Knife crime

If news headlines are anything to go by, it seems the UK is battling a real knife crime problem, with over 53,000 incidents last year. Spain isn’t entirely in the clear, there are knife attacks here too, and in some cities, particularly Barcelona, there has been a big jump in stabbings this year. Nonetheless the problem is much less marked here than it is in the UK. It’s a case of one country dealing with a major crisis and the other keeping a cautious eye on a growing trend. I don't think of myself as having criminal tendencies. I might admit to the odd traffic infringement now and again and I probably pinched a few envelopes when I was working but I'm no Samuel Little. The other day though I found myself in a situation that hardly registered at the time but might actually have gone remarkably pear shaped. I went, with a pal, to the Foreigners Office in Alicante to help him with the renewal of his identity card. Before going through the security scanner to get into the buildin...