Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Hornets

Big bastards, hornets. Can give you a nasty sting, if sufficiently provoked. If, on top of that, you happen to be anaphylactically inclined, this can kill you - though the culprit is vastly more likely to be a wasp, or indeed a peanut. Needless to say, someone has managed to stir up a hornet scare, amid much dark talk of killer hornets swarming in from the continent to wreak havoc (not true - it's just that our native hornets are benefiting from a string of mild winters). Yesterday, in the House of Lords, Lord Rooker - formerly Jeff, a man immortalised by the Rooker-Wise Amendment, whatever that was - had to admit that 'there is no minister for hornets'. No minister for hornets? Why not? This admission will surely, er, sting Gordo into action - another national crisis to tackle. Unfortunately, though, the poor man seems to be suffering from his own form of anaphylactic shock just now...

5 comments:

  1. Nige, that's not funny. I was once stung by a peanut. It was a painful experience that I wouldn't wish on anyone as it was a salted peanut. The salt in the wound was so painful.

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  2. I can't say I've spotted any hornets, but have you seen the ladybirds? For the past week or so, whenever I open the windows of my treehouse I end up having these cute little insects waddling around in need of rescue. One minute it's armies of potentially deadly mossies and wasps breaking in, now its ladybirds. The perils of living in the treetops, perhaps.
    J Cheever Loophole

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  3. Here, Cheever, is the culprit. This gaudy foreigner is everywhere, chomping merrily through our native ladybird population. I'm beginning to wonder if I was wise to put up a ladybird house (hiernaculum actually) in my garden.

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  4. Ah, we had a ladybug invasion the last few years -- they kept appearing all over the house. This year they disappeared and instead we are overrun with stink bugs -- which tend to drop out of the lamp onto my head late at night causing me to scream until my sleepy husband can find and flush the culprit. (And if they get scared, they do let off a stink!)

    It's as if the mice have been replaced by rats. What is next, we wonder. Wasps? Hornets?

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