Durrells

We are taught to buckle our seat belts, lock our doors, arm our houses against intruders. We worry about the weather, obsess about cleaniness, block the mosquitoes and moths.

All this sounds complicated, and it is. But it is also important to break the rules now and then. Before I visited Greece, I borrowed a story book about the British naturalist Gerald Durrell's family moving to the Greek island of Corfu. Written over half a century ago, the autobiographical book My Family and Other Animals makes me laugh all the way from London to Athens. 

Gerald Durrell had been spending every second in his childhood to investigate animals like trapdoor spiders, rose-bettles or mantids. By no means does his field work imply Gerald Durrell is serious enough to follow rules. He seldom followed the rules made by parents or adults. Once upon a time he grew very fond of weird-looking scorpions with crooked legs, crablike claws and tail like a rose-thorn. He managed to catch some brief glimpses of scorpions' courtship and caught a scorpion family. With infinite care Gerald Durrell manoeuvred the mother scorpion and baby family into a match-box. After being distracted by lunch, he left the match-box in the drawing-room. He completely forgot about the exciting new captures during family meal time. 

It was not until Gerald's brother fetched the cigarettes and picked up the match-box that the mother scorpion was allowed to escape. She seized the rare opportunity to hoist herself out of the box with lighting speed. This came perilously close to being a medieval duel. The scorpion strike and sting soon escalated into a pandemonium even worse than the Ukraine war. With a flick of his hand, Gerald's brother sent the scorpion flying down the table. One Durrell family member after another let out scream by the time a scorpion landed on them. Hysteria ensued. 

That's a bloodily amusing scene.