Austrian knives!

A funny thing happened to me yesterday in the streets of Bromley in south London. I was by a bus stop when I heard a kerfuffle across the street. A tall man in a bobble hat and moving faster than Usain Bolt, shot past me brandishing a bread knife. He disappeared into a small park nearby, as several young blokes and an overweight policeman gave pursuit. He had tried to grab a bag. A few seconds later and the area was swarming with police cars with the sirens on maximum and people running in all directions.

It made me think how sad this country has become. Now I don't usually knock Britain - after all, I live here quite happily and am as patriotic as the next Englishman. But, after my trip to Graz in Austria last week, I realise that we're somehow doing it all wrong.

The picture above is a knife shop in the centre of Graz - there are quite a few of these, which offer everything remotely sharp to the trainee chef or avid hunter.

At night, there are no protective grills on the windows or steel shutters. Just a rather inviting plate glass window. And yet, no one ever dreams of backing a truck through the window and helping him or herself. It's just not in their culture. I am not saying there is no crime, of course, there is, but people seem a lot friendlier, kinder and generally nicer. I really hate to admit this. And it's not because everyone is rich there - the streets of Graz has its beggars and poor people too. But they don't grab bags, stab people in the streets or generally make everyone feel unsafe and on their guard all the time.

Further down the street, there I saw a woman having a coffee in an outside cafe with her handbag on a chair right by the main pavement, almost inviting the quick-fingered robber in fast trainers. And yet, nothing happened.

I am not sure what is happening in Britain at the moment and am horrified about what our cities have become, especially when it comes to knife crime. Perhaps it is poverty, lack of purpose, drugs, gang culture - I don't know.

All I do know is that other parts of Europe seem a lot safer, cleaner and generally nicer places to live at the moment and that Britain is currently regarded as an unsafe, dangerous place by Europeans, which saddens me a lot.