07.06.2004 - 2:53 p.m.

With the ownership of Colossal Land Snails comes much responsibility, oh yes indeedy. I spent most of the weekend making a new pen / enclosure for them as they'd mostly wrecked the current one by gnawing on the supports and their mobility-mucus was starting to corrode the mesh. So there I was, saturday afternoon ( ignoring any advice the H&S executive might have given me ) sort of hanging off one of the roof beams with my legs wrapped around it while I stretched over to one of the uprights with one hand and swung a nail gun around in the other, just trying to get the bits of wood in such an arrangement that I could knock a nine inch nail into it just long enough to hold together so I could later affix using proper metal clamps and stuff.

I did actually fall off once but I landed in some foliage so that's alright, and as of this morning the enclosure was nice and shiny, the Snails were sort of lying around and trying to stay out of the sun, although one had a go at the cat, but it was a stupid place for a cat to be ( the gaps in the mesh are just large enough for an adventurous cat ) and after much hissing ( by the Snail ) the cat sensibly backed off.

You might think it strange i've not mentioned them before, I mean not everyone has Colossal Land Snails in a purpose built zoo type situation but I've been through some testing times with them and didn't want to jinx it, but now I'm happy to announce that 'Darla' the old matriarch finally got pregnant again and has layed the eggs already, so in a few months they'll be hatching, happy days indeed. I can see this getting me into the running for the 2004 Medal of Unusual Biology from the respected Global Order of Xenogenologists.

Here's something I found funny:

( not funny ha ha, but you know what I mean )

When there was a perceived threat of a radiological terrorist attack last year ( was it last year, I can't remember, I suppose it may have been linked to the later discovery of that osmium tetroxide? they found this year ) the official line from our goverment was - we'll be acting as normal, any kind of mass, knee-jerk panic on our behalf is playing right into the hands of the terrorists, it's what they want after all.

But Tony has one brush with some purple corn-flower and all of a sudden the need for new security screens in parliament ( aside from the one they've got ) was - an urgent security issue that needs to be addressed immeadiatly.

Thanks for thinking about us you fat fucks, of course it doesn't matter if a few thousand people get contaminated ( al-qaeda has a remarkable success rate for their operations ) with who-knows-what because they probably weren't Labour voters anyway, but one hint that our high and mighty Executive might get some and they go into a panic, funds are magically released, workmen arrive that night and before the Lords have woken up for their afternoon nap the lower chamber is air-tight and Glorious Tone can strut about in safety once again, hurrah.

There are two people I'd like to have bugged at a certain time in history just so I could hear their thoughts - the moment when the terror operative who bought what he thought was some kind of powdered radioactive material actually discovers it's mostly harmless stuff for use with electron microscopes and the guy who sold it to him, moments after the transaction, laughing his balls off in the back of his car....

Stupid bastards, just goes to show that, a) there's definitely one born every minute - and, b) no matter what kind of evil axis you might belong to, there's a Del boy character out there just waiting to rip you off.

Bill Bailey rocks, and not just Roll, also Our world. He's a top funny bloke and taller than he looks on tv. I've never seen him live before and it was a most pleasing experience, his Portishead remix of Zippee-dee-doo-dah and the Bush quotes interspersed into a drum and bass track were poetry to my ears, all hail his humourous magnificence.