Fri 29 September - Daddy long legs

"I may be flying in the face of controversy, but I actually like these lovely insects. I may be flying in the face of controversy, but I actually like these lovely insects.

"They fly into my home on a regular basis, and do not get swatted, despite the panic and uproar of my wife. She, like myself, tries hard to not hurt them, but her tolerance is taken to its extreme limit by them flying near to her. I simlpy ignore them, she, for reasons best known to herself, cannot.

"The same with spiders - she will scream and call me in a desperate manner if one is in the bath or if one runs across the floor near to her feet. Me, I just let them get on with it. I go to the bath and pick them up, gently of course, then let them run off across the room to a place they feel secure.

"What is it that makes people so intolerant of these harmless creatures? I allow spiders to run up my arm, crane flies to buzz about my head, wasps to do the same, without any fear, so why do people insist on swatting them out of existence?

"As I tell my wife, "just look at the size of you compared to that little insect, you must be ten thousand times its size, so who should be afraid of whom?" But it's no use, she will not have any of it - to her they are something to be panic stricken about.

"Others too have a similar attitude. I often get told that a wasp is buzzing about my person. I do not rudely respond, but quite often feel like saying 'so what?' If it was not for these creatures you would have no food to eat, or medicines to cure your ills, thanks to the research done into stings and so on. So why do you desparage them so badly?

"But still there is this unreasonable 'fear' of such tiny beings.

"I realise that in other countries, there is a great potential for serious injury, and even death, from spiders and other insects, but not here as yet; although with the oncoming global warming we are all being warned about, that could soon change, especially with the capability of insects to fly across from the continent and then to be able to survive, whereas before the rise in temperatures they could not do so.

"So I feel then maybe, there will be a justification for these phobias, but generally speaking we have nothing to fear but fear itself. In the meanwhile, my home and person are definitely NOT no go areas for most of the non pestiferous insect life that surrounds us.

"Even I have certain bans in place, bed bugs being top of my list of unwelcome guests, but this is born out of experinece, not phobia, others such as earwigs and mutli legged bugs have no place in a dry clean house, so they are shown the door, but the rest are at least tolerated by myself to the chagrin of my wife I must admit.

"But when it comes down to irrational behaviour she could be irrational for Wales where insect are concerned. As for me, I could be the same in the opposite camp.

"Freedom for insects is my motto, they do no harm, but definitely do much good, at least when they visit my home. What they do to golf courses is another matter, but on the other hand, if there were no golf courses, then the green keepers would have nothing to complain about would they?"

Note - Morgan's views are not necessarily shared by the BBC