Have you watched the Squid Game? It’s Netflix’s biggest ever hit, a Korean series about a several hundred people trying to survive to get to the next round of the game. Not seen it? Picture a couple of dozen ISIS fighters dressed up as Teletubbies in a giant Big Brother house and given lots of contestants to play with. It’s bizarre and there is some extreme violence – stuff that makes Clockwork Orange seem tame.
We are all playing a version of the Squid Game, but it’s one none of us can win. It’s more like Space Invaders – you just try and get to as high a level as possible before the end comes, and hope the end is not too Squid Game-esque. The only prize is to get a go at the next level. Today, I’ve successfully completed Level 48, so I will now get to have a crack at 49. I will do my best to complete that one too.
Plenty of people have fallen at this point in the game. Whitney Houston, Al Capone, King Charles I and Harvey Milk all came unstuck at this point. Ethelred the Unready was also seemingly unprepared for the tests and tribulations of Level 48. A trio of famous Mexicans also bit the dust on Level 48. Arturo Beltran Leyva, Alvaro Obregon and Vicente Guerrero. I’ve bested them all. Feel free to raise a glass to toast my achievement. And, of course, my birthday.
Of course, a few of your fellow-48ers were given a slight nudge into GAME OVER!
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A befuddling bath tub here, a choppy axe there…death finds a way.
Still, the Level 48s should be grateful for what they got, given that for most of the existence of the homo- line of mammals, life expectancy has averaged about 25 years.
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By the way, Happy Birthday. And, yes, I am that churlish. The opportunity to score wit points will always trump social civility.
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I would be disappointed if you changed.
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¡Feliz cumpleaños, Gary! May you achieve at least another forty levels.
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Thanks! And yes, at least another 40. At an absolute minimum.
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