Except in NZ where we're more worried about wetas

If artists are the canaries in the coal mine of contemporary culture, one of the neuroses permeating the end of the 20th century is evidently an deep-seated anxiety that birds will start nesting in our shoes (or hatching out of them).

What I want to know is, who are these irresponsible people who are sending the canaries down into mine-shafts in the first place? It's as bad as flushing a pet alligator down the toilet when you get bored with it. The damn things could be breeding down there, their numbers growing with every generation, and one day they'll find their way back to the surface, when huge flocks of canaries will scour the earth in search of revenge, blocking out the sun with their numbers and their coal-blackened wings.

Don't start me on that business of slowly warming frogs in a pan of water to see if they notice when it's boiling. The human race will have enough problems later this century what with climate change and rising sea levels; the last thing we need is amphibian competitors who've evolved a resistance to heat.

And if you people would only stop throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then we wouldn't have this problem with the feral babies.

Bonus Ricky Swallow watercolour here.