Moth Ball

Mothballs - remember them? Do they still sell them? If not, they disappeared before their time, as we could certainly use a few boxes of them to plug up the gaps in our window frames and ward off this year's Bogong infestation.



And yet, some would argue they are more to be pitied than despised (and still others that they should be de-winged and deep-fried, see below). These poor bastards fly all the way from Queensland - that's about 900km - just to get stuck and suffocate in our window frames and flyscreens. I can just imagine them murmuring (surely moths murmur) in their great clumps about how Sydney isn't all it's cracked up to be.

If they were butterflies they'd be greeted with great elation, public holidays and commemorative coins. Instead we get the grizzly cleanup, mothdust smudges on our shirts and the annual observation that the indigenous Australians used to eat these creatures. That's another national pastime - grossing people out by telling them the things we eat: witchety grubs, Vegemite, even the animals on our coat of arms. This article at the Sydney Morning Herald capitalised on this quite nicely, even if it was a French chef espousing the delights of Bogong omelette.

Bon appetit, mate!