Ideas, ideas, ideas... if only the Pool of Knowledge had a parking system, but that's not the way it works. You either take the idea and claim it as your own or lose it forever. Such is the case with an idea I was toying with called SpringHeeled Jack which I now believe is the title of a book about to be published by Snowbooks. Oh dismay... still, I must now turn this into something useful, condense the idea beyond belief and get somebody onboard to illustrate it as a graphic short. It may actually work better like that...

Anyway, I was reading John Connolly's latest blog post last night which is all about the proofing process of a book (in this case, the forthcoming The Whisperers) and how he has to juggle UK and US proofs almost simultaneously, when I decided I would take all my clothes off and sit around in my dressing gown pending my annual shower (er… joke).

Lo' and behold, my skin was met with 99% clean, smooth cotton material of my robe and 1% of the biggest freaking wasp that ever existed that had been sleeping in the armpit area of my right sleeve. Man, that sucker sank it in right up to the hilt. The body is a funny thing. Many years ago, I fell and broke my arm and I knew I had broken it, not hurt or sprained, I knew it was broken.

Only people who have ever broken a bone will know what I mean by this. Similarly, I instantly knew I had been stung by a stinging thing. I threw my arm up in the air so hard - because it was caught under my armpit -that I wrenched all the muscles in my already busted up shoulder and elbow, then my heart started visibly pumping harder and my arm began to shake - and within a few more seconds, everything returned to normal.

He's lucky I didn't pulp his face through the floor and make jam out of him. Before I captured him in a very large mug, I did have the foresight to take this picture of it. Nature is seriously out of control.