L

Tell me something, began Pliny the Elder this morning.

What? Anything? I asked.

No, he said. You did not wait till I had finished. Upon what principles do you decide whether an insect or an arachnid should live or die, once it manifests itself inside your house?

I know why you're asking, I said. You are thinking of the Huntsman spider that I killed yesterday.

Indeed, the Huntsman spider, said Pliny. The evidence of the savagery with which you killed it is still there upon the wall.

Is it? What evidence?

A large L -shaped smear, said Pliny. A brown horizontal line made by the impact of the broom, and a upward thrusting spurt of red ending in an exclamation mark at the point where the wall meets the ceiling.

If you saw it, I countered, why didn't you clean it off?

Why didn't you clean it off yourself ? asked Pliny.

I didn't see it, I replied. But you obviously did.

I cannot be expected to clean up the remains of your killings, said Pliny.

Why not, I clean up the remains of yours, I said.

Mine? he looked incredulous.

There was a large dead blowfly on the bathroom windowsill this morning, I said accusingly..

Nothing to do with me, said Pliny. It died of its own accord.

Flies don't just die of their own accord, I said.

No, said Pliny. Sometimes they get a little help from you. I saw you step on the one that had been drifting around inside the house for days. You squashed it, and then you picked it up with a tissue, threw it in the wastepaper bin and bent down to examine the underside of your shoe. And yet, I have seen you go to great lengths to save the life of a fly.

Well then, I said crossly.

Embroi-der-y

A burglar, while burgling a house, takes meat out of the freezer and leaves it to defrost. He is looking for money in the freezer hidden behind the meat. People do sometimes hide money in the fridge. Burglars look for it there. It isn't surprising that a burglar would take the meat out of the freezer and not put it back. Put yourself in the place of the burglar. It's not what you would do.

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An art exhibition on Wednesday. One of the artists has embroidered four steak knives and four defrosting cuts of meat. The blades of the knives glitter sharply and blood oozes out of the meat in tiny beaded blobs, frosted fractals melt into icy pools of water under the meat, executed in tiny even stitches that the artist has learned in classes at Hampton Court.

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A moth has eaten six holes in a pale blue woollen blanket edged with slippery satin. It was looking for something to eat, that is all. Moths do sometimes eat holes in blankets when they are hungry. It isn't surprising. Put yourself in the place of the moth. It's what you would do.

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Tuesday, at the wooden table out the back. On the table, a yellow cloth embroidered with daisies. On the cloth, the pale blue woollen blanket, with six holes in the middle. An artist is darning the holes with fine strands of blue baby wool which she has previously unravelled. She weaves the strands in and out across the holes from left to right and then from top to bottom, one by one. The sun is bright. A fly sits on the blanket, she waves it away. She feels strangely happy.

Geophagy

What an intellect has Le Bon David! said Pliny admiringly.

You think so? I said. Don't you find him a little bit pompous?

Certainly not, replied Pliny, I find him a man after my own heart. In particular I am in complete accord with him on the matter of scepticism.

You, Pliny! Aren't your Natural Histories full of hearsay and unsubstantiated stories? Please don't take offence, I added.

The ability to read my Natural Histories in the spirit intended is not given to everyone, he said enigmatically.

Is it given to me? I asked.

No, he answered. You always seem to delight in taking me literally. But there is no point continuing with this. Did you know there was a fly on the window?

Yes, I can't seem to get it to go outside by natural means, I said. I'm quite disappointed, because I had hoped the glass Sulphur Crested Cockatoo would scare the flies away. He looks quite realistic don't you think?

No, said Pliny, he doesn't, being two-dimensional. And anyway, I do not think that Sulphur Crested Cockatoos eat flies.

What do they eat then, Pliny?

I believe, said Pliny sagely, that they are known to practice geophagy.