Before I go off to bed to become boring, I thought I'd update you all with a rather interesting occurrence that chose to interrupt the usual ebb and flow of my daily life.

Earlier on, I was on the computer, perusing Twitter and LiveJournal into the wee small hours - as you do - when there came a knock at the door. The time was about half nothing in the morning. The knocking? Sharp, quick, urgent.

Needless to say I reacted to this much like one might react upon being told that they were actually of the other gender. We don't get many knockings of the door in the daytime, let alone the middle of the night. Naturally I was suspicious. My immediate thought was of teenage louts, playing knock and run, perhaps, or waiting to pound the unlucky answerer of said door with snowballs immediately upon opening. Perhaps even a gang of burglars, planning to barge in and harvest our television should we answer their knock. So I waited, and contemplated the possibilities.

It came again, said knocking, with a desperation that I simply couldn't ignore. Around here, even the boldest chav is in bed by seven (such is small town life), and I'd immediately got this strange feeling; I knew instantly that this was a genuine call, and quite an urgent one. I went to the door.

Walking through the hall, I saw a faint blue glow beyond the frosted window of our front door; a bulky shadow silhouetted in it. At the shadow's chest, a pallid white square; a screen. And as I approached the door, I heard the crackly tones of a radio.

I took the chain off and opened the door, but I already knew who it was. And I was right. A lone policeman, car parked up behind him, peered into the house.

"Sorry to disturb you, miss, but we received a call saying that there's been a stabbing here?"

Well, it was the first I'd heard of it. I explained to the police officer as such and he asked "Is this Clarence Street? Number eighty-seven?"

Whereupon I said that yes, it was, but of stabbings there were none. He quickly used the radio to get a confirmation on the address and the voice on the other end said "yes, eighty-seven Clarence Street, a Scottish man phoned in to report a stabbing".

The policeman asked to have a look around, "just to make sure there aren't any pools of blood and that". I was happy to oblige, as the only blood present was in my own system - or it was the last time I checked, anyway. He asked me who else was in the house and I told the truth - me, Dad and two brothers, the latter three of whom were asleep upstairs - and when he said if there were any Scotsmen present I said no. He thanked me for my time, and left. As I was letting him out, I saw more police cars outside and the man in the bungalow directly opposite on his doorstep, having a nosey.

And that was that. After a brief explanation to my newly-woken family, I went back to the computer and caught up on the Top Gear special I'd missed. I'm baffled as to what happened, though. A Scotsman, phoning in about a stabbing at our house? I don't actually know any Scottish people. The only one I did know moved back to Glasgow just before Christmas, and they were female. The policeman was pretty adamant that this was the address he'd been given, as well. If it was a hoax, clearly it was by someone who knew the street. It can't have been a personal prank because, like I said, I know nobody Scottish. Perhaps it was some pillock who thought he'd target the house with the Red Bull car.

Or maybe it was genuine, but in his panic he got the wrong address. If that's the case, I hope the problem was soon put right and they found the victim in time. I'd say that this is Newton-le-Willows, and that big happenings aren't possible in a small town, but in 2010, we've had a gun scare, a bomb scare, pubs being cordoned off after massive drug raids, people being clubbed half to death outside of florists' shops...

One thing that confuses me just a little, though, is why the police officer only poked around downstairs. What if there had been a stabbing here, but upstairs? What if I was just a really good actress who denied all knowledge convincingly? He'd just poke around downstairs, would he, and never mind the poor victim upstairs?

Mind you, I suppose he had his reasons. I was genuinely flabbergasted when I answered the door to him, and he'd probably be able to tell if someone was insincere. If he got even the faintest hint of anything untoward, no doubt he'd act on it and search upstairs as well.