Committed Dobsonists often turn their minds to the perplexing question of how the out of print pamphleteer would have coped with the 21^st century. It is difficult to imagine him in our world o’ bleeping digital flummery ‘n’ pap, is it not? But now I think I have stumbled upon something which clearly calls out for the great man’s talents.

According to this piece about the red tape by which our doughty coppers are being strangled, “some constabularies have a 44-page booklet for recording collisions between two cars”. Of course, as soon as I read this, my immediate thought was “O Dobson! If thou wert with us now!” Rather than subsisting in penury, the pamphleteer could make a pretty penny offering his services to these police constabularies. He was capable of scribbling a 44-page pamphlet about any subject under the sun as easily as you or I could freeze to death in an Antarctic blizzard, and with considerably more aplomb. Alas, he passed over to the ethereal realm before getting the chance to add to the canon such potential masterworks as An Essay Upon The Unfortunate Collision Between A Skoda And A Trabant, or How I Learned About A Terrible Road Accident In Which Two Cars Smashed Into Each Other At Inhuman Speed.

Still, next time I am invited to play the parlour game What Would Dobson Do Today?, I think I have a good chance of winning top points.