Apocrypha (21)

Many years ago I had a good friend, now sadly deceased, who was a senior Met detective. Standing at the bar, as we were wont to do, I spotted the head of a pin peeping from behind the lapel of his jacket. "That's not like you, Harry" I said. "I don't see you as the kind of bloke who saves a pin in his lapel". Wordlessly, Harry turned over his lapels, each of which had a dozen or so pins threaded into the fabric. "If some hero wants to give me a Glasgow kiss" he said, "He will grab my lapels and pull. If he gets two handfuls of pins he will pause for long enough for me to knee him in the balls". There's no substitute for experience is there?

Another useful tip I received via the Met CID is that a bar stool is an ideal tool with which to fend off a man with a knife, since its legs will be longer than his arms. Mind how you go now.