The Wrong Kind of Insect.

Merlin was a pain today, very keen to go for a walk until reality kicked in; we arrived in Kilburn wood and he lay down on the path and refused to go any further. Hamish was quite happy, he waged a fierce and, seemingly, bloody war on the large population of sticks he found hiding there. I didn't even have to throw them for him, he's a dog of simple tastes.

While he was happily occupied, I devoted my energies to this small twig and its leaves entangled in a cobweb. It was an interesting project, the light wasn't good enough under the trees so I used flash; that was a bit tricky because it tended to give a blacked out background. Anyway, this was the final result.

The title is a reference to an incident back in 1991. A British Railways' spokesman (Terry Worral) was trying to excuse the company's inability to run a satisfactory rail service when it snowed in winter. He claimed that there was plenty of equipment for dealing with the snow and the comment that we had had "the wrong kind of snow" was generally attributed to him. In fact, the expression was coined by an interviewer (James Naughtie) and has since been widely used, with a few variations, in Britain to lampoon anyone coming up with a lame excuse.

I wonder if the spider enjoyed his lunch.