IN the week when we learned that Swindon is the third most CCTV-heavy place in the UK outside London, we also learned that knife crime across Wiltshire has more than tripled over the last five years.

What might this mean, I wonder.

Could it be that CCTV doesn’t work, and is merely an unjustifiable intrusion, as anti-CCTV campaigners claim?

No, I don’t think so, as there is evidence from all over the world of CCTV, provided it is used correctly, helping to catch criminals as well as being a deterrent.

Could it be, then, that the knife crime figures are up not because there are more knife crimes, but because, as senior officers and politicians sometimes proclaim, victims are more confident when it comes to reporting crime these days?

No, I don’t think that’s the answer, either. For one thing, knife crime tends to be reported by the public no matter how confident or otherwise they are. For another, are we also to believe that if crime falls it only does so because victims think reporting it is a waste of time?

Just a hunch here, but perhaps the two stories tell us there’s not much point in festooning a place with CCTV cameras if the criminals they’re supposed to deter are convinced, rightly or wrongly, that even if their crimes are recorded in full HD the state doesn’t have the human resources or, in the case of our courts, the inclination to do much about it?

No, that can’t be right. If it were, we’d be left with the uncomfortable conclusion that we’re largely at the mercy of a chaotic, uncoordinated system.

On the subject of camera footage, incidentally, at the time of writing the vile sawn-off racists filmed abusing a Polish woman in Swindon remained free.

Have we got just the job for you...?

I’VE been looking for a new profession and a new way of doing things.

It’s probably a midlife crisis but I decided I needed a change.

For as long as I can remember, ever since I was at school, I’ve been trying to perform tasks correctly. I haven’t always managed it, but I’ve always tried my best.

Anyway, I was getting a bit sick of that, so I said to my boss: “How would it be if I didn’t bother trying to get things right anymore?

“How about if I were writing, say, a story about a church fete, but instead of writing about what happened at the church fete I said it was a great big satanic debauch whose highlight was the summoning of the Evil One himself, while parish councillors cavorted in depraved ecstasy with members of the flower arranging committee?”

Strangely, my boss said that if I did that I’d have to leave the paper, although he did kindly inquire as to whether I was having some sort of personal breakdown.

Realising I clearly needed a change of profession if I didn’t want to get things right anymore, I visited a careers advisor.

She asked me what I’d like to be, and I told her: “A surgeon.” She asked me what I thought I would most enjoy about that role.

I said: “Well, because of my new outlook on life, what I’m planning on doing is mixing things up a bit. Everybody who comes to me for an appendectomy, for example, might end up with their tonsils out or a leg off. Or an extra appendix sewn in for a laugh. Or some little bells so they hear faint jingling for the rest of their life and think they’re going peculiar. Or a kazoo.”

The careers advisor was horrified at my plans, and she wasn’t exactly impressed when I suggested my becoming a vet instead.

Indeed, she threatened to throw me out of the office when I revealed my plan to experiment with gene splicing. “Imagine,” I said, “crossing a cocker spaniel with a tarantula. It’d keep the flies down in summer as well as bringing your slippers.

“Add some electric eel DNA and you could probably run the telly off it, too - so long as you made sure to be gentle with the plug.”

The careers advisor was similarly unimpressed with my notion of becoming a lawyer.

She asked me how I planned to represent my clients in court, and I told her I’d say: “My client is completely horrible and does not deserve so much as a shred of mercy.

“You know and I know that if he was let out he’d only go and do it again.

“Your best bet, your Lordship, would be to have him impaled through the vitals on the courthouse steps, and you might also want to consider doing the same to all his mates, just to be on the safe side. Oh, and don’t forget to demolish his house and seed the ground with salt.”

The advisor, I’m sorry to say, dismissed all of my ideas for my new career, but then seemed to have an idea of her own.

“Tell me,” she said, “if your job was to protect the people of this country by keeping bad people out, and ensuring good people with every right to be here were able to live in the peace and stability which is their legal and moral right, how would you go about it?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “I’d do my very best to tear innocent British citizens, the older the better, from their homes and throw them out of the country.

“I’d also make it as hard as possible for any decent foreign person to come here, and meanwhile welcome every corrupt oligarch and the wealthy criminal dregs of the four corners of the earth.”

“Great!” she said. “I think we’ve finally found your new career niche.

“Here’s an application form for the Home Office.”