5412/18332
Dicing with death and gambling with my own life, I headed into London, where every other tube carriage has a homemade bomb in it and only fate can decide whether it will be a comical failure that fails to destroy the Lidl bag that contains it, or a horrific success.
I first headed to Shepherd’s Bush because the people who now live in the house we used to live in had got in touch to say a parcel had turned up for Catie from M&S. She hadn’t ordered anything from M&S and if she had she’d have sent it to the right address, so I was keen to solve the mystery and even though they could have forwarded it on, I was coming into town anyway and thought this would be a brief distraction.
The parcel, it turned out, was packed with £150 worth of women’s clothes: socks, tops, leggings, bras,that had all been paid for on a credit card. Was this a strange gift from an admirer? It had Catie’s name and our old address on it, so it was hard to see how it could be a mistake. I checked with Catie that she hadn’t inadvertently ordered a load of clothes and then forgotten about it, but she was adamant that she hadn’t and the credit card that had paid for them was not ours.
Catie had a feeling that it might be a package for a friend of hers, who has once sent Catie some flowers and then complained that her purchases from the M&S website kept defaulting to our address. Indeed, that was what had happened. We solved the mystery super fast.
But now I was in a moral maze. As the parcel had been sent out a while ago, Catie’s friend had already complained about the non-delivery and been sent a replacement package to the correct address. As far as M&S were concerned these clothes had been lost and they weren’t expecting them back.
What should I do?
We could keep the clothes - there was a chance some of them might fit Catie and then next time she met up with her friends they could be wearing the exact same clothes.
We could send the clothes on to Catie’s friend - they would definitely fit her and she would then have a spare copy of everything she had bought. Two for one.
Or I could return the package to Marks and Spencers, because really it belonged to them.
Would I be moral, immoral or amoral?
Even though I had planned to use the remaining time I had before a couple of radio interviews to buy a new coat, I decided I would head out of my way and got to an M&S and hand the clothes back. Perhaps they would reward my honesty with some gift vouchers or a free Very Berry Fruit Salad. Or a Walnut Whip.
But I wasn’t doing it for fruit or confection. It just seemed the right thing to do.
Once I had walked to the Westfield and then trudged up to the store I was feeling less happy about it. I am still pretty knackered and this was a lot of extra effort. I found the returns department, patiently queued behind the people getting refunds and then took the package to the desk and explained the situation.
“So your friend has received her clothes and you’re just returning these?†the lady said.
“Yes,†I confirmed.
She seemed surprised. Almost like I was some kind of idiot. “That doesn’t happen very often,†she remarked.
No, you’re right. That’s because I am a moral and good person, I thought - ignoring all the sweets I’ve stolen and that time I kept a packet of Quavers that had fallen off the trolley on a train. I hovered for a second, wondering if they would call down Ian Marks and Ian Spencers to thank me personally for not being a thief (on this occasion), but they didn’t even give me the Walnut off a broken Walnut Whip. No wonder people are so dishonest!
I felt good for doing the right thing though and for giving up a good portion of my morning to finding out what this parcel was and then returning it to the rightful owner.
And maybe if the parcel had been full of stuff I actually wanted I might not have been such a hero.
I thought it would be just typical if something bad now happened to me as a result of my detour. But there was no obvious Sliding Doors consequence (beyond my life totally changing as a result of this journey, compared to what it would have been had I just gone into town).
I then went to Broadcasting House to be interviewed twice, for two separate radio documentaries on different radio stations, that were looking at 1990s comedy and wanted to talk to me about the radio series Fist of Fun.
It’s nice that anyone still remembers it after a quarter of a century and it was interesting to be thrust back into that time when I was a fixture of the Radio Light Entertainment Department corridor. It was crazy how much time and effort I put in to those old shows. It was all I cared about. I had nothing else.
I am sure I was mainly sad back then, but I look back with affection on those times, when I had the good fortune to work with a group of people who would go on to pretty much redefine UK comedy. And Stewart Lee.
I felt like an imposter at the time. And it turns out that I probably was. But still, I get to rewrite the history now by making out that everything that happened was all down to me.
