Once upon a time getting the stitch (or “side stitch” if you prefer the American vernacular) during school sports seemed to be particularly common, at least to me. As I look back at those halcyon days, I suspect that this particular disability may have held me back from Olympic performance. At least that is what I can tell my children. As I get older, the very existence of this entity seems inexplicably to have gone the way of the dodo.

I had wrongly assumed that the lack of the stitch in my daily life had something to do with my ever-slowing running speed or perhaps my increasing girth. As an aside, I note for the record that my running style was recently rudely described …