Unfortunately, the ceremony ended quite abruptly. Marijuana blew my mind, but it also blew my chances of graduating from college – instead of attending seminars on the dissolution of the monasteries, I would be flat on my back in my room listening to Strawberry Fields Forever. After less than six months, the college authorities hauled me up to a castle in Ripon to discuss why I had failed to produce a single essay. It was as if I really had been transported back to the early sixteenth century as, bizarrely, the Lord Mayor of York himself was in attendance in full regalia looking like Henry VIII in his bloated years, seated amid a host of other dignitaries. Promising me a fair trial, after a mere fifteen minutes a verdict was reached and I was sentenced to dismissal from the institution, narrowly avoiding being hung drawn and quartered.

With what I would replace my academic career was still uncertain. The week before the mock trial inflicted disgrace on my family for years to come, I had gone for a job as a drugs dealer. (As you will see, I rarely do things by halves). I was convinced that marijuana was the answer to all the world’s problems: Get everyone in Parliament high and they were bound to pass only the most liberal and peace-loving bills: The bomb would be banned, the working week reduced, our economy would be strengthened by sales of walnut whips, mini cheddars and other convenience snacks, and there would be less domestic violence and closing time fracas due to its pacifying effect. How I actually ended up at this ‘interview’ for the vacant position of ‘Assistant Pusher in North-East Region 2 (York)’ I no longer remember. The previous incumbent had ‘moved away’, which I later found out was a euphemism for ‘was in prison’ or ‘was dead’, and a new person was required to move approximately four kilos a month in the York district. My would-be boss, mysteriously known only as ‘Tiger’, lived in a plush apartment in a posh area of the city. He had shoulder length black hair which was tied into a tight pony-tail and, when I met him he was wearing a black and white patterned kimono. He showed me into his lounge, the walls of which were adorned with huge Japanese swords, while a mammoth tiger-pelt rug guarded the fire-place. After offering me some green-tea, Tiger explained that his philosophy was based on the ancient code of the samurai and that his illegal operations afforded him little stress because he was prepared to die with honour. Of course, he expected all his employees to comply with the principles of his code, and he would not tolerate deviation from his strict ethical discipline.

“You see Danny, the grass is just a crop, like wheat or tobacco. If people wish to harness it for their own spiritual well-being, then I am simply empowering them to do that. If, however, they use it in a way that destroys their chi then I can’t be held responsible. Basho said, ‘Look not for the morning raindrop on the grass when the sky above is crying.’”

“Right.”

Tiger then handed me a heavy sandstone pot. Inside was a roll of extremely thin cigarette paper and some really pungent weed.

“Skin one up,” he said.

I realised that this was the practical part of the interview and that I would need to pass this test to prove myself as a proficient pot-manager. Unfortunately, I’d never learnt to roll joints terribly well. Hank would generally do them; I tended to use this little machine I’d bought from a tobacconist that made thin cigarillo type joints of perfect line but which lacked the panache and smoking satisfaction of the classic ‘carrot’ shape, and I didn’t think Tiger would be terribly impressed if I took it out of my pocket at that moment. I needed to convince him that I was street smart, that I was no small-town small-fry, that to me four kilos a month was child’s play, that I’d practically been born with a spliff in my mouth.

With Tiger’s beady eyes on me, however, I went to pieces. My fingers all of a sudden assumed the dexterity of a front row forward and the sweat that they produced merely managed to de-activate the adhesive properties of the papers, in vain the deluges of saliva that rained down on them from my tongue. To make matters worse, the roach I attempted to insert refused to enter, and, instead of the five paper super-spliff that I’d intended to produce, I shamefacedly handed Tiger a soggy two-paper bodge job.

He looked at it disbelievingly. I gave him a knowing look as if to say, “Betcha haven’t come across one of those before,” as if it was some kind of underground New York joint of esoteric recipe kept hidden since the sixties.

“I can’t really taste anything in that,” Tiger said.

Was he kidding? I’d absolutely loaded it. There was hardly a grain of tobacco in there. Most of it had fallen out.

“Anyway, Danny, why exactly do you want this job and what qualities do you think you would bring to the enterprise?”

For heaven’s sakeI should have prepared a CV. I wasn’t expecting such professionalism. I thought back to my last interview for a shelf-filler job with Hyper Value.

“Well, Tiger, I’m a very motivated and hard-working individual, who places a high regard on personal integrity, works well within a team and is committed to seeing projects through to completion.”

Tiger failed to call me back the next day as promised and I realised, extremely thankfully, that I’d blown it. I promised myself that from here on in I would take a more active role in the decisions governing where my life led me.

Thus, I found myself standing in the rain again, in the same car park that my parents had left me in less than seven months ago. However, I was now a very different person. I had indeed spread my wings and flown. I counted my achievements: learning to play squash and winning the college squash tournament (I knew Dave, the squash captain, from smoking sessions and I knew he had let me win); living independently for the first time (OK, so three square meals a day were available in the refectory, but I still had to make it to the other side of the campus), and, er, going for an interview as a ‘drugs dealer’. However, despite these diverse and dazzling accomplishments, nothing could have prepared me for what fate had in store next. I would soon be flying into the eye of the storm!