Anyone who has walked around the streets of London recently will have noticed the rise in people doing anything and everything to get hold of our money. I expect muggers but not chuggers (charity collectors with clipboards and a sadistic smile).

Yesterday I came out of Covent Garden station with a couple of mates to find an army of people busking and begging for money. They included a tramp selling The Big Issue, three chuggers, several ‘living statues’ sprayed head-to-toe in silver and gold paint, a promo team rattling buckets of change, a man and a woman in giant cow costumes, a juggler, a busking guitarist, stilt walkers, two Aussie blokes promoting paintball and David Bowie exactly as he was in the film Labyrinth.

I only came for a quiet pint with my mates, Matt and Lee, but these street scroungers had other ideas. Oblivious to the danger they posed I gestured for Matt and Lee to head to the safe zone of the pub at the far end of the street while I popped to the cash machine.

I was wearing my favourite Thundercats t-shirt and as I stood at the cash point I could hear a suspicious whisper whistle around the street “Thundercat, look at the Thundercat, Thundercat”. Unbeknownst to me I had been singled out by the chuggers as a weak target.

While I obliviously withdrew my hard-earned cash the street urchins readied themselves for the catch of the day. One of the living statues turned a beady eye my way as the rest of his body remained motionless. As I slipped my juicy notes into my wallet the legion of chuggers licked their lips in anticipation.

I slowly turn round and look up to see that they have established a formation that shielded all routes through to my mates and my cold pint in the pub beyond.

The charity workers put on American Football helmets, the stilt walkers stretch out their giant limbs and the paintball blokes click some bullets into the chamber of their rifles. The giant cows stroke the ground with their feet like a bull preparing to charge. Suitably tense music plays in the background as a door slams shut and a car backfires.

I quickly turn to dash in the opposite direction but the tramp is immediately behind me. Shocked I stumble backwards and trip on the cobbled streets. I see the chuggers run towards me and my juicy currency.

In the distance I see Matt and Lee hold out my cold pint at the pub window. They look on petrified as the previously immobile street artists creak their necks and come to life, slowly trudging their way towards me.

I scramble to my feet and shake off the attentions of the piss-drenched tramp. I spin out of the tackle of a heavily padded charity chugger and then dodge several missiles directed at me by a juggler like Oddjob on a mission.

Suddenly I run into an old lady and she begins to hit me with her stick. I dash away and continue dodging in and out of attacks with my wallet tucked under my arm like a wide receiver. I go to take haven in a nearby shop but the shopkeeper locks the doors before I can get there. I plea for her to allow me inside but she is too frightened to do so.

As I turn in slow motion I see the busker swinging his guitar at my head. I quickly deliver a knee to the buskers balls and start running once more. I am now half way to my target. However the two giant cows are bearing down on me and I become trapped against a shop window. I manage to struggle half-past them but then I am collared by a stilt walker in a giant alien costume. He picks me up by my belt and I dangle helplessly in the giants grip.

All of a sudden everything pauses as The Tiger Lillies cross the street with Shockheaded Peter on a leash.

As I struggle to wriggle free from the aliens grip I see that my friends have appeared to help me. As the chuggers close in on my wallet I see Lee in open space calling for the pass. I draw back my arm and send a long throw towards him. The beggars look upwards as the wallet floats over them. Lee’s hands are directed skywards ready to take the catch and a smile creeps across his face as he prepares to cushion the wallet into his bosom. However, before he does so he is shot down in a rain of gunfire by the paintballing Aussies. He goes down like a multi-coloured Willem Dafoe in Platoon.

A street artist sketches the scene as a Vietnamese woman looks on in horror. The wallet is now lying on the ground and is there for the taking. The tramp is favourite to get to it but before he picks it up Matt distracts him with a three litre bottle of white cider. The tramp can’t resist and hypnotically walks towards the juicy cider like a zombie possessed. Suddenly Matt flicks it up and decapitates the tramp with the cider bottle.

I’m now free from the grip of the giant alien and Matt collects the wallet and runs towards me, dodging paint bullets and ducking the clutches of the living statues. As he tucks the wallet into my breadbasket he pats me on the back and tells me to “RUN LIKE THE WIND!”.

Matt fights off a charity worker and a snake charmer but a fire breather exhales towards him and brings him down in a blaze of fire and smoke. However, Matt has managed to buy me some time to run towards the safety of the pub and my cold pint shining in the window. I sprint like Jonah Lomu and beat off the attention of the remaining chuggers, dodging bullets along the way.

I am almost there, I can see the light, strangers are cheering me on and erecting banners that read “Go Thundercat Go!”. I allow myself a half smile as I make it within metres of the pub doors but just before I can enter a puppeteer releases an army of Punch & Judy’s and they take me down like a fish caught in a net as I become tangled in their wires.

I am down and I cannot escape. Exhausted I stop struggling. The puppet master leans down and picks up my wallet. He withdraws the cash and as he chucks my empty wallet down at me he says:

“Thundercat? More like ThunderTWAT.”