A SUBJECT OF BEELZEBUB IS DRIVING ME TO DISTRACTION

One of the surprises of living in Poland, out of town, is the size of the wildlife. A friend killed a viper which was curled up in his outide loo. English vipers are usually small, less than a foot long. His was three feet long (he showed the dead body to me) and about 5 inches thick. He's a Pole, and said that its bite could be fatal.

Insect are big, too, and grasshoppers two or three inches long which bite if picked up, hornets two inches, and mosquitos big and aggressive. Mosquito nets are normal here.

Worst are the flies, the small type, about half the size of a normal house fly. There is one in the room with me now, flying as expertly as a Spitfire pilot with one injured wing. He's been my evening companion for about a week, homing in to bite if I am less than vigilant. The bite is quite painful, and dirty.

Yes I have fly spray, and have given him point-blank bursts so he spirals away like a stricken Messerschmitt, but flies back, unharmed and sneering, to land on my face. He's an enemy of useful work, noisy, a night-biter, and indestructible.

He's a corrupter of morals. I want to design a tiny rack to rack him with, boil him in (sunflower) oil, return him to his lord, Beelzebub. I'm angry, uncharitable and, unless I can get him with the fly-swatter, defenceless.

Muslims believe that flies, rats, and mice are Satan's work. My favourite Jesuit, 20 years dead, Father Tracy of Farm Street, believed that Satan had infected Creation, and even evolution, to produce tigers, crocodiles, HIV and the like.

Makes sense to me.