"It's a seminal jazz work, Vince."

“Sexy lady with the eye. You’ve only got one eye, but it’s a good one.”

I’ve had that line from the Mighty Boosh in my head for two full days. That and, “Vince, I’m Spanish. I’m Spanish, Vince. I’m a deeply Spanish man.”

Sometimes it’s good to keep yourself amused, especially when you’re standing on your own in the middle of a busy city centre, wearing a pale blue bib and trying to accost complete strangers. When you put it like that – what a fucking weird job I have.

Favourite things people have said to me:

"I can’t give to charity, I’m really skint."

It’s only five quid a month.

"Yeah, but I think charity begins at home."

Oh right, are you caring for a relative?

"No, but I think charity begins at home."

What do you mean?

"Charity begins at home." (exit left)

Or

Got a minute mate?

"Not with that hair.”

And

Wanna help save the lives of some African kids mate?

(pointing to two black girls walking past) “Well, they’re doing alright aren’t they?”

It’s also nice to meet people who have done this job before, but I’d prefer it if they let me know straight up. One girl I stopped, I did the usually flirty banter and she said “good, building rapport.” I then got going into my pitch and she said “nice, I like that, concise, good.” Then I made some trite tug at her emotional heartstrings and she said, “nice trite tug at my emotional heartstrings. Are you going to ask me for money now?” I said, “have you done this before?” At which point she told me she used to be a street fundraiser too, and that I’d done “ok.”

Today, actually, I was “mystery shopped” by a member of my agency. It was pretty fucking obvious though. We had already been warned some people from the agency would be coming to the site, and the site being Wallsend (the armpit’s arsehole of the world) it was fairly easy to spot the well-dressed, attractive lady in her late twenties who couldn’t quite think of a good answer when asked what she did for a living and what she was doing today.

“Umm, just umm, meeting up with some friends. I work in London. Umm.”

I’ll ask my brother shall I – Matt, if you were going to meet friends, would you travel a few hundred miles to the shittest place in the world, on the day that the clouds decided to hawk up so much rain, they were having respiratory problems? What’s that? No? Hmm. So anyway, I gave her a textbook pitch, asked her for her bank details and she said that no, she wasn’t going to be giving today as she worked for my fundraising agency. I told her straight up that she was the most obvious stooge ever and that she stuck out in Wallsend more than an undercover cop smells like blue cheese to a criminal.

Considering how long it's been since my last post, I can't help but sense some disappointment. But hey, at least I wrote something. Circletide's thrown the towel of These Four Walls at the laundry pile of the net, alongside www.literaryaccountsofthingsIdidwithmykidsister.cock and www.letsgetridofjohnmajor.org.uk. The site will no doubt fester until it's nothing more than a decaying white chalky dust being snorted by upwardly-mobile vermin. Good luck to him I say.