todays Sun

[Mary]

Hey, there's an article in todays Sun, a bloke has been bitten by a false widow, oh heck, we have loads, so does Glen now lol.

[PhilR]

Hey, there's an article in todays Sun, a bloke has been bitten by a false widow, oh heck, we have loads, so does Glen now lol.

If the Sun's got hold of it, you'll need a DWA soon Mary :D

[Kismet]

There'll be names and pictures of all the false widows in Britain and the addresses where they live so people can keep their appendages away from them.

But what will actually happen is that they'll be victimised and have to start dressing up as garden spiders or ladybirds to go out shopping...or worse they'll go underground! :jimlad:

[Jay]

LMFAO @ Em, you have such a wicked sense of humour Em. :eusa_clap:

[Mary]

There'll be names and pictures of all the false widows in Britain and the addresses where they live so people can keep their appendages away from them.

But what will actually happen is that they'll be victimised and have to start dressing up as garden spiders or ladybirds to go out shopping...or worse they'll go underground! :jimlad:

Em you are a one girl :laugh:
It wouldn't suprise me though, anything can happen.

[Mary]

If the Sun's got hold of it, you'll need a DWA soon Mary :D

This is also true Phil, our house ifs full of em, false widows that is, not DWA licences :laugh:

[charlene]

I am always getting bit by spids, have yet to find out which one tho...:hmm:
Why arnt I in the Sun????

Charlene

[Glen Southern]

I saw it and laughed. It was just below the article about the women who was bitten by an Adder and didn't notice until she saw the punctures on her leg when she got up in the morning (Must have been bad!)

The False widow that was in the article was Steatoda nobilis.

S. paykulliana, S. grossa and S. nobilis have all been called False widows and all three do apparently have a bit of bite about them. Bee sting level is what I hear but I can't prove it. I haven't managed to get anything to bite me yet but I'm not too worried about these little fellas.

People bitten by one of these sp. have increased heart rates because 1) they are usually terrified of spiders anyway which is bound to make your heart race and 2) they always assume it was something more dangerous than it is e.g a Latrodectus sp. Or, of course, they have the dreaded allergic reaction that we hear about.

Newspapers are businesses that make money by selling news. It wouldn’t be news to say some dude got bit and nothing happened. It isn't illegal to embellish and expand on a story and almost always it isn't the person being reported on that does the embellishing. I say this with confidence as I'd had several brushes with the news media and never once has the article/news item been reported exactly the way it happened. It is always distorted in some way to suit the need of the media. :hmm:

When there was a petrol crisis a few years ago I was interviewed about how there would be panic buying of items like water, presumably because they assumed that without petrol the food distribution network would collapse and no one would be able to buy anything. To the interviewer’s annoyance, I delivered a really boring speech about not panicking and that there would be no real issues if people remained calm. He moved on to other people and I left him to it. Later I found him on his own holding out his microphone. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was sampling background noise like cars, trolleys clashing, some people chatting etc. He told me that once back in the studio he would combine the samples and come up with a bustling, noisy crowded scene that would better fit the piece he was reporting on. Sure enough, later that day I heard my interview being played on the radio and it sound like world war III was going on in the background. I could almost imagine the panicking people rushing past me. Enough said.