Utter Freakout!

[andy-hughes]

I am sitting in my office with no lights on, just the light from my monitor, and about two minutes ago, a spider slid down a thread just in front of the screen, landed on the desk, and wandered off for an explore.

I was thinking, if it had been a foot further back, it would have landed on my head!!

Instant heart attack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[retrocop]

Sorry. My mistake. They were yellow tailed scorpions apparently. They were placed in the station 'sand brake' by the station foreman who kept exotic creatures and they multiplied. The beeb went there to do a nature documentary and couldn't find any to film so they nipped over to Camden Market and bought four and took them back to Ongar to film.

[Mamyalynne]

Reportedly a hoax.

// The scorpion population at Ongar Underground Station was once featured in a report by the BBC back in the 1970's but this is now reported to have been a hoax orchestrated by the station foreman who deliberately released scorpions bought from a local pet shop.//


http://www.jasonsteelwildlifephotography.yolasite.com/uk-scorpions.php

[retrocop]

Ongar Underground Station scorpions

The scorpion population at Ongar Underground Station was once featured in a report by the BBC back in the 1970's but this "wild" population of scorpions was later reported by The Independent to have been a hoax orchestrated by the station foreman who deliberately released five scorpions bought from a local pet shop in Camden. The scorpions may have bred or one of the released specimens may have been a gravid female but some former employees at the Railway Station and some visitors and local residents claim the end result was a small population of more than a dozen scorpions that lived in the brickwork of the station for several years.




The Independent Newspaper article Sunday 9th July 1995

"At its peak in 1971, 750 passengers were making the return trip. But even then the track was hardly an economic proposition although the staff did their utmost to drum up business. In 1965, an Ongar station foreman bought five (harmless) European scorpions in a Camden pet shop and let them loose in his goods yard. This formed the basis of one of the few scorpion colonies in Britain, which became an attraction. The staff kept quiet about its real origins, and encouraged speculation that it arrived in a banana van in the 1860s."




Dean Sullivan, a former employee at Ongar Railway Station claimed on 'www.districtdavesforum.co.uk' that when David Attenborough arrived with a film crew to record the Ongar Railway scorpion population they were unable to find any specimens. This former employee also claims that the film crew brought their own captive-bred scorpions which they filmed and then claimed were found living wild at the Ongar Railway Station. See report here.




Wikipedia.org - Ongar Railway Station

"The sand drag at the very end of the rails — intended to help slow trains that overshot the stopping mark — was said to be home to a breed of harmless scorpion and featured in a 1979 episode of the BBC's Wildlife On One. They had been released there by a station foreman who was a keeper of exotic pets."

[Mamyalynne]

Fascinating if rather ugly creatures but survivors having walked the Earth for over 400 million years.

[jno]

or, latterly, took the tube.

[Mamyalynne]

True, ha ha.

[emmie]

i hate spiders, i have dreamt of them, one where they covered me and the bedroom, i woke screaming and rushed to my next door neighbour who came and checked for me, of course there was nothing there.

[andy-hughes]

Retro, thanks for your advice re. working on PC with no light - I was absorbed in a film, and the light had faded, I never work without light.

[youngmafbog]

Wont hurt you, at least not in the UK. If it happens, and I have had one land on me, then you get it to walk on your hand so you can deposit it somewhere safe.

[andy-hughes]

YFB - // Wont hurt you, at least not in the UK. If it happens, and I have had one land on me, then you get it to walk on your hand so you can deposit it somewhere safe. //

Nice idea, but if it gets as far as one landing on me, that's where it stops, I will have screamed like a girl and batted it off me, no 'depositing', except somewhere away from me!

[pixie374]

People often either claim they won't hurt you, or that they are more scared of you... etc.... but that makes no difference with a phobia. I don't mind any insects, snakes, rats etc... but cannot do spiders.
My sister has several tarantulas, and actually (and I only believe it because she has the video) after many vodkas at hers recently, I held the biggest two... and for the first time in 46 years, am slightly less terrified of them. So, my recommendation is to get drunk to cure it... :-)

[andy-hughes]

pix - // People often either claim they won't hurt you, or that they are more scared of you... etc.... but that makes no difference with a phobia. //

Absolutely - there is nothing more annoying that people laughing and pointing out the obvious to someone who is phobic about anything.

When my parents were first married, my dad regularly laughed at my mum's terror of moths, "If it drags you off to its nest I'll come and rescue you …" and similar pointless witticisms were his response to her irrational fears.

Until one night, they were having tea on a hot summer night with the window open - a moth flew in and hit my mum in the face, and she fainted.

From that day onwards, he would simply catch any moth and put it outside, he never made fun of her again.

[pixie374]

Phobias are always irrational, they aren't cured by "reasoning".

[andy-hughes]

pix - // Phobias are always irrational, they aren't cured by "reasoning". //

That's true, and it's a sad fact of human nature that where phobias are concerned, people's sense of empathy seems to be at its lowest.

I wonder why people seem incapable of trying to understand something, even if they have never experienced it themselves?

I remember all my girls as teenagers, and knowing that I will never be able to experience PMT personally, but it didn't stop me making allowances for the occasional 'mood swings' that came my way!