations are almost always absolutely irrelevant to everyone, including me
22. Stop buying domestic products that I already own, just in case I've lost them (ie: soy sauce....I now have four bottles)
23. Listen more
24. Resume running round Wimbledon Park
25. Work harder at keeping in touch with friends I rarely get to see
26. Make my parents understand how appreciative I am of their counsel
27. Try and have at least one semi-meaningful relationship with a (nice) woman
28. Read Ulysses
29. Re-cultivate and tend the herb / vegetable patch until it yields at least one product that can actually be used in cooking
30. Be nicer to people

All in all, not a bad list I'd say. The important ones are 1, 3, 21 and 30. I'll keep you informed of my progress. Also, today on the train back to London the woman next to me applied her make-up for one hour and nineteen minutes. I kept track. 

The world in 2011 already baffles me.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid