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My bragging about my daring pick n mix burglaries on podcasts have alerted the authorities to my crimes. Which is partly why I did it. I enjoyed taunting the police and the Pick n Mix businessmen, in their suits and ties, who to my mind are the real criminals for charging £1.59 for 6, usually stale and disease-ridden, sweets. But I got an email from an anonymous source, pointing me towards a service station forum where the people in WH Smiths were being warned to look out for me.
Was the net finally closing in on this game of cat and sugar mouse? Or should I redouble my efforts to show these idiots that the pick n mix bandit will never be caught.
As I was on my way to Northampton for my first gig of the year I was going to be able to decide. We had to stop at the services to buy some dinner, so giving the service station owners a sporting chance and taunting them further, I tweeted my intentions to liberate a single pick n mix from a WH Smiths on the M1. What would they do if they caught me? My TV career might be over…. er. Or maybe after being a figure of shame for a few months I could bounce back, full of false apologies and appear on Celebrity Big Brother and be accepted back into the arms of the public. Though they'd always remember the pick n mix thing.
I refused to be cowed and I brazenly took my one sweet (one of those blue and pink cola bottle type things that taste like bubble gum or something). Usually I would eat it when I was still in the shop and thus cleverly destroy the evidence, but as I had been bragging on Twitter I needed to get evidence, so I took it out of the shop so I could photograph my ill-gotten gains. And then I quickly ate it. The police could search all they wanted, but they'd never be able to prove anything now. And if they thought that the photo counted as evidence, I would point out that that could equally well have been Hermione from Harry Potter.
I see myself as a modern day Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving myself diabetes. Some people might think that it seems like I want to be caught. But I will never be caught. I am too crafty. And I will never stop until Pick n Mix is reduced to a price which I consider to be fair, which ironically of course will never happen as it has to be kept high in order to factor in all the people who steal the sweets.
And before anyone feels too aggrieved. I did spend £1.59 in the WH Smiths buying a 50cl bottle of water. So I reckon they will still keep afloat.
Maybe it was the sugar rush, but the show in Northampton, my first gig this year (and it's six weeks since I last properly gigged), went really well. My throat, softened by weeks of lack of use, got scratchy and sore almost straight away, but I pretty much remembered everything and put in a lot of energy. Which was more remarkable as I was actually on the cusp of illness, but more of that tomorrow.
