As my age progressed towards seven or eight, my mind turned to my future occupation. Nothing appealed to my idle imagination. Until one day I hit upon the answer. I would become a tramp. But not just any tramp. A tramp of means. And so I counted all the money in my assorted piggy banks and gathered all the other necessary information about my life and scribbled it down in a note. I placed my letter in an envelope and marked the envelope 'PRIVATE TOP SECRET DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 31ST JULY.' It seems I did not fill in the year. No doubt because if I have a secret note then I want to open it as soon as possible. I doubt I even lasted until the due date.

When I excitedly ripped it open I was astonished to read: 'My name is... We have 10 people in our family. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays we get some sweets. I have got £22 pounds because I have got two banks. My brother has got one bank. When I grow up I am going to travel around England and take £54,000 with me and be a tramp.'

I see a lot of muggings in this fair city of ours, but until last night I had never fallen victim to one. One should never walk unprepared along a quiet, dark road, especially if two figures in hoods are approaching on the same side of the road. Yet before I had made a firm decision to take evasive action, there they were, two young men of non-white appearance blocking my way threateningly, an undernourished finger jabbed in my solar plexus. I considered asking from which region they originated, but they had no truck with naive questions like that. In retrospect there was something of the Bosphorus about them, but before I could put it to them the leader of the pair began patting down my person quite menacingly. Before I could utter a vague 'What ho, are you interested in anything in particular?' they had commenced what can only be termed as a strip search. In fact, one of them insisted on inserting his grubby hand down my pocket, which in reality held only my mobile phone but as far as I was concerned represented a trouser-based orifice. Yes, there he was grappling around my groin area like a demon possessed. Until now I had not realised how crime was such a homosexual activity. Of course, I fought him tooth and nail, even though my nails are so bitten down to the bone that I doubt either of them felt anything remotely like pain. And I had little chance to use my teeth as I was too preoccupied trying to prevent him divesting my trousers of what worth they contained. I do believe I uttered a feeble 'Help' or two but my cries were useless in such an upper class area. I should perhaps have shouted that someone was uprooting the bougainvillea in the neighbouring garden, as that is what truly motivates that kind of person. As it was I had a hard enough time fighting off their attempts to remove the folded newspaper in my jacket pocket. As the second mugger successfully removed it, only to examine it in disgust and dash it against the pavement, I barely had chance to say 'But I haven't yet read the review of the latest National Theatre production!' before he returned with the threat: 'I've got a knife.' Thinking the best policy was to show interest in his endeavours, I believe I replied: 'Good man, take it out so I can have a close look at it.' He refused this entreaty and was about to rejoin the fray when his compatriot finally wrested my phone from my pocket. They seemed satisfied with this meagre haul and promptly began running away. I chased after them for a few paces, shouting: 'I say, you didn't even take my money, what kind of muggers are you?' It was useless. They were far fleeter than I and disappeared down the road. Suffice it to say I had my own revenge five minutes later when I informed the phone company of my tragedy and removed the thieves' right to use my phone to call up their retarded uncles in Istanbul. Initially I was enraged at my plight and considered stalking the neighbourhood with rather large kitchen knives in both hands, but gradually I attained tranquility and realised that my missing phone had been the bane of my life. Truly it was one of the worst pieces of technology that I have had the misfortune to become intimate with. I trust the muggers will be as annoyed as I was with its ridiculous sliding action and antiquated display. And so I raise a toast, to the muggers! May you fail at life as you failed at robbery!

A most confusing business, pubescence. Maturity, sexual awakening... call it what you will. But when I was a young boy of six or seven I was quite clearly instructed that girls were smelly, stupid and unworthy of acquaintance. If one was caught talking to a girl, or looking at one or calling said girl anything but 'her' in a disdainful fashion, then one was immediately outcast as a nancy boy or some kind of homosexual gay character. So powerfully was this drummed into me that when I happened to mumble a few words to one of these strange creatures, my younger brother and his friends saw fit to lambast me in such insulting language that I was forced to run away and cry. What I mostly remember is not the girl or my brother and his idiotic companion, but the dinner lady / playground supervisor looking at me pityingly, with such concern. From that day forth I vowed to have no more truck with girls and their daisy chains and fake marriages.

Yet three years later, in the last year before the dreaded move up to Big School, there was an event akin to a revolution. Now girls were to be charmed, stared at, nay stalked around the playground. One was to join in thrilling games of spin the bottle or kiss chase. Once kissing was achieved, a boy should ask one to be his girlfriend, buy her a present and walk around hand in hand. Despite being utterly dismissive of this hypocritical behaviour, having dedicated myself to disgust with the opposite sex, I did indulge in a game of spin the bottle. I do not remember the bottle, or who spun it, or even if it really did come to rest pointing in my direction rather than being cruelly manipulated by the bottle spinner. No, what I vividly remember is the beastly girl I was paired with. She had more mouth than the 4-1 favourite at Doncaster and a face already starting to swell with pus. This kissing game was not a fashion I was prepared to follow. I was unprepared both physically and emotionally. I ran away in great haste, my as-yet-undeveloped tail between my legs.

I knew then it was to be a long road...

Beastly things, cigarettes. The first one is a revelation, the last is like sucking the fetid air out of a corpse. I have often thought that one should devise a smoking book, linking the right foods to smoke with and the right cigarettes to smoke with the food. Hence a steak tartare should be accompanied by a hand-rolled Drum, or a kedgeree with a plain old Marlboro Light. Tis not an exact science, but I think people should experiment and compile their favourites. All I know is such a list does not exist. I would dearly love to know which food befits a Hamlet cigar. Or perhaps it befits its theme tune, namely Air... while examining a G-string.

In any case my preferred place for a cigarette is the toilet. Such is the association that even the thought of nicotine brings with it the desire to shit my life away. And so I invariably smoke in a seated position with my buttocks exposed.

They say childhood experiences are the key to a man's personality, so I hereby reveal a few short anecdotes.

At the age of four or five, as my brain began the process of logging significant events in my long term memory, I had a little post truck. It was made of plastic and had a big yellow steering wheel and little yellow wheels. It was driven by means of straddling it with my little legs and using my feet to propel myself forwards, negotiating turns by means of the steering wheel. My younger brother had a rather more sleek blue car, of which I was slightly jealous. My envy increased further when my father slapped a tax disc on this blue car, thereby registering it with the DVLA. My post truck remained unregistered.

In pre-school I was good at mathematics, but there was one thing that distracted me from my endeavours. There was a child there, a boy my age, who had the most wonderful buckle I had seen in all my years. It was made of plastic, but still there was something fascinating about it. It had a unique clasp design that I wanted to reach out and fiddle with. On no account think I am confessing desires for the same sex. After all I was a mere five years old. It was the beauty of the belt that attracted me. I have never seen a belt like it since, despite scouring my nearest shopping centre in repeated half hour bursts every weekend.

I would like to say I have outgrown such petty jealousies, but a short walk down the high street often sends me into apoplexy, particularly if I see an attractive lady walking down the street with an unsuitable gentleman. Even more so if they refuse to meet my penetrating gaze.

I received a letter from a ladyfriend this morning. In common with the female sex in general her handwriting was extraordinarily neat. However I was not interested in the contents of the envelope. My curiousity was instead aroused by the possibility my ladyfriend had cause to use her tongue to seal the envelope. Given that I have never met this enchantress, let alone had any direct oral communication with her, I must acknowledge my curiosity was aroused. It cast me back more than a dozen years, to the flowering of my youth so to speak, when I happened upon a stack of loveletters in the wardrobe of one of the most beautiful ladies of the village. The fact that I was in her home uninvited and had not received permission to slip the bundle of correspondence into my duffel coat is strictly irrelevant, but my excitement was impressively evident. Once back at my poorly furnished bedroom, I had occasion to examine the letters in detail. In short this beautiful lady, who appeared so aloof pushing her trolley around the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon, and even more so when she retired to bed alone at nine o'clock every evening, was revealed to be a passionate and indiscriminate lover. I counted twelve different signatures on those letters, and at least four were of the female variety. It was at this point I felt compelled to draw my fevered tongue along the edges of these envelopes, imagining that I was tasting the essence of the sender, whether she had been eating excessive amounts of onions, or smoked, or wore fragrant lipstick. Of course, the envelope may have been licked by a lowly butler or servant or errand boy, but the possibility of other bodily substances being employed as an adhesive was also in my thoughts. Thus today I sat on my little convenience at a half past ten and fervidly licked that letter from my ladyfriend, as if I could imbibe her soul itself. In so doing, I ensured that she was bound to me for evermore...

I was born on a Sunday, I'm told, and so had more reason than most to pray upon my entry into the world. However it soon became apparent that putting one's palms together was not the best way to go about life. Indeed, I quickly discovered that separating the hands was conducive to a whole host of activities, such as eating, whittling wood, reading a book and, dare I say, masturbation, although the latter took many years to perfect. Once this breakthrough was achieved, the possibilities seemed to yawn before me like an overfed cat. My potential increased still further when I realised that by placing one foot in front of the other the perception of motion could be obtained. Of course I cannot remember this event, but most likely it was received ecstatically in our household. Instead my first memory is of posing for a photograph on a little green in the centre of the small village we helped to populate. As father readied the camera and urged me to utter some banality or other, I crouched down on my haunches and felt the overwhelming urge to soil myself. Sure enough I felt the warm glow of urination spread throughout my underclothes. Flash went the camera and the deed was done. No doubt somewhere this picture still exists, but it matters not. My life as Mister Tramp was underway...