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On Ping Pong and Other Addictions
This strange tale of sporting obsession is set in a Habit Hostel where addictions aren’t considered a vice. Provided you stick to the one to which you have been assigned. Which Mustard Wycombe Jones, middle aged narrator of On Ping Pong and Other Addictions, is patently struggling to do. For he desires to switch his official addiction from gambling to that of ping pong! Indeed, for Mustard, ping pong has become a metaphor for life in general.
The hostel’s inhabitants all have a skewed sense of normality, with Mustard’s girlfriend, Susan, greeting the news of his disinclination to gamble with much consternation and fury. Susan, who is the hostel’s resident poetry addict, then walks out on Mustard whose immediate neighbours, a reclusive stoner and an amiable drunk, offer well meant but ineffectual support. Only by training hard with Saddique, the hostel’s authorised ping pong addict, can Mustard forget his troubles and find meaning in life.
The would-be ping pong addict must appease J., a menacingly anonymous presence until revealed as the posh janitor who runs the hostel. J. insists Mustard must remain a gambler (The hostel’s last one.) In addition to the demands imposed by J., Mustard is tormented by the stifling summer heat and a plague of flies.
Mustard has subsidiary addictions (caffeine and nicotine) which he satisfies by visiting Yellow Fingers, a smokers’ café in the heart of an unnamed city. Here he makes the acquaintance of Sebastian Montague aka Bald Tosser. After helping Mustard to deal with an unexpected text message from Susan, Bald Tosser later lives up to his name with an unprovoked assault on Mustard.
The story culminates in the city’s open ping pong tournament where Mustard hopes to prove his worth and so persuade J. to sanction his addiction of choice - ping pong. In their preparation for this event Mustard and Saddique enlist the help of Phyllis and Marge, respectively addicted to philosophy and mathematics. Bald Tosser is a surprise tournament entrant and Saddique seizes an opportunity to exact revenge on Mustard’s behalf.
On ping pong and other addictions is a satirical work by an author who seems destined to end his days in some therapeutic centre for ping pong obsessives.
The hostel’s inhabitants all have a skewed sense of normality, with Mustard’s girlfriend, Susan, greeting the news of his disinclination to gamble with much consternation and fury. Susan, who is the hostel’s resident poetry addict, then walks out on Mustard whose immediate neighbours, a reclusive stoner and an amiable drunk, offer well meant but ineffectual support. Only by training hard with Saddique, the hostel’s authorised ping pong addict, can Mustard forget his troubles and find meaning in life.
The would-be ping pong addict must appease J., a menacingly anonymous presence until revealed as the posh janitor who runs the hostel. J. insists Mustard must remain a gambler (The hostel’s last one.) In addition to the demands imposed by J., Mustard is tormented by the stifling summer heat and a plague of flies.
Mustard has subsidiary addictions (caffeine and nicotine) which he satisfies by visiting Yellow Fingers, a smokers’ café in the heart of an unnamed city. Here he makes the acquaintance of Sebastian Montague aka Bald Tosser. After helping Mustard to deal with an unexpected text message from Susan, Bald Tosser later lives up to his name with an unprovoked assault on Mustard.
The story culminates in the city’s open ping pong tournament where Mustard hopes to prove his worth and so persuade J. to sanction his addiction of choice - ping pong. In their preparation for this event Mustard and Saddique enlist the help of Phyllis and Marge, respectively addicted to philosophy and mathematics. Bald Tosser is a surprise tournament entrant and Saddique seizes an opportunity to exact revenge on Mustard’s behalf.
On ping pong and other addictions is a satirical work by an author who seems destined to end his days in some therapeutic centre for ping pong obsessives.
93 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 28, 2017
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