Day 22 - May 19th

Day 22 - May 19th
Scotch
Brutality - drinking with Phil's dad
Ed Castle
'Found' a phone
Blackouts
What happened? It's still a mystery

        Probably the worst thing I ever did, and I think what this card is referring to, was I stole a girl's phone as she sat waiting for the toilets at Red Square. She was sitting a few metres away from me, and had set her phone down on the bit of bench we were both sitting on. It was probably about a metre from both of us, and she was talking to her friend with her back turned, so I grabbed it and walked off. I gave it to Plummy in exchange for two pills, roughly $50, and a few days later he told me that it was locked, and therefore useless.
        I'm sorry to that girl for stealing her phone. I'm sorry for being the kind of person who makes the world less safe and fun to be in. I'm sorry for being selfish. I'm just sorry.

        A few times in the years since then I've been victim to similar actions, conned out of money by muggers or tricksters. When I landed in Paris in 2014 I lost €20 to a couple at the airport train station, and again in Paris in the Summer of 2015 a guy snatched €10 out of my hands when I was supposedly buying drugs off him. In Manchester 2017 a guy looked over my shoulder to see my pin at the cash machine, then managed to convince me to get my wallet out, and in my dunken state he took my card, and withdrew £290 from my account. My bank (INCREDIBLY) gave me my money back that time but the point is I've had shitty things happen to me. I've been taken advantage of.
        It feels awful – the one in Manchester especially made me feel stupid and gullible – but I can never forget the night in 2012 when I did that same thing to someone else.
        I'm sure that girl felt stupid too when she realised her phone was gone. It probably ruined her night, and would have cost her a few hundred bucks to replace, and all the hassle that comes with replacing all the information on your phone.

        I'm incredibly lucky given all the stupid things I did in the few years after I turned 18. It's a miracle that I never went through the court system and ended up with a criminal record. I easily could have, and it would have changed my whole life and severely limited what I would have been able to do with travel and comedy. If I have anything to take away from the realisation of just how lucky I have been, it is to always try and forgive people. Make sure they understand what their actions mean, and how they affect people, and maybe, hopefully, they'll want to change and be better.
        The more we forgive people, the more they are gifted with the capacity to offer something back to the world they've wronged. That's what I'm trying to do I guess: work on myself so I can be someone who can offer the world something unique, and in doing so maybe bring more positivity to people's lives than that which I took when I was young, dumb, and selfish.

Click here to read the next part - Day 23 - June 2nd