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