mostly david ephgrave

This was the second most popular story on the BBC News website today. Tomorrow they’ll teach us how to suck eggs. To be fair, that’s actually a screen-grab of the foot of the article, which was a piece on how the UK's wet summer is causing giant house spiders to head indoors. It read like a plot from a B-movie, only more ‘arachnoristic’ (a term I invented myself, meaning ‘containing a greater spider-to-Jeff-Daniels ratio’). Arachnophobes around the country were probably slamming their windows, bolting their doors and brandishing their slippers with intent, after browsing the website. It’s a call to arms against the many-legged beast. You could argue the warning was a wise move on the part of the BBC: last year, I ejected a spider from my bathroom that was so big, I was afraid to use the back door the following day for fear of reprisals. It was large enough to be included on the electoral roll. He looked like the one at the end of the TV movi...

This morning, a large spider revealed itself in my bedroom just long enough for me to reach for the designated spider glass, then disappeared. Jeopardy. I was looking in the mirror at the time, as is my wont when my wife's at work. Whole days are spent gazing at my reflection, usually to the soundtrack of Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful on loop. Everybody needs a hobby. I was styling my hair when it homed into view. The second I saw it, it froze. I've seen smaller fists. My two eyes met its eight and we sussed each other out. It was a Mexican standoff with two participants. By which I mean ‘a duel’. Without weapons. Shit analogy. I had to work quickly. I ran to the kitchen (where the glass is kept), picked up an old Doggett & Ephgrave flyer to slide under it, and ran back to find an arachnid-shaped hole where an arachnid once was. My eight-legged friend had vanished. This was not what I wanted. A huge creature was...