Lord Knows, It Would Be The First Time

Dear Octopus,


The year is halfway through, apparently, so I thought this calm and tranquil Sunday afternoon might be an adequate juncture to look back over the trivial litany of incidents and occurrences that have littered the highway of 2011, and see what I might have learned. Every day is a school day (or so the teachers said before they went on strike).


As follows:

• There are very few places in the world that have real value. However they are only places. So to lose one is not to be taken too lightly, or too greatly
• I cannot - indeed must not - be allowed to; send offensive emails from colleagues' computers, hide their telephones in fridges, glue their spare change to their desks, or draw vastly disproportionate male genitalia in their notebooks. Office-karma is a cruel and exactly mistress, and always gets her way
• The top floor of our house is now so subservient to external weather conditions that excess heat or cold could actually kill me at any time
• My standard of cooking this year has somehow got worse. A lot worse. This urgently needs to be rectified
• Gin creates more problems than it solves
• Pongo is a vicious and cunning deviant, for whom I have the utmost personal and professional admiration
• Prior to moving out, Inky Squid had sex in every area of every room of my parents' house, including the attic
• Blackpool.....you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy
• Migraines getting considerably worse (total sight loss now within twenty minutes of haze)
• Honksy really can come up with both a new choice of house pet and a new list of preferred children's names EVERY SINGLE DAY
• If I keep cracking my knuckles at every possible opportunity I am going to get arthritis
• No-one is ever going to call me 'the steel-handed stingray' unless I somehow acquire an Abu Hamza-style hook (which may realistically happen if I keep cracking my knuckles, see previous point)
• Sometimes, to get what you want, you just have to put in your best shift, and know that the result will definitely be worth the work, and the wait

I think that's okay. Plenty to be getting on with, at least.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid