More worrying is where the story says:

The six types of house spider, which can grow to a legspan of a couple of inches, are familiar. Others include the jumping zebra spider, which leaps on to its prey rather than bothering to make a web, and the pink prowler, which has six eyes.

So…  reminding us how normal spiders can be two inches wide, it tells us about spider that leap and pink ones with six eyes.  That would not be too bad if it was not immediately followed by:

If you move furniture around and look underneath, or poke about in the garden, you should make some good finds.

Eeek.  My mind has already concatenated the first paragraph and come up with a mental image of two inch, six-eyes, pink, leaping spiders.  I can handle that – but I don’t then want to have the suggestion planted that these things are lurking under every piece of furniture.

I just wish I had not looked at the gallery that comes with the story.  I was happier before learning that there is such a thing as a spitting spider.

1. Is the word “bumper” ever used outside newspapers?

I can now get quite close to them, and frequently do when I decide to take macro photos of them. I can put up with having a spider in my peripheral vision, climbing up the blinds next to the desk while I am sitting here, but no way am I going to touch the bugger.

It looks like the slug season has moved on to the spider season now, and there are webs everywhere. I have been getting really impressed by a couple of the ones in our garden who manage to sling a web between two places two or three metres apart, and then do it all again the next day when it gets destroyed.

Not destroyed by me. I think its the cat. I know its not very house-proud of me but when I find that a spider has spun a big web from a light fitting, for example, I don’t get rid of it if it is still occupied. Instead I keep checking to see how many flies have been caught.

We are likely to have a lot of guests round next month for Jayne’s birthday party, and I reckon all the spider webs will have to go then, but its a shame. Some of these webs are so intricate but get built so quickly.

I was looking at a huge web on the shed, belonging to a 1cm spider. I was trying to work out how big a web could be spun by a spider the size of a cat and came to the conclusion that if spiders the size of cats were common they would be ruling the world by now.