The pain barrier:

Steven Evans has brought new meaning to the phrase personal injury.

Mr Evans, a partner at new three-partner Manchester PI firm Wingate Evans, recently captained the Great Britain team at the Aikido world championships in Japan, only to fracture his toe in four places after kicking what he described as 'a very large Japanese'.

His opponent, we should add, walked away without a scratch.

Mr Evans manfully struggled on, winning through to the semi-finals before having to pull out.

However, he was able to compete in the Kata event, which is a demonstration of martial arts techniques, and came away with gold.

'I do get to beat someone up,' says Mr Evans of Kata, 'but they don't fight back.' Which sounds to Obiter like an eminently sensible and satisfying form of competition, broken toe or not.

The world championships do not come around again until 2005, but Mr Evans is clearly keen to keep beating people up, even if in the competition where they can fight back.

'I'm going to win the next one,' he vows.