VERMIN! What is your 'fave' vermin? (No, you can't say your kids.)

Some people go really mental over vermin. But I don't, because I have learnt the ANCIENT SECRET OF VERMIN-ASSISTED HOUSEWORK!

Take, for instance your dog. Dogs count as vermin, and my beautiful, regal, red setter is, by far, my favourite useful vermin. He is a very vivacious, voracious vermin -varmint. Verily. Do you know how much time that mutt saves me in the kitchen?! Whoa, baby! My kids (really, we shouldn't count them as vermin ...) are known as the Three Little Pigs. For good reason. So, when nobody else is home (got to preserve the frilly apron illusion) I just open the door and say "Go for it, Dog!" and under the kitchen table is clean in no time! THIS IS GOOD ADVICE.

Ants are good, too. Consider how clean they are, for a start. They just come and go and take all the crumbs off the bench with them, and don't leave any mess behind! Voila! They are like those ever-working underwater pool cleaners - except free and for your house! Ain't nature generous?

Of course there ARE the bad kinds of vermin. Let us not speak of the pooping, wee-ing, smelling horrors of mice; the lurking, germy, dark-deposits of cockroaches (or co'roaches, as they are known in more polite society); or the evils of moths and maggots in your self raising flour! No! NO! These secrets must remain closely guarded, dear friends..

I found a lizard on my bed, this morning. There was a 'black headed python' in the school library the other day (though I suspect it was really a dugite - which is more highly venomous). We get 'white tailed spiders' here, which, once bitten, can cause ulcerating, necrotic sores and severe pain for years. ( Found one of those on my pillow, once. )Possums are vermin. They polish off my grapes every year. And of course we get the humble mosquito. I usually kill at least one or two every evening when I am playing my bass, and often you will hear me bounce off the walls as I roar "DIE! DIE! DIE! MOZZY SCUM!!!!!!!"

So, have you decided about your favourite vermin??? Oh all right. I'll allow "men".