On 15 July 2008, something went bump in the night. I slept right through it, but my wife informed me she heard a bird hit the living room window. On examination, it was not only possible to see where the bird (apparently a wood pigeon) had struck, it was possible to see a detailed image of the bird itself.

I was called upon by my daughter to remove a fairly large moth from her bedroom one evening, which I did, using the glass-and-card method - I did this primarily to avoid injuring the insect during capture and relocation - I'm not at all squeamish about handling moths, but they will tend to damage themselves in trying to escape from a human hand.

As I turned to leave the room with the captive moth, I noticed two tiny, glittering brilliant pink jewels on its head - after a little bit of moving around and changing angles, it became apparent that these were cats-eye type reflections - from those compound eye elements pointing in my general direction, appearing when the light source was more or less behind my head.

How many times have you heard someone say of some stupefyingly dull thing, "At least it's better than watching the grass grow"? - The implication, of course, is that there are few things harder to endure than watching grass grow.

This is a challenge I cannot - will not - leave unanswered.

While we were out walking at Keyhaven, I happened to notice large amounts of Crow Garlic

June 2008 - A new supermarket price war has been declared, The weapons in this war are... sausages

One of the major UK supermarket chains announced their intention to start selling sausages for two pence each. Two English Pennies for a sausage.

Other supermarkets jumped hastily on the bandwagon, matching the offer.

Obviously, this sparked a bit of attention from the media, food critics and writers, gourmands, food enthusiasts and assorted other interested parties. Would the sausages be fit for human consumption? Would they contain any meat at all? Was this a sign of the apocalypse?

Let's find out