Grand Adventures Of Yesteryear

Dear Octopus,


I've had some okay birthdays in my time. Better than okay really. In my teenage years there was something of a tradition in the Squid household, which in its own way was inestimably wonderful if only for its direct repetition of the year before. Every year on either the Saturday before or after my birthday, my father (the venerable Captain Squid) and I would board an early morning train bound for Central London, having left our car in the dubious clutches of some spotty, slack-jawed attendant at Exeter St David's Station, whom the good Captain invariably grumbled was 'totally unsuitable' as soon as we were on the train. There we ate overpriced bacon sandwiches lovingly microwaved by the train's officious dining crew, for which there was never enough ketchup in one sachet and far too much in two.


When we arrived at Paddington at about eleven, we would hop on the tube (then so exciting) and always surface at Oxford Circus, where - like a true Devon boy - I would step onto the thriving metropolitan cityscape and marvel gawpingly at the tallness of the buildings and the sheer volume of people, until the Captain advised me to follow him closely, lest I should lose him and be sold to the travelling community for a chimney sweep. Together we would peruse the wares of the trainer shops along Oxford Street, and I would buy a 'cool' pair using my birthday money.


Happy that the capital's commercial enterprises had adequately serviced our needs, we'd invariably retire to a pizza establishment in the Covent Garden area for lunch. This being accomplished and the bill paid, we'd hop back onto the tube in the direction of North London.


The first time I stepped out into the light at White Hart Lane, (1996) the first thing I couldn't believe were the colours. The pitch was so green, and the seats so blue. The Captain is an ardent Aston Villa supporter - and highly sceptical of my choice of team, largely derived from the fact that it came from my mother's side - and as such would only grudgingly accept my awe at arriving in the stadium at which all dreams culminated, and in whose confines were (and still are) all eternally disappointed. The first match was a 0-0 draw, annoyingly, but we saw a few good wins and never a loss. The best was the 3-3 draw with Leeds in 1998; 3-1 down after 80 minutes, Iversen clawed one back from the edge of the area and Judas got the equaliser with a towering header at the far post in the 93rd minute. Right by me, no less. The Captain was off having a shit, and missed the whole thing.


After the game we always strolled back to Seven Sisters with the cheering crowd, then got back to Paddington just in time for our train home. Our car was always undamaged, but the Captain still maintained that the staff was totally unsuitable. If the traffic was reasonable we'd be home in time to watch the highlights again on Match Of The Day, over which I'd force my own additional commentary onto my mother and brothers; how the pitch was so much bigger when you were really there, how green it was, how Chris Armstrong was so much shorter in real life but Darren Anderton was so much taller, even though they'd undoubtedly heard it all the year before. In the Captain's case, the hour before. And probably the hour before that. He never complained.


This was exactly the same every year, from my eleventh to seventeenth birthdays. Seven best days of my life.


Anyway, I hope maybe there's something of that old magic and the majesty of occasion still knocking around the world now. Just a little. Happy birthday Octopus. I hope that you find all of which I know you are forever deserving.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

Revolutionary Warfare For The Valiant Cause Of Who-The-Fuck-Cares

Dear Octopus,


The streets are awash with an omniscient and tangible sense of dread. When the rioting started in the East End we joked about the bourgeois ways in which it might infect our leafy suburban locale (iced frappucinos being tossed disdainfully at portly tram conductors....middle aged mothers illegally syphoning double nectar points like stolen petrol....public schoolboys in straw boaters deliberately handing in their Latin homework an hour late....) but yesterday our ribaldry appeared to have transcended genres; forcing its hideously grinning face from dystopian fantasy into plain truth. Maybe we are being punished for our arrogance.


The Good Ship Media was effectively abandoned after four, leaving myself and a pal of mine from Capital Radio to fight our way west using underground trains heaving with the running and the scared. There were reports of trouble at Leicester Square and on Tottenham Court Road; then more unrest in Putney, Wandsworth, Southfields and Wimbledon. If the sum of all the world's rumours were to be believed then I'd encounter burning cars, screaming children and ragged riot police on every corner, and fight my way home only to find our darling abode besieged by zombie invaders, with Honksy and Dutch clutching tennis racquets, lamp shades and assorted kitchen utensils to fight them off.


The reality was very different. If anything Wimbledon Park was eerily quiet, with shops boarded up and streets deserted. At home the curtains were closed, and whilst Honksy was definitely gripped in a paroxysm of irrational terror.....it was no more so than usual. So we watched a film and ate Oreos, dipped in milk.


So why the discrepancy? Who got it wrong?


For all its wonders, social media is a hive of scaremongering and exaggerated rumour. While the riots' organisation were undoubtedly facilitated by its shadier mediums, so has been the perpetuation of their fear. At first everyone was updating and tweeting their simple, understandable horror (albeit all the time), but now we seem to have upgraded. The semi-informed political disenfranchisement of moronic left-wing students and right-wing young professionals - all groping ineptly for some flag with which to adorn their mast - clamour with equal gracelessness, and persistence. It seems there's really very little else to talk about. And this makes everything worse. The last few days appear to have shown that it is possible, after all, to have access to too much information, and to talk too freely when you have nothing to say. The riots are awful. But we are being undone by the habitual vanity of our own lives. 


And, considering everything, I suppose I am a great hypocrite. I hope that you are safe Octopus, and not afraid. I worry about you. Let us hope that this great sadness passes quickly.


Your loving friend,


Action Squid

Bakery Advice From The Ragged Edge

Dear Octopus,

A weekend is a strange and quietly moveable feast. All week it quietly bakes in the oven; but what can predicted to be the sweet-tasting oasis of adventure and relaxation, a secret smile in parenthesis to the masticating toil of the working week, can slowly collapse like an improperly-observed pudding. Peering through the glass we witness its miserable imploding decline, and cannot assist. There was a clerical error in the administering of the ingredients and/or their quantities, maybe. Or it was just a poor recipe. Either way, all that remains is a baking tin scorched with unidentifiable detritus, and forty-eight hours with which to scrub it clean, ready for use another time.

I had some nice plans for the weekend. But – like the metaphorical pudding recently established as deceased – they fell apart. As such I was left alone in The Players’ Lounge; a ghost left to haunt its corridors and landings, without purpose. Dutch was visiting friends in Wales, Honksy went to see a newborn relative, and Pongo unsurprisingly chose the elegant splendour of Nobu over our drastically less opulent excuse for an abode.

My first thought was that this weekend resembled that previously-described embarrassment of inappropriately spent energy: the House Golf Experience. I immediately resolved not to create any house-bound ball games in the alleviation of boredom. This weekend would be different. Boredom would be avoided in the first place.

What arrogance. What naivety.

A mere nine hours in; I’d watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, caught up on my correspondence, worked on my book, read some Gogol, watched qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, tried to check my bank balance, earned an additional two stars on Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and been for a long walk around Wimbledon Park. I even threw a stick at a tree, trying to shake down some conkers.

(It wasn’t a horse-chestnut tree. Nor is it conker season.)

Back at home, House Golf began to look like a tasty option. The only viable alternative was ‘Gangly Jim’: an old game by which I make phone calls to local pizza delivery establishments impersonating various historical Blue Peter presenters trying to wheedle complimentary wares. My Konnie Huq is now old news with the manager of Pizza-Go-Go on Kingston Road though, as is my Peter Purves with most of the independent franchises on Battersea Rise. Apparently they now take a 'Zero Tolerance Policy' towards orders from any former employees of the BBC or its affiliates / partners.

After much meditation on kitchen work surfaces and inside Dutch’s wardrobe, I decided to take drastic action. 

DRASTIC action.

Without going too closely into details, Honksy received an urgent phone call pretty late that night, and the caller was quite desperate to find some premium strength nail varnish remover.

Lesson: boredom can lead to the creation of some pretty horrible just-desserts. I am resolved to getting a life, preferably at the earliest opportunity. Maybe then my next weekend can be made into a delicious jam roly-poly, rather than the foul-tasting plate of raw junket recently suffered.

Your loving friend,

Action Squid