Shooting Blanks.

Forgot about the politically correct stealing bull rush, they’ve gone and fucked up something far more important – fly spray.

We’re doing the eco-friendly thing at our house by starting to build a compost bin. It’s early days and given that its still warm this time of the year the thing is starting to smell a little – it has food scraps in it after all. It's now attracting so many flys that you’d think it was a long drop we’d put in round the back and not a compost bin. Being the crafty buggers that flys are, they’re even managing to make their way indoors in record numbers, despite the house being locked up all day!

We’ve gone through two cans of flyspray in about a week and I thought it was down to sheer numbers that they were still hanging around en masse, but one read of the can and I now know why. It has no smell, it’s safe for the environment, it doesn’t stain and it doesn’t affect those with allergies. Great. I’ll tell you what else it doesn’t do; fucken work! I’m surprised they didn’t list that little gem of info on the can but maybe there wasn’t enough room for it after they finished listing all the shit they must think we buy it for. I thought I was buying insect killer but it appears I purchased a can of air. My bad.

We had the same problem whilst holidaying in RotoAnus where there are just as many flies as there are Asian tourists. We literally carpet bombed the main living area – hourly – and struggled to find a carcass afterwards. It was like Vietnam all over again! The only logical conclusion was that they were either taking their dead with them, or the fly spray was shit.

I remember the days when fly spray was Agent Orange in a can. Sure it stung your eyes like mace, and burned your tongue so bad that it made everything you ate for a week taste like marmite, but it bloody worked. So what if it left a film so thick that you could write your name in it or left all the asthmatics in a semi-comatose state? It bloody worked. Truth be told, it probably caused genetically abnormalities in the unborn child it was that potent but even that was cool, because Mum still enjoyed a shandy and smoked her Menthol Lights whilst preggers back then anyway because no one had made that particular link yet either.

Menthol Lights, by the way, are not the coolest fag with which to kick off your life long addiction. There’s no street cred to be had with Menthol Lights. I picked them because I liked the green Mackintosh Toffees best - so green had to be good right? Little did I know that Menthol's are the light beer of smoking. I figured that the minty aftertaste had to be a plus, but of course I smelt like a chimney after having stood behind the bike sheds all lunch time so it didn’t matter what my breath smelt like, none of my mates would come close enough to give me a pash anyway. It was only after my one month long smoking career back in college had finally finished did I come to realise that it was down to my choice of Menthol's that had the Smoking Massive cracking up whenever I lit up.

But killing flies was hardcore back in the day. I remember the sticky strips everyone used to buy and hang from their ceilings to trap the little buggers. Genius. I can’t imagine that that would ever catch on again today though, what with everyone so anal about status anxiety and maintaining sparse houses with sparse interiors, but back then it got quite competitive between houses in the street as to who could display the highest body count. My sister and I used to roll a few in a big pile of raisins and chuck it up in the furthest corner of the lounge, just far enough away as to not be scrutinised by the naked eye. Killing flys was the shizz back then.

Sometimes I wonder what became of these sticky strips and then I watch my son eat fruit roll ups and I’m left in no doubt as to what’s become of them.

Remember when everyone had those fly barrier curtain things over the front and back door that were long strips of plastic all joined up? That shit was the bomb. The flies couldn’t fathom it, couldn’t get through. Never could we kids, especially Granddads which was a home made one from some industrial thickness rubber he had had lying around n the shed. Hit that thing at speed and on the wrong angle of trajectory and you could asphyxiate yourself in a way that only Michael Hutchence would approve of.

Yep. Them were simpler times but at least we had our priorities right. It’s a sad day when you can’t even nail the airborne buggers that spread the shit they’ve spent all day walking in.