If you’ve not seen Squid Game, the 2nd Series is currently streaming on Netflix. As good as it is, it’s not necessarily for the faint-hearted. But if gratuitous violence isn’t your thing, don’t worry, because you can play your own version, at the shops, and no one has to die. Cheonman-eyo!1
This is an updated version of a blog I wrote in 2021, when the 1st series was aired. At the time the UK was in the middle of a ‘Fuel Crisis’ that miraculously never materialised. Funny that.
Speed Demon
The other day, one of my children asked whether or not I’d watched Squid Game. I hadn’t, but decided to give it a whirl on the Telly thing, in the corner. Anyway, I got quite enthralled by it which is unusual, since many programmes that have multiple episodes and series (not seasons2), tend to have something of a ‘slow-burn’ element to them, where it takes three to four episodes for the story to get started. This was much quicker though.
Bingeworthy
So, I started bingeing Squid Game, like you do, and recognised some parallels with the UK shopping experience. If you’re not familiar with it, the essence of it is a whole load of deadbeats and down-and-outs are forced to play games for the entertainment of the super-rich. But that’s just shopping at Home Bargains. Squid Game is even worse.
Swing Low
I actually like Home Bargains. I don’t however, consider Tesco to be a ‘positive’ shopping experience. But then, what is? I went to Fortnum & Mason once (it was Christmas though), and, if you’ve never experienced being in the middle of a Ruck and Maul at Twickenham, then go to the confectionery section of F&M just before Christmas, start singing “Swing low, sweet choc-o-late” at full volume and wait to be floored by a Loosehead Prop, dressed as on old lady.
If you haven’t seen Squid Game, you can watch it here (with a Netflix account) Squid Game | Netflix Official Site
Korea
Squid Game is a fictional Korean story where adults play the games they played as children, for vast quantities of cash. Except there’s a twist. Of course there is. Where the rules of British Bulldog, It, He, Murder in the Dark, Runouts etc. state ‘if you are caught, you are out until the next round,’ in Squid Game the players who lose are also ‘eliminated.’ But in this game it’s a bit more of a literal ‘elimination’ though. And usually there’s a rifle and a fair amount of bloodshed involved.
Shylock
So, the people who end up playing Squid Game are all in debt up to their eyeballs (which tells a different story regarding South Korea and its ‘progressive’ capitalist, westernised culture), and the players have little choice other than to play, since back in the real world the loan sharks are circling, waiting to ‘send the boys round’ to collect their ‘pound of flesh’.3
Squiddly Diddly
One of the myriad reasons visiting Home Bargains is like playing Squid Game is because everyone is a washed up has-been, teetering on the rim of the abyss, desperately attempting to eek out some money, just to make their existence slightly more palatable. And, I include myself in this category. Primarily because I have a mortgage I’ll still be paying when I’m a 117, which I still owe a few quid on.
Shark
And the loan sharks are still circling, waiting to send the boys round, except in this instance, for all of us, the loan sharks aren’t illegal backstreet moneylenders. No, these ones operate right on the high street, in broad daylight. But they don’t refer to themselves as “unauthorised” moneylenders. No, they call themselves ‘banks’. But it’s much the same thing.
The Non-Existent Fuel Crisis
Anyway, at the weekend Vikki and I had some shopping to do. Usually we go to Tesco’s or Lidl, because they’re the easiest to park near to. But ever since the ‘Fuel Crisis that never was’ occurred, it’s been difficult and sometimes impossible to get anywhere near Tesco, as the queues have been down the street, whilst motorists Panic Buy fuel, gridlocking the roundabout in the process. So, for a change we went to Home Bargains and Aldi. They avoid the roundabout but have useless parking facilities.
Red Light, Green Light
Before you enter Home Bargains you have to be drugged, or you just wouldn’t go in, obviously. Then one of the guards sorry, shop assistants, checks you’re wearing the appropriate Sports Direct green tracksuit apparel. Once the check is complete, you are able to play a game called Red Light, Green Light.
This is where you can only enter the shop when the green light is on and you have to stand still outside if the red light shows. The lights were originally installed to improve the Covid related shopping experience, not to play Squid Game but they work just as well for either.
Trolley Dash
Once you’re in though, you get to play a game called ‘Wildfire Trolley Dash’. This is where you pick up as many useless items as you possibly can. However, you have to select the ones that are half the price they are in Tesco, whether you need them or not. These items are considered ‘a bargain’ which, naturally cannot be ignored.
In Home Bargains, the staff, who wander about in scary uniforms, control this aspect of the game. Staff are forbidden to talk to each other, or customers.
And you never see the Store Manager, aka The Front Man, either. He just hides in a back room watching everything unfold on CCTV.
Sweetie Scream
An extra game, called “Sweetie Scream” is only available to those accompanied by young children. This is where you have to escort your 3 year-old past the confectionary and toy section of the store. This generally covers about three quarters of the shop’s total footprint. If the child screams “I want Feeties!!!” the parents have to either scream a negative response back at the child, buy them something, or remove them from the shop and therefore the game. It’s everyone else’s job to gawp and murmur something about “over-aggressive parenting” but nobody must intervene.
Gladiatorial
Failing to complete a game in Squid Game means elimination for the contestant. Eventually, this culminates in the successful contestants playing the Squid Game, where two players face off, like modern day gladiators. Squid Game is like a combination of Hopscotch and Sumo Wrestling. One player attempts to move to certain sections of the Squid but must not step outside the boundary of it. The other tries to prevent it.
Checkout
“Checkout Line” is the Home Bargains version of Squid Game. This is where you have to queue up with your purchases and choose the checkout line which is going to empty the quickest. If you choose poorly, you then have to enter an opposing line without anyone noticing, otherwise you’re at the risk of being judged negatively. You’ll note, if a pensioner is at the front of a queue, nobody must queue behind them, even if the other queues have 6 or 7 customers already waiting. The reason for this is simple.
Coupons
The pensioner will still be there an hour later complaining that the coupons they cut out of TV Quick this week are valid even though they haven’t bought any corresponding items. At this point, the checkout assistant has to call “The Front Man” to come and “eliminate” the pensioner. All this takes time and in Squid Game, time can literally be the difference between life and death..
Run Down
At the end, if you can get out of the shop with your wits still intact, your shopping still in hand and you can make it to your car without being run down by a coupon wielding pensioner on a mobility scooter, then you win the game and get to repeat it all next week.
Squid Game Metaphors
So, on a superficial level, Squid Game is a violent programme about people fighting to win money, but look a little below the surface and you’ll find it’s a metaphor for corruption in a capitalist society, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Where, when the rich mess up they lose a few quid from their stockpiled wealth, but when the poor mess up, they pay with their liberty, or their lives. A place where inequality is rife, we’re stuck in the game and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Or is there?
Thank you for your time. Or perhaps I should say, sigan naejusyeoseo gamsahapnidacan.
You can return to the Blogs page here Lee’s Blog Page