I managed to get myself upright and push the gate the rest of the way open, and it was right at the moment I picked up the paintbrush and started trying to work out what was going on that the police car cruised around the corner. I mean, seriously, how’s your luck at that time of the morning?

PC Maria Hanley (as it transpired) pulled up to see me standing with the incriminating, almost beyond a reasonable doubt exhibit A in my hand, and a very cushty circumstantial case about to drop in her lap. She leaned over to say something to the other PC and got out of the car, tilting her head to read the painted words on the pavement. Then she stepped neatly around them and addressed me, quite charmingly. ‘And just what is it you think you’re doing, sir?’

I looked down at the paintbrush in my hand, then at the stray bit of hair that had escaped her sensible ponytail and curled on to her neck just inside her collar. It was mightily distracting, and in my defence, I was also experiencing some serious head spins. But did I do what I was perfectly entitled to, which was give it the old, ‘Well, I’m not absolutely sure, but it might not be what it looks like, Officer’ defence? Did I bollocks. What I did was raise both hands in the air, flash what I hoped was a winning smile, and – in hindsight probably purely out of habit and on account of still being half smashed – wink and give it my best shot.

‘Looks like you’ve caught me red-handed, Officer . . .’ I leaned forward to read her badge. ‘Hanley. Bang to rights and don’t pardon the pun!’

Just to clarify, she didn’t actually call me interesting, per se. She squinted her lovely mistrusting eyes like she was considering her options and said, ‘Interesting.’ She left enough space either side of the word to let me know that not only did she suspect I might not have an interesting bone in my body, but that everything coming out of my mouth had clearly been thoroughly rinsed in alcohol so wasn’t to be trusted in the least. About right on both counts, to be fair.

If I’m honest, the speed with which I put up my hand to take the rap for a dirty great piece of graffiti defacing a formerly pristine Belsize Park footpath was a bit of a surprise, even to me. In part because I had no concrete memory of actually committing the crime, although I did recognise the tin of paint (which I’d rescued from a skip a few weeks before with a solid plan to paint the shed door), and the words of the graffiti had a vaguely familiar ring.

The problem was, it was all thrashing around in a mosh pit of other drunken memories from the night before, which included getting a right telling-off from the guy in the kebab shop, and handing over a tenner and my favourite Adidas hoodie to a busker with a ukulele and a chesty cough. I had no idea how, or even if, any of it was connected and, if I’d taken a moment to think things through rationally, I might have reconsidered whether straight up admitting to a crime against Camden Council just to make use of a pretty lame punchline-slash-possible-pick-up line was really such a great idea. But it was a split-second decision and, like I said, I did have the smoking gun in my hand. I figured that, as usual (although not always), the memory of the deed would reveal itself eventually – in easy-to-digest fragments if I was lucky, or in one stomach-churning brain dump if not.