Hopping mad!

Posted on January 18, 2022 by insectinside

Oh dear, all is not well in Drowning Street. The moderate Conservative sand hopper MPs of Greatstone beach are hopping mad, trying to downplay the embarrassing mess the Prime Minister and his cabal has plunged them into. Swamped with tales of cronyism, corruption, and cover-ups none of this is going down well with the electorate. First it was the billions of pounds of public money wasted on a Track & Trace system that never worked, then the dodgy deals around PPE, followed by the Prime Minister demanding money to pay for the decorating of his ‘tip’ of a buckthorn bush high above the beach – fittingly he always looks like he’s been pulled through a hedge backwards.

The latest controversy are the ‘parties’ held on the strandline during lockdown, when everyone else was tucked away obeying the rules. The government laughingly dismissed them as just ‘Wrack and Brine’ after work. A chance to ‘let their antennae down’, to ‘let off steam’. But now an old seamail has surfaced inviting 100 staff to a BYOB party. And it has exposed the party culture at Drowning Street, with the strandline coming alive at dusk when all the hoppers start jumping around drunk to a DJ in the shingle and leaving a big mess.

Understandably, the other residents of the beach are seething. The cockles had spent months self-isolating in their shells, and the mussels, who usually congregate strung together, did their absolute best to social distance. Even the crabs, curbed by foreign travel restrictions, decided to hunker down this side of the Channel.

Currently the Prime Minister, oblivious to his own lies, is in hiding, flailing about garnering support for ‘Operation Save Big Dog’ and plotting his return by throwing a few colleagues under a boat.

Meanwhile, some of the beachbenchers whose constituencies are high up in the red wall dunes, are beginning to sweat. A safe Conservative seat in faraway North Shropshire was won by the Liberal Democrats in a recent by-election. Some are burying their heads in the sand hoping it will all wash over them. Others fear the tide is turning and they will all be swept away in a tsunami of more sleaze.

Electing the next leader

Posted on December 22, 2019 by insectinside

Candidates for the leadership

Well that was that. Squashed at the General Election. For the fourth time. The beetles, blinded by their dogmatic approach to intellectual thought and idealism, are wondering why they lost. Could it be that Jeremy, a weevil with a lot of baggage having spent his life voting against the allotment, was utterly useless and had no idea about leadership? Or maybe the strategy was all wrong – the beetles, in their enthusiasm of offering everyone everything for free, were incoherent and had total disregard for the scepticism amongst the other insects who felt their policies were just not credible. And instead of taking responsibility for losing the election they are blaming the wasps’ propaganda machine and ridiculing the bugs and bees for having the audacity to vote for someone else. Admittedly the wasps out-buzzed everyone, being an insect that nests together rather than a bunch of disparate beetles. The weevils had a real chance and blew it, dashing the hopes of half the allotment and consigning it to a dystopian future. So some soul searching and that old trope lessons have to be learned is being rolled out. Yet again.

Now they are scurrying around looking for a new leader. Do they elect another weevil in the image of Jeremy, or a different species? There are plenty of them willing to throw their antennae into the ring. Some suggest the legally competent black-spotted longhorn beetle. He certainly has gravitas but is hinting at a slight move to the centre ground. Others want a ladybird, preferably with a northern reach. Could a media-savvy flower beetle have a chance? Potentially yes, as it is popular with the bees, flies and butterflies sharing the same habitat and these are the voters the beetles need. And many want a dung beetle who has spent a lifetime shovelling shit and has actual experience of what it is like to be working class.

They certainly don’t want the stag beetle who won 3 elections, took the allotment into an illegal war, and is now an endangered species.

In the meantime the allotment will be dug up, sold off and paved over with expensive housing for humans.

For the many…

Posted on December 9, 2019 by insectinside

Figwort weevil (Cionus scrophulariae)

This is Jeremy. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, on a leaf-edge at the possibility of winning a General Election. He’s a small beetle up against the Tory wasps who feel they have a God-given right to rule the allotment. He was unexpectedly voted in as leader by a committee of momentum beetles who realised this maverick backbench weevil might actually be their ticket to power.

His plans for the allotment are simple: organic planting for the many insects who have suffered for years from the effects of insecticide, public owned plots and free compost for all. He wants state ownership of the old logs and leaves left lying around to rot for the essential mulch munching woodlouse workers, the nationalisation of pollen and a ban on the building of privately-owned insect hotels for the privileged few.

Every insect will be considered in his manifesto. Sustainable aphid farms for ants, higher taxes for corporate honeybee hives, the scrapping of homogeneous flower banks and adequate welfare for winter hibernation. There will be protection of sap-sucking rights for bugs, squatter rights for nomad bees, and the right to self-identify as both a caterpillar and a butterfly.

Campaigning hasn’t been easy. The wasps, led by a rather toxic individual, have been very noisy, swarming around the allotment buzzing ‘Get Wexit Done’ and lying about absolutely everything. Their manifesto is based on stinging all the insects and privatising the fruit and vegetable crops so only they can reap the rewards and screw everyone else.

Yet the vote is split amongst the other insects – some view Jeremy as a natural campaigner for those at the bottom of the food chain, others see him as a pest for munching through all the vegetables and upsetting the status quo. The flies quite like the idea of having a share of the fruit with the wasps. The solitary bees, set to benefit from the new proposals, are conflicted as they can get rich on all the pollen in the allotment and are considering setting up a more liberal party and going into coalition with the other key pollinators the hoverflies. Even the beetles, historically loyal to their own kind, are rebelling against a socialist weevil takeover.

But it is winter and most insects are hibernating. It might only be the flies and woodlice at the ballot box. Whatever happens it will be interesting.

Boris the brown-tail moth

Posted on November 24, 2019 by insectinside

Brown-tail moth (Euproctis chrysorrhoea)

This is Boris the brown-tail moth. Don’t be fooled by his buffoonish appearance – his children by many mothers cause havoc by decimating our hedgerows and trees, destroying our public services and dismantling the social fabric of our country. Found mainly in the conservative southern England constituencies, the oven-ready eggs, laid in batches, hatch into hairy caterpillars who weave webs of lies and deceit, their hairs causing intense irritation and rashes for anyone who comes into contact with them. In urban slang ‘brown tail’ means to have a shit. I fear Boris will brown tail all over us if he gets elected.

Brown-tail moth caterpillars

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Buggered off

Posted on July 19, 2016 by insectinside

Its the middle of July and Warwick Gardens is looking a bit worse for wear, reflecting the vibe of the country after voting to leave the EU. The foxes have flattened the foliage; the bindweed, with their delicate white trumpet flowers a foil for the hidden intentions of domination, has spread insidiously over the nettles and brambles suppressing any hope of freedom of growth; and the daisies are looking a bit weary with having to regrow after being constantly mowed down. The yarrow, hoping to host their annual festival of pollen and nectar, have popped up in an empty venue.

Red capsid bug creeping around

Last year this place was buzzing. It was noisy and full of life – a showcase of the sheer diversity of invertebrates in the park. But it seems that this year is one festival too many; the insects are preferring a more boutique ‘meadow-style’ festival offering a mélange of flowers and a more discerning flavour of nectar, sown especially to add colour and variety to bland parks. Everything is really quiet. The Roesel’s bush-crickets, normally hired to chirrup up business, chose to leave the park believing it was overrun with migrant species, a cynical lie perpetrated by unscrupulous anti-orthopterists; and the remaining grasshoppers have gone on strike, aghast that the crickets were lied to. The flies, patriotic and always up for a fight, are flitting around making nuisance for the non-natives. A few red capsid bugs are creeping around, anxious not to be mistaken for a Pokémon Go character, but all the while wishing that they could be found and appreciated as a real living thing. Even the mirid bugs got bored waiting for the party to start and just buggered off. And the weather hasn’t helped. A dull wet spring and cool temperatures have exacerbated and confused many residents about when and where to start a family. Its like nobody cares, exhausted at the changes around them.

The mottled shield bugs have had their lilac habitat ripped away by someone ‘wanting a better view of the park’, and having arrived in Peckham only a few years ago feel rather rejected. The hawthorn shield bugs, with their brightly coloured coats of majesty, have had their ancestral home savaged by cuts, the lower branches lopped off to make it cheaper to maintain. And the parent bugs and birch catkin bugs got ousted from their favourite independent tree in the multi-species part of the park, chopped down by someone ‘wanting more light in their garden’. They had to relocate to the big corporate birch trees on the other side of the park. Unfortunately it seems they didn’t ‘fit in’ as they have disappeared, leaving the planthoppers with no one to play with. Or, as this is the main constituency of the rather moderate birch shield bug, maybe the birch catkin bugs, with their left-wing ideals about ‘rights to live on the same tree – we share the same host plant’, were viewed as a threat to the stability of the community, fuelled by pedantic catkin politics, forcing a campaign to stop them taking over.

Common green shield bug nymph – the only shield bug in the park

At least the green shield bugs, the hard-working bugs of the park with no obvious affiliation to any plant, are holding on. Those green shield bugs who everyone knows so well that they are prefixed with ‘common’ and generally taken for granted by the conservationists. The bugs who spend their days dutifully sap-supping, impervious to the strange weather we are having, almost neglected until someone prods them too far and they revert to their chav name of ‘stink’bug’. How long before they realise they are the only prey for the bigger enemy – the solitary wasps with a taste for shield bug nymphs on the hunt to stock their nests with the fattest, juiciest specimens to feed their offspring.