Twenty years ago, when Simon was a whippersnapper presenter on BBC Radio 1, he received thousands of letters from listeners confessing their darkest secrets and worst misdemeanours, begging for his forgiveness. Every day, Father Mayo read out a confession - and then he'd decide whether to grant forgiveness or not.

Now Confessions is back on BBC Radio 2 Drivetime. Read a Confession below, then Send Simon Your Confession

Dear Father Simon

My confession goes back to the autumn of 2006 when my wife and I were spending a year working in British Columbia in Canada. We were living in a ski town called Whistler which you may have noticed was the venue for the recent Olympic Winter Games.

The official symbol for the winter games was a little stone statue called an Innukshuk. These were traditionally built and used by native peoples of Canada as signposts to safety or food and as such were chosen as the icon to represent the games. (You may recognise the figure from the BBC opening credits to the games TV coverage where a man uses a curling stone to retrieve an Innukshuk head from a large bear having skied away from wolves etc?)

Anyway, back to the story I was working in a shop that sold various tourist paraphernalia and general Olympic merchandise. We had a great bunch of people working there and I was particularly friendly with a French-Canadian called Dave. One day, Dave and I were remarking on how much we'd sold and how much money we'd earned (as some of our income was commission based). Some customers we noted, seemed particularly gullible and easy to sell to, mostly those from Canada's nearest neighbour!

The Manager of the shop overheard our conversation and thought it would be funny to make a small bet. He bet us a case of finest Canadian beer that we wouldn't be able to find a random object from outside in the street and sell it before the week was over.

We accepted the challenge and duly went outside to find a suitable object. After some searching we came upon the idea of collecting some stones from the decorative raised planters and selling them as a build-your-own Innukshuk kit.

We took the stones inside the shop and set about making an Innukshuk to place on the shelf next to the very expensive glass and carved-stone Innukshuks we had for sale. We soon realised however, that the stones were too big and heavy to stand safely on the glass display shelf all together so what should we do?

My esteemed colleague then had a brainwave "Why don't we just sell the Head?" he said. I shrugged and said, OK, so we took the price gun and labelled the single stones $9.99 and placed them on the shelf next to the expensive Innukshuk statues.

By lunch time the following day, we began to think that no-one would take the bait. But Just then, in walked a rather large couple from one of the southern states. The lady seemed enthralled by the vast array of native pieces we had for sale and went straight for our attractive display of Innukshuks.

"WOW" she exclaimed, "These look AWESOME." Her husband seemed less impressed. She picked-up several of the hand-carved stone pieces, and upon realising the price put them straight back down again. Then she picked-up our Head. She turned it over in her hands for several seconds before asking, What is this?

Quick as a flash, Dave jumped-in, "It's a Head"

A head? she replied

"Yeah, the Head of the Innukshuk" he then gave her a look as if to say, don't you know anything?

She turned it over in her hands a couple more times until her husband tugged at her sleeve and said, "Lets go."

"Wheres the rest of it?" she enquired

Realising we were going to lose our only chance of a sale (and winning the bet) I jumped-in and said, "The head is the most spiritually significant part to the native people of this area. They consider it a sacred item and hence they are often seen on their own."

My friend Dave had to retire to the back room to prevent him exploding with laughter, but I somehow managed to keep a straight face.

The husband once more tugged at her sleeve

"They've been very popular items" I said "what with the Olympics coming up in 2010, that's the last one we have left"

The lady placed the head on the counter and reached for her purse. Dave stood in the back doorway staring in disbelief at the events unfolding in the shop. I took the ladies 10 bill and gave her a cent change. I even knocked off taxes for her (which are usually added-on at the till in Canada) as I thought she could use a good deal.

Her husband looked on aghast.

As they turned to leave, the lady said to her husband, "Don't be angry with me honey, this will go really great with that other rock I bought"

I had an instant sense of gratification that I had used my impressive sales skills to sell a stone we'd found outside to a gullible tourist. Soon that passed though, and after congratulations from colleagues (and a case of beer) I started to feel a bit guilty.

In my defence however, the fact that the lady had obviously been duped into buying a worthless stone somewhere else did make me think that she had it coming. Not only had she fallen for my dubious but nonetheless successful patter, shed obviously fallen for someone else's unscrupulous sales techniques before she even came into our shop!

I still think about that lady and her long-suffering husband, and when on holiday myself I am very aware of the prices people will pay for the tat that gets sold in tourist shops. I always remind myself, Caveat Emptor!

So, am I forgiven?

Martin