Gosh! Really? Wow, thanks for telling me that.

Playtime at St. Arseclown's Junior School for the Terminally Hard of Thinking earlier today.

 
The Snowolf Den is undergoing a spot of spring cleaning today, the curtains are out on the line, the wardrobe has been cleared out and the stock evaluated and swapped for some of the stuff that was moved out in autumn, the light fittings have been taken down and cleaned and the furniture has been moved about and cleaned under.

Mrs. Snowolf is struck down with terrible hay-fever. She's been streaming and sneezing and snotting all over the place, therefore it's been down to me. I don't mind, I'm quite happy pottering about doing my thing. As an aside, and speaking as a non-sufferer of hay-fever, I'm convinced it doesn't exist, is purely psychological and a good excuse for the big pharma companies to hawk their lotions, potions and pills like some sort of latter day snakeoil salesmen.

Between the sneezing, blowings of the nose, rubbing of the eyes, popping of pills, administration of nasal treatments and increasingly violent exhortions of frustration and general yukness, we've had the shining beacon of public service broadcast; the finest purveyor of the televisual arts on the globe, the BBC on this morning. I've been exposed to one of the interminable programmes, that one with the slightly fey chap and the socially incompetent antiques 'expert' (and why do they always have such terrible dress sense and unfortunate hair?) who stomp around some old dear's house and evaluate the worthless tat she's managed to accumulate and then take her along to an antiques house, where she is coerced into jumping up and down in excitement at the thought that the sum total of the nik-naks in her house could cover the cost of a weekend in a caravan in bloody Frinton. I get the impression it is the commercial arm of the situation outlined by Leg-Iron the other day.

Anyhow, they uncovered a couple of well rusting 19th century cavalry swords. But, watch out, peasants! There's an important lesson to learn here, although to be honest the lesson I learned was don't watch daytime BBC whilst stood atop a ladder cleaning light fittings, as the effort expended in trying to come up with an inventive, eloquent, yet fatally offensive rant significantly raises the risk of falling off. The lesson?

Wait for it. . .

"You don't need a firearms licence for a sword. . ."

This brought forth one little explosion of enquiring as to why we have to hand over good money to the BBC for the privilege of watching this bilge. This was as nothing when compared to what followed:

". . . but swords should be kept well out of the reach of children."

Oh? Do you think? That puts me in a bit of a bind, because I've just uncovered a cache of weaponry whilst cleaning out the loft, all of it bladed, there's dirks and a cutlass, a broadsword, a battle-axe, a collection of lances, pikes and spears, I think I saw a mace as well. I was going to go and take it all down to the local primary school to see if they fancied having it, but now I've learned that bladed weapons may not be entirely appropriate playthings for kids. Who knew?

Oh, that's not all. Oh, no. Because the swords were rusted, it was also vital to be mindful of the risk of tetanus.

Listen mate, if I come bearing down on you with a five kilo cavalry blade, hell bent on cleaving your skull in twain, the last thing you're going to have to worry about is bloody tetanus.