The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Friday, October 4

Hi, everyone!

I am cold again, and may reach for a sweater, but we’ll see.

Ramble of the Day

Credit to IKEA. They’ve successfully taken a concept of their business, forcing people to walk through displays, and made that a well known aspect of their brand. If you’ve ever walked through an IKEA, it’s a pretty enticing experience. You might also stroll through the displays and have other ideas, like how it’s probably a fun venue for a large game of hide-and-seek.

I first heard of the idea when a 3,000 player hide-and-seek in a Glasgow IKEA was ended before it began by police officers a few weeks ago. I quickly found out these people weren’t the first to come up with the idea, thanks to a quick history from Fast Company:

The first evidence of this trend dates back to 2014, when a Belgian blogger named Elise De Rijck coordinated a hide-and-seek meet-up at her local Wilrijk store to celebrate her 30th birthday. She created a Facebook group and invited her friends—but soon, thousands of people had joined the group. Ikea Belgium got wind of the plan and instead of squashing it, offered Ikea’s full support, including extra staff and security to host the event.

That was awfully nice of IKEA Belgium, though they said it was a one-time event and have since been in the business of discouraging people not to organize similar events because of safety risks. They may have a good point there, but I must admit that I’m a bit bummed that I may never have a chance to participate in a game of IKEA hide-and-seek. (Of course, another big problem I have is that this happens to be a trend only in Europe, which requires me to get on a plane.)

There is YouTube evidence (which I haven’t watched, for what it’s worth) of people playing hide-and-seek in IKEA outside of the one sanctioned game, so I suppose I could do something similar. I have a better idea, though: IKEA should sanction at least one game a year, where they provide the proper security and everything, to make more than just a Belgian blogger and her friends’ dreams come true.

tl;dr: I’d love to play a game of hide-and-seek at IKEA.

Links of the Day

UEFA will investigate Olympiacos after fans brought a racist banner to the team’s match against Red Star.

Neil Harris has quit as the Millwall manager, ending his four-plus year stint.

Today’s longer read: Kim McCauley interviews members of the MLS Players Association on their priorities for a new collective bargaining agreement for SB Nation