My search for the Holy Grail was going poorly. And yet, I was in denial. I sat at a table in Popeye’s, alone. One more chicken sandwich meal then I’d get serious.

There was something terribly Hegelian about the whole thing. You know what I mean? I felt like I was in Plato’s cave, but instead of shadows, chicken burgers. Yes, you know what I mean.

Once, when I was a kid, I had done some very good work on a school assignment, but they gave the monthly ‘Good Work’ certificate to a boy whose mum fed the teacher with a steady supply of unsolicited cakes. That was the start of the teacher getting fat, and things going terribly wrong for me. I started to develop a cynicism. A bitterness. Self-pity. Such emotions took hold of me like Japanese knotweed. I formed an identity around them, and when I was seven, I turned to mum in a fit of rage and screamed; “It’s not about the work, it’s the systems we occupy!”

She didn’t know how to respond, so she bought me a bag of Percy Pigs. I feared she wasn’t quite gasping my drift, so I set them alight. Then, for my eighth birthday, I asked for a poster of Kafka and the collected works of Sartre.

But that was all in the past. Now, the present needed solving. The present needed greatness.

I took another bite of my chicken burger. Was there any real need to find the Holy Grail, or was this pursuit just an extension of foolish pride? What was I trying to prove? And to who? Why not just enjoy life? There were pleasures right here. The kitchen was still open. A couple of quid and they’d fry me more chicken no questions asked. Why not make the most of it?

I remembered something I’d seen on TikTok. It was a man dressed as a Pineapple trying to replicate the songs of Jacques Brel with a hairdryer. Niche. At some point, he turned off the hairdryer and looked into the camera. “Never give up,” he said earnestly.

I sat there chewing, thinking about the Pineapple Man. I felt inspired. I took a sip of cola. I felt inspired. Took a bite of chicken sandwich. I sat there chewing. Christ, I felt inspired.

Yes, one day I’d find the Holy Grail. But first, a couple more chips.