I have some practical advice to anyone who believes the best response to teenage yobbos is to hug them, as David Cameron currently seems to be suggesting – and that advice is, don't.
My attacker wasn't wearing a hoodie – this was back in 2000 and fashion in those days ran to a baseball cap and black and white camouflage Moschino trousers – and I don't think the rest of his gang were either. But undoubtedly their younger brothers are out tonight wearing them.
His first couple of blows with the bottle opened up a wound by my eye that would later need six stitches and another on my hairline that would need two. 'Sod this for a lark', I thought, and tried some sort of action to stop him.
I closed up on him and leaned forward in an attempt to trap his arms against his body by hugging him. It didn't work – I got the hug in, but his arms were still free and he now had an easy target in the shape of the top of my head. Three more blows with the bottle, each one needing three more stitches, and all the while I continued to hug the ungrateful little bastard.
Trust me David, it doesn't work.