Dinner with Caspian

Space Cadet, 16/06/2000

I had dinner this week in a shop window with Caspian Woods and my OUT-LAW chum, Emily.

Caspian, of NB-Mag.com (now gone), spent five days in a Scottish Power window display in Glasgow's city centre, surviving on whatever he could order on the internet. He began with only laptop, credit card, pyjamas, a fetching pair of gorilla slippers and an 8 week old baby called Scarlet (he already owned most of these things). He invited challenges from visitors to his site  to occupy his time. So Emily and I challenged him to, firstly, invite us for dinner, and, secondly, to shower before meeting us (since we were meeting him 3 days into his adventure).

Caspian pulled out all the culinary stops. We were apprehensive about his menu of microwaved Indian, pink pig cake and orange squash from Iceland.co.uk (apparently the only local supermarket taking internet orders). I think it was Caspian's first proper dinner in three days, due to delivery times. So Emily and I thought it only fair to go easy on the curry, which I think Caspian and the people staring at us through the shop window appreciated. We also skipped the cake. We think Caspian had skipped the shower, too.

Glasgow's pedestrians were saved from witnessing the starvation of Caspian over the days pending Iceland's delivery, thanks to BananaBrothers.co.uk, the web site for a sandwich shop located a stone's throw from Caspian's window. This is now Caspian's favourite web site – ever. In his search for clothing, the Next.co.uk web site let him down: it didn't let him register. But he did show us his natty pants (with the ubiquitous hip-flask and condom pockets) from a site called "the McLaren something I think" (he's not a big fan of URLs).

Another of Caspian's challenges is to get to Texas (where his wife has taken baby Scarlet). Caspian got a flight booked, though he confessed to me that this involved a phone call (after some words about the AmericanAirlines.com web site, unsuitable for Scarlet's ears). It is 120 degrees in Texas and, when we visited, he was not prepared for it: he'd only had delivery of a fleece, a t-shirt, trousers, an artic jacket, a sleeping bag, his natty pants, and countless bananas (from BananaBrothers.co.uk).

Emily wanted to know if Caspian had downloaded anything illegal (that's so typical of her). He said no. Shop rules, apparently – he can only view material with a PG certificate or equivalent. That said, he confessed that he has learned to type single-handed, and he does have tissues for his "nose." I wanted to know if he'd had abuse from passers by. He said, "some young girls came by last night. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but one of them was offering me some sort of job if I could step out of the shop, which seemed sweet of her." He says he turned the job down.

He has also acquired a cyberstalker called Martin (who has a "Martin's hot tub" web site, apparently, but I'm not going to check that out as I'm following the PG rule too). Caspian believes Martin to be a gay Christian law lecturer, but says he may have him mixed up with somebody else.

Anyway, Emily and I eventually left Caspian to his banana mountain, his natty pants and his anticipated delivery of a five foot wooden giraffe. Showing off, I popped into Sainsbury's on the way home for a pizza.