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Spider Home Invasion
- Thread starter Wombat
- Start date
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
You are just trying to stir up our American friends.
We only have one baby Huntsman in our bedroom up on the cornice. Just took this picture now. We like having a few big ones in the house as they eat mosquitoes and other random small insects and don't make a mess. This little guy will grow up as long as a gecko doesn't get him.
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- Thread Starter
- #3
Huntsman, though harmless, have a habit of settling behind the interior sun visors in cars and dropping into drivers laps.
Panic, crash for arachnophobes.
I tolerate most house spiders. No mosquito problems.
Panic, crash for arachnophobes.
I tolerate most house spiders. No mosquito problems.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I've had two giant huntsman spiders (8-10 inch span) come out from the engine bay and crawl across the windscreen in the last 6 months. The striped leg variety you rarely see. Quite different to normal brown huntsmans and about 4-5 times the size.
Scared the absolute chit out of my 16yo front seat passenger. Squealed like a piglet. Now he has his learner's permit, he's scared to drive my car- which is a good thing. What's is amazing is how they can walk across the glass windscreen even at 30-50km/hr and not be blown off. As you speed up, they simply flatten out on the glass and happily stay there. (No, I didn't use the wipers- that would be mean)
Scared the absolute chit out of my 16yo front seat passenger. Squealed like a piglet. Now he has his learner's permit, he's scared to drive my car- which is a good thing. What's is amazing is how they can walk across the glass windscreen even at 30-50km/hr and not be blown off. As you speed up, they simply flatten out on the glass and happily stay there. (No, I didn't use the wipers- that would be mean)
I live in the UK and have only visited Australia once, for a friend's wedding. He lived on a small (by Australian standards) farm, fairly close to Canberra. When I was staying there I asked his soon-to-be Mother-in-law about venomous spiders etc.. She told me that it was always a risk, but not to worry.
I then asked her if she had treatments/antidotes (I didn't know what the right word was) on the farm. Her reply was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. She told me that she didn't have anything on the farm, but, if bitten, it would take at least an hour for me to die and that the hospital was only 45 minutes away! To this day I don't know if what she said was true or if it was just used to scare the pohms!
I then asked her if she had treatments/antidotes (I didn't know what the right word was) on the farm. Her reply was one of the funniest things I've ever heard. She told me that she didn't have anything on the farm, but, if bitten, it would take at least an hour for me to die and that the hospital was only 45 minutes away! To this day I don't know if what she said was true or if it was just used to scare the pohms!
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
Probably a bit of truth and the rest just for dramatic effect. Australians love to remind Poms how resilient we have become since they sent us to this continent a few hundred years ago...
- Thread Starter
- #7
For accuracy. POME(prisoner of Mother England) was a term applied to convicts transported from England to Botany Bay, later New South Wales, prior to Australia being formed.
In Aussie vernacular it became Pommie or Poms(plural).
The Irish convicts added a derogatory suffix that has only in recent years diminished to apply mainly to English sports teams.
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Australian from 1912.[1][2] Shortening of pomegranate, rhyming slang for immigrant (“imme-granate”), with additional reference to the fact that the harsh Australian sun could turn British immigrants' skin pomegranate red.
Noun[edit]
pom (plural poms)
The use of this word to refer to a British person is a racial slur. There has been lots of debate on the subject, but it is taken as a term of offence by those at whom it is directed.
I've never heard that Pom term before.....
Noun[edit]
pom (plural poms)
- (Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, derogatory) An Englishman, a Briton; a person of British descent. quotations ▼Synonyms: Brit, limey
The use of this word to refer to a British person is a racial slur. There has been lots of debate on the subject, but it is taken as a term of offence by those at whom it is directed.
I've never heard that Pom term before.....
- Thread Starter
- #10
Not racial. Those saying it had the same ethnicity or nationality as the transporters. Lots of poverty and class order though.
I guess this is one of those contentious points of history. I will lean toward the local(Oz) version.
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It was explained to me as originating with Prisoner of Her Majesty (POHM), but shifting in time to refer to new (British) immigrants in the 20th century, and thereby all British people (like me).
I apologise for causing any offence to... well, me!
I must say that I received an extremely warm welcome in Australia (off topic). There was plenty of gentle(ish) humour about warm beer! It only ever got serious when the 2003 Rugby World Cup final came up! The gloves were off then!
Om nom nom... eat that gecko head first.Australia in one picture, for us profanes:
- Thread Starter
- #14
No probs. That sounds reasonable to me. Your version may well be correct. Now I have to make peace with my distant Irishness.
