Serve God, Love Me, And Mend

Dear Octopus,

I am spending the Easter weekend alone. Honksy, Pongo and Fobbs have all retired to their distant provincial domiciles; the Goat and the Toad are otherwise engaged with whatever fanciful indulgences currently occupy tethered men, rendering me: solo. Totally. Han bloody Solo. I have not properly seen or spoken to another living soul since leaving Catfish at Charing Cross Station, over seventy hours ago. An experiment in isolation if you will.

I have recorded my exploits. As follows:


Good Friday

9.00am: Start the day by eating the last two slices of horribly drunken pizza from the night before, that I only barely remember ordering. They got my topping wrong, so I was given a two-litre bottle of Coke, but can’t seem to find it, even in the recycling. Watch Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Play two hours of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I’ve historically never been one for computer games, but the single player special ops are somewhat addictive.

13.00pm: Have developed an exciting new indoor game, basically a type of indoor golf that I'm calling 'Buchholz’, which as everyone knows is after Horst Buchholz, the forgotten member of The Magnificent Seven, and with whom I currently share a strange affinity.  Essentially the objective is to get the ‘ball’ (in this case a carefully sphericalised piece of old blu-tack) from my bedside table in the converted loft down to the ‘hole’ (in this case a saucepan balanced on its side) on the kitchen floor, in as few strokes as possible. Buchholz is somewhat cleverer than golf however – if I do say so myself – as in my game the player (in this case me) is required to use ‘clubs’ of increasing technical variety, and therefore difficulty to master, as the game continues. For example, on the third floor the player is allowed to use the driver, or ‘Dirty Harry’ (in this case a broom handle inserted into an old shoe). When down on the upstairs landing they are then allowed to continue play using either the ‘Barbara Streisand’ (in this case a battery-operated torch swung from the end of its rope lanyard in a tricky pendulum motion), or ‘Little Ned’ (in this case a hairdryer used to blow the ball short distances via its primary electronic function). I initially found that it was easiest to use ‘Barbara’ for approach shots on the second fairway (in this case the corner behind Pongo’s laundry basket) and ‘Little Ned’ for the tighter angles to get around the dog-leg at the top of the banisters. On the ground floor a player can use any of the previous clubs, as well as try ‘The Burly Henchman Plays Roulette’ (in this case – and something of a second layer to the game – whatever handfuls of post I could gather whilst downing a pint of milk with my eyes closed). This option made me feel sick quite though, so I only used it twice. Other than that, my skill at this exciting new sport is improving immensely.

16:00pm: Go to the park and lie on an old blanket under an oak tree. Try and count the leaves and fall asleep after maybe three hundred. It is a sunny day, but because of the semi-shade I don’t get too burnt.

23:00pm: Watch Bad Lieutenant, then A Prophet, then Face/Off. The latter is definitely the worst. Eat the Easter egg I bought Honksy.

4.00am: Literally cannot stop playing the special ops. The phrase ‘AGM missile is online’ has been repeated so often it has now lost all meaning. Am too tired for another round of Buchholz, even though tonight is my chance to win the winter foursomes.

Saturday

10.00am: Sleep in late. Had a dream about religion. I am now following Wayne Rooney on Twitter. Probably would have been stranger to dream about that.

16:00pm: Spent three hours working, then another three writing my book. Eyes gone square. Play some more special ops to give them a rest.

19:00pm: Lie on my sofa reading Moby-Dick, listening to Tom Williams & The Boat on Honksy’s record player. It’s an excellent debut album, and well compliments any reading material on the history of commercial whaling.

21:00pm: Clean the kitchen extensively, whilst loudly singing the collected back catalogues of Damien Rice, Bon Iver, John Mayer, David Gray, Bright Eyes, Elton John and Jamie T. Cook an elaborate dinner, messing the kitchen up again entirely.

3:00am: I can almost fit myself in the chest at the end of my bed. The problem isn’t width but height – funnily enough – if I were an inch shorter I could do it. If I don’t eat some fruit soon I might lose that height naturally anyway, just by not having any teeth to keep my jaw separated. Maybe if I hadn’t eaten so much dinner I’d be shorter.

5:00am: Can’t sleep. Does water taste of anything? Or is it just water?

Easter Sunday

11:00am: Special ops.

13:00pm: Special ops.

15:00pm: Walk around the park.

17:00pm: Special ops. O Cristo Redentor on the most difficult setting (‘veteran’) is becoming very frustrating for me, due to throat repeatedly being torn out by unfeasibly bloodthirsty Alsatian. Progress exacerbated by stomach cramps caused by eating too many Satsumas.

20:00pm: Watch Lolita, Jeremy Irons incarnation. Found the two-litre bottle of coke from Thursday night…it was in the freezer. Am considering dismantling ‘Dirty Harry’ and inserting the broom handle into it to make a giant ice-lolly. May need to use gardening tools to remove bottle casing.

I will update you further tomorrow.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid