Fear of spiders remains same despite fall in spider attacks
Government statistics published this week have shown that the number of spider attacks fell again last year to a new record low, but that fear of arachnids remains disproportionately high.
‘We are releasing these figures to try and combat the widespread fear of spiders’ said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. ‘You are actually more likely to get knocked down by a car than have a big hairy poisonous spider crawl into your ear when you are asleep and then lay eggs inside your head which hatch and eat away at your brain. There really is nothing to be afraid of.’ The government is now running an anti-arachnophobia advertising campaign featuring ‘Toby the Tarantula’ who crawls across a young lady’s face stinging her in the eyes and causing a slow and agonizing death, followed by the caption ‘This isn’t going to happen.’
The number of reported attacks in England and Wales (Scotland now record their spider attacks separately) has fallen to just three for the entire year, and it is believed that these reports are not particularly reliable, coming as they do from four year old children who go on to claim that the spider was then eaten by a bear, who turned into a vampire tiger.
However, the opposition criticized the government’s ‘complacency’ regarding the dangers of spiders. David Cameron said that the number of spider’s webs on car wing mirrors had actually gone up under this government, as he went on to describe how sometimes you just see a really big one run across the lounge carpet, and then he just shuddered and went ‘Urgggh’ and had to change the subject.
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Posted: Aug 29th, 2008 by LeonardMungbean