Darkest scene

‘‘Darkest Hour’’ is a great movie and I hope it wins lots of Oscars. However, the co-incidences in the Underground scene seemed too fortuitous. The surname of one of the women just happened to be Jerome. The working man just happened to be a bricklayer. The negro man just happened to be familiar with a (to me) obscure poem. Sure enough, if you believe Wikipedia, it never happened. I quote ‘‘ this episode is completely fictional’’. I think that putting this scene in the movie was a mistake. I am now wondering if some other scenes in the movie were dreamed up. The movie did a superb job of re-creating the manic days of May 1940 and of showing how the crucial decisions were made and I am glad I went to see it.

There’s a lot of formication going on at my place at the moment. It’s a condition which should not be confused with fornication, which is something quite different.

If you don’t appreciate just how different, the right kind of therapy will improve your sex life beyond your wildest dreams. Formication, from the Latin for ant, is the feeling that insects are crawling over your skin, a tactile hallucination which can be a symptom of fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, drug withdrawal or severe anxiety.

In my case, it isn’t the anxiety that’s causing the formication. It’s the formication that’s causing the anxiety. And it’s no hallucination.

Over the last month or so, implacable hordes of ants have invaded my flat. It’s bad enough to find them in the dog’s bowl, the microwave, or swarming on the bench.

It’s really infuriating to have them crawling and nipping at you in bed, or clambering up your arms and down your neck when you are innocently reading a book or working at the computer.

Since I began writing this column I’ve had to slap away several ants making their way up my leg.

I’ve put out ant poison in the prescribed manner to no apparent effect. Ants sure love the stuff though. They gather in urgent crowds around the bait, pushing and shoving to get at it like calves at a feeding station.

After sating themselves, they are supposed to hurry back to their nests and distribute the poison amongst their nest-mates with fatal effect.

What I think they are actually doing, is tucking themselves up in my bed for a post-prandial snooze. By the time they’ve slept off the effects of their poisonous snack, I’m in bed too and my carcass is therefore conveniently to hand for a nocturnal relaunch of their assault on my person.

This kind of thing can drive even the most compassionate person to monstrous acts of violence.

When my otherwise kind and mild-mannered neighbour discovered an ants’ nest in her garden, she poured jug after jug of boiling water onto its swarming occupants. It’s not coincidental that this sounds as if we are the medieval occupants of a besieged castle, pouring oil over the battlements onto attackers below: we are definitely under siege.

After many muggy nights of sharing my bed with legions of crawling ants I now understand the psychology of serial killers and mass murderers.

However, in an effort to find a peaceful solution I’ve circulated the following Open Letter to all ants in my neighbourhood. I’m sending out a Spanish language version in case there are Argentinian ants amongst their number.

Dear ants / queridas hormigas

Recently, and for reasons unknown to me, many of you have taken up residence in my house.

I understand that if you live in some sh*thole of a place, my house will seem an infinitely more attractive place to dwell.

I realise that if you are starving you might need to stock up on the sugars and proteins which are so plentiful here. Or perhaps you are searching for family members who have lived undocumented in my house for years?

Perhaps you are fleeing a cruel regime under which you labour for the profit of a few privileged individuals at the top of your nest’s hierarchy? Perhaps you have mistakenly assumed that ‘‘indoor/outdoor flow’’, which is referred to so often in house design magazines, refers to you?

Whatever the situation I sympathise. I really do. In principle, I favour peaceful coexistence with other living creatures. It’s just that I’m beginning to feel like a stranger in my own home.

Some of you have begun to take liberties – sleeping uninvited in my bed, stealing food, occupying nooks and crannies all over the place and then refusing to leave.

Because building a wall to keep you out would be costly and ineffective, I have found myself retaliating in ways which are absolutely foreign to my essential nature.

As some of you will be only too aware, I have begun spraying you with lethal chemicals, crushing you as you wander innocently on the bench and drowning you in the sink. It was not until I found myself with my finger poised on the telephone button to call a professional exterminator, that I realised there was another way to deal with the situation.

That’s why I’m inviting you to a meeting at my place on Saturday at 10am.

Many of you drop in at that time anyway – before I’ve had a chance to clear the breakfast debris and the dog hasn’t licked her bowl completely clean.

I’ll be serving golden syrup, tiny cubes of dog food on toothpicks, and sugary beverages to keep us all alert and hydrated while we hammer out some mutually acceptable solution to this issue.

A Spanish-speaking interpreter will be present for any Argentinian guests, and any agreement reached will be drawn up in Spanish and English.

Warm regards, I look forward to seeing you on Saturday / Un cordial saludo, nos vemos el Sa´bado.