Lovely weather for shoplifting...

Last week Mark said I should write a blog. He said it again this week. Last week I had my reasons for disregarding this advice. This week I'm not so sure. Unsure enough to make a start anyway.

As happens at the very best of 12 step meetings, I'll say first of all that my name is copitorojo and I'm a cannabis addict. I've been an addict for 28 years.

It's been 3 hours since my last joint.

Of course my name isn't copitorojo, but everything else is true so far. Copitorojo is a Spanish nickname. I was a chef in Spain some years ago and I used to go to the local veg market in a great covered hall to buy stuff for the restaurant. As I walked up the steps into the hall I heard stallholders shout to each other 'here he comes, copito rojo' The little red head. I'm little and I've got red hair. Quite a lot of it at the moment.

Last week Mark said I should write a blog because things happen to me. This was because I'd just told him a story about being approached by an Italian in the town centre with an offer of 2k's worth of gorgeous armani coats, all he wanted was for me to take his car back to the hire place. And find him maybe about 200 quid. I had a tenner. End of story.

I said I didn't think things happened to me nearly as much as he thought I did. It would be a very boring blog because my life is mundane.

It is I promise you. You won't be following this blog for the action. I'm a civil servant, sort of, working for an organisation that's being abolished next March. Some of you may be thinking, you poor sods, that the demise of a public sector organisation sounds interesting. You've been there, that last great shake-up at the Dept for Work and Pensions. That's probably very mundane too, don't write in.

I work in the middle of Manchester, in an office overlooking King Street, in amongst the great shopping streets around St Anns Square, a stone's throw from Albert Square where the Food & Drink Festival is in full swing and Cathedral Square with the Big Wheel and telescreen and some top buskers.

Tonight I left work and cycled down King Street, behind the tax offices and then across the marvellous Trinity Bridge before turning onto the A6 as far as the Crescent, where we go for curry every Wednesday. Mark was there. He said I should write a blog. I said nothing exciting happens to me. Little did I know..