If the liberal press is to be believed, nobody has ever been stabbed — ever

An apology to all readers: a couple of weeks ago, in a public-spirited sort of way, I offered advice as to how to go about getting stabbed. Although I hope you will accept that I was well intentioned, the article was clearly deficient and even offensive in two important respects. First, I neglected to explain how one might go about getting stabbed twice — and, since I wrote, the window for that particular opportunity seems to have been closed. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, unveiled an exciting plan to let stabbers loose in hospital accident and emergency wards, where they might joyfully run around stabbing people who are recovering from having already been stabbed by someone else, as part of a rehabilitative process for the stabber. However, quite inexplicably, this policy was dropped only nineteen and a half minutes after it had been announced and the opportunity has now been lost.