Bodger & Badger
There are many things I dislike about this country. One positive about Britain though is the fact that you don't feel that Mother Nature is out to get you.
We don't get extremes of weather. We don't have hurricanes like those poor people (in both interpretations, hey Kanye?) in New Orleans had to endure, the temperature doesn't do extremes either way, and generally we get a decent mixture of sunshine and rainfall to ensure our crops grow. Certainly, when you look around the world we have it pretty good in comparison.
I watched a program about tornadoes the other week. Apparently Britain has the highest ratio of tornadoes of any country for its size. Occasionally one will cause some major damage like in Birmingham in July (quote- "eet looked loike a giant carrat"), but you could tell from the people interviewed after their roofs had blown off that they didn't quite understand what this was doing in Britain. I can't see a remake of the film Twister set in Britain. It wouldn't hold the excitement of the audience to see a tornado moving some chip wrappers around gently.
So occasionally we'll have a tornado, and sometimes a storm will cause widespread damage. That it is always so newsworthy shows that it is unusual.
We also don't have that many nasty beasties in this country. Wolves, wildie piggies, beholders, gelatinous cubes and Sauron have long since disappeared from our natural environment. What are we left with? The Adder is apparently poisonous but I've yet to see one. I believe they spend most of their day reading The Times and complaining about the weather. Bar having a nasty reaction to a bee sting I can't see much to worry about from British wildlife.
The badger is quite feisty, but I've never seen one out and about, and I believe they only get narky if Newcastle have lost (jesus). They can scratch you but I've yet to hear of them dragging off a baby into their evil lair.
The British spider is rubbish. They can scare the wits out of people, yet are all totally harmless. You can spot a British spider a mile off, he's the one wearing the bowler hat. When I have to evict them from the house I can hear them protesting that "this just isn't cricket". I can understand if you were in Australia that spiders might be slightly worrying but not over here. The fancy markings on British spiders don't give a warning about possible poisonings, they're just showing you what football team they follow.
We certainly don't have anything as fucking scary as the scorpion. Fucking hell, who invented them? Not content with just having nippy claws like our bubble blowing friend the Crab, they also have this big stinging tail. Plus, their whole armoured mythical monster look is straight out of Jason & The Argonauts and Sinbad. They just look mean and evil. Brrr!
If we had scorpions over here, their claws would actually be two large fluffy pillows, and their tail would be made of marshmallows.
So, we should be grateful that unless we're really unlucky, we're only going to die at the hands of a fellow human citizen of this country. Next time you're in the pub, raise a drink to your favourite non-scary British animal. I shall be toasting the basking shark (not literally, he's not made of cheese. Or is he? Mmm).
I say all this now but I'll probably die when a hurricane blows me into a skip full of hedgehogs.
