I = Insects ( with a tenuous link to Cary Grant)

 'Oh, you're Australian. I'd love to go there, but I'm too afraid of all the creepy crawlies and snakes and things.' 

We've only been here in the UK for a few months, and already I have heard that response, or some version of it, more times than I would care to count. Something has given people here the impression that we have bugs the size of German Shepherds. 

Most of these un-intrepid travellers cite their fear of spiders as the reason for not visiting Oz. (Yes, I know spiders are not insects, but work with me here. A bit of latitude won't hurt anyone.) 
One Australian has died of a spider bite in the past 38 years. 
One. 
Single. 
Individual.

In the same amount of time, some twenty Brits out walking their dogs have been crushed, trampled or butted to death by cows. I seriously doubt that a single person has ever cited bovinaphobia as a reason for not travelling to any country anywhere. Nor can I imagine that cow-killings have ever stopped anyone from walking their dog.

Mather's Fly Paper plate, England 1863-1900
On display Medicine Man gallery, Wellcome Collection

Besides, the Antipodes hardly has exclusive rights to insects. The dinner-sized china plate pictured, its border jauntily decorated with flies, ants, wasps and mosquitoes, was once a practical advertisement for Mather's Fly Paper. It's also proof that Brits have been dealing with annoying insects for a bloody long time. 

I imagined such crockery was strategically placed in the kitchen and dining rooms, indeed any place where hygiene is critical, so that the tacky-surfaced flypaper could snare unsuspecting and unwanted arthropod. Cooks, diners and serving-staff could then watch gleefully on as bugs failed in their many attempts to extricate themselves from their sticky predicaments, perhaps parting ways with a leg or a wing or two in their struggle.

It seems I was only half-right. Mather's Fly Paper wasn't actually sticky. It was yet another product that depended on arsenic to do its job. You had to soak the arsenic-impregnated paper in water before you popped it onto the special-purpose plate.
Mmmmmm... Arsenic at the dinner table. 
Wouldn't old Aunts Abby and Martha have loved that?

During the month of April, I am participating in the Blogging from A–Z Challenge.

My posts will all feature images of and by the Wellcome Collection, Euston, London: the free destination for the incurably curious.