I won’t sleep until I know what happened to that spider...

One story has left me unable to sleep soundly over the past few days. Scary, venomous and enough to make you scream – even the Brexit shambles has nothing on this.

Last Wednesday, a person walking past a house in Perth, Australia was disturbed to hear a toddler crying and a man shouting, “Why don’t you die?”

The police were duly called. Twenty minutes later, officers sent this update: “Police spoke with all parties who advised that husband had only been trying to kill a spider (has serious fear of spiders). Apologised for inconvenience to police. No injuries sighted (except to spider).”

Cue much hilarity. The incident has been reported across the world and labelled “the most embarrassing story of the year so far” on social media.

Ho, ho, ho. We arachnophobes have laughed along – but with one eye open. Because the spider’s fate has not been confirmed. Is it now an ex-spider, or merely limping? Was it a poisonous example that, far from being confined to the southern hemisphere, has also been spotted in Coventry? Could it, in fact, be boarding a flight to Britain right now in order to climb inside the arm of our dressing gown and lurk, waiting to enact its evil deeds?

Irrational, maybe, but to we fearful folk, it makes sense. Without an eight-legged corpse, it is impossible to rest easy in your own home: better to batter it with a shoe (your spouse’s, obviously) while screaming, than lose sight of the dastardly thing. Of course, I’d prefer both parties to escape with their lives. But tangible evidence of a spider’s demise is everything. One scuttled away from me in 1999, and I am still wondering where it went.

The tale also brought to mind a 2015 incident, when – following reports of a woman screaming and loud bangs – police were called to a house in Sydney. They found a man, alone, throwing furniture at a spider. In the same year, an American motorist tried to fry one using a cigarette lighter – and set an entire gas station on fire.

Which, if you ask me, is a price worth paying for undisturbed sleep.