I collected my briefcase yesterday from the man who found it abandoned and partially ransacked last Monday evening.

When we spoke, he was n't certain which day he'd found it (I did n't ask why he could n't remember, how churlish would that have been, I'm just grateful he did what he did), as far as he could recall it was either Monday or Tuesday. Based on what he told me everything points towards Monday more or less unequivocally. Walking home, he saw two cyclists tear along in front of him, then a moment or two later, came across my briefcase, spewing it's contents on to the pavement of a scruffy little square behind Shepherds Bush central line station. Too close in time and context to simply be two disassociated events

I gave him and his missus a box of chocolates. Good deeds should always be acknowledged. Piece by infinitely small piece, it's people like him who are slowly civilising and improving this complex, difficult, frequently amoral world, one grain of sand at a time.

Great that he got to it before the rain spoiled it, or hands, other than those of the original bag snatcher, had rummaged through it. Most of the contents that I've lugged around in it were still there: notebook, library book, umbrella, even a pen; no sign of my Blackberry or my Filofax, they had gone. However, the great wedge of personal papers that I'd been cramming into my filofax were still in my bag. I imagine they must have fallen out when these two kids were rifling through it.

Defiance for one thing, I can't have these people thinking they've won, no, not at all; and then the more mundane issue of me not wanting to fork out for a new briefcase for another, means the two of us will be going to and from the office next week just as we have for years.