THE IDEAS BOX

ANTS

Many ant species can be found creeping and crawling around like Viet Cong revolutionaries and generally making a nuisance of themselves wherever you go. Inside the house they quickly find those lollies you left next to the lounge. Outdoors they can smell a Hamburger and Chips an awfully long way away. Ants, although a necessary part of natures environment, can sometimes even be as annoying as younger brothers and sisters.

A nice way to make them go somewhere else is to use natural repellants like Bay, Camphor, Chilli, Citronella or Eucalyptus. These don’t do much harm to little humans either.

Outdoors you can stop them crawling up the legs of tables to join you for lunch by simply placing each leg of the table in some water in jar lids, saucers or cut down old food tins. It is well known that ants do not like getting wet and will do anything to avoid a bath.

If you’re at the Footy and you don’t like them crawling up your legs another great idea is to wear a pair of rubber boots and fill them with water. They will hate you and leave you alone.

Ants beware.

BIG CATS IN LINTON

It’’s all over the news. Big cats have been terrorising over-imaginative people all over the country. They started in Katoomba a century ago and, like cane toads, have crept their way unseen all the way to Linton.

This myth has been around for a long time. Even the Korean thriller made in W.A in 2008 ‘A Million’ featured a spotted leopard in one scene. For some obscure reason leopards have appeared in several Australian movies as well usually just before the girl falls over a sprains her ankle. But Piddles, Daisy and Pansy. Tommy, Fluffy, Dim Sum and Satan or Winkles, Tinkles, Wendy and Bruiser are not about to tear your face off unless you forget to feed them.

Yes, they can be demanding. Yes, they can be painful when the claws come out and grab hold of you in your delicate parts. Yes, they will seem to love people who hate them instead of you. Yes, they leave hairs on everything they touch when not trying to tear it to shreds.

They annoy the shit out of your dog Napoleon and have for months been trying to get into Puthies bird cage or any unsuspecting Swallow. Yes, they do tend to tear mice apart. But NO they don’t stalk and terrify the town after dark. Generally speaking all the fat cats are down in Bannockburn and that’s a pretty long haul for any potential killer of lambs.

It’s all hokus pokus. Panthers just don’t live around us without us seeing them. If they had we would have had a lot of babies stolen out of cots and tents. The last sighting was a bit of panther shit back in 1991 (supposedly matching that of one in the Melbourne Zoo—fancy that) and by anyone's measure that makes it a pretty old cat. Maybe the stories just come from gay males in the bureaucracy being terrified of a bit of pussy and a desire to waste taxpayers money.

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