Thank you everybody for your thoughts (except desperance who sees story opportunities in everything). I thought initially that I had cut a vein but from the questions from the emergency telephonist (Have you lost a cupful of blood?) it turned out not to be as serious. My own stupid fault: children, always cut away from yourself.

And my trip to A&E proved a lot less troublesome than it might have been: no discernible drunks and I was seen and stitched up in not much more than an hour. And all, I will add for the benefit of anybody who doubts the value of a National Health Service, at no cost at all, except a bottle of wine donated as a thank-you gift to the neighbour who ran me to the hospital and collected me when the work was done.