WAR! HUHH! What is it good for?

Do I have 'lunch' tattooed across my forehead? Am I distinctly delicious? (I'd better explain now or else this will be taking on a rather sinister sexual turn...) I have been made the exclusive dish of the entire crop of mosquitoes that live here where I work (and live). Actually, I am not the only one because all the boys have suffered too (Ah! Young blood). They must look a treat when they're all together. It looks like puberty has had a sudden and violent strike. Either that or we have been visited by a plague of boils. Anyway. In my view, I am easily the worst afflicted because I have this 'allergy' to mosquito bites.

Yes, yes, I know everyone is to some degree or another because they swell up and itch. That has no real bearing on my bites. Some - like the one on my face right now - remain small and red and lumpy as per usual. However there are some that spread and swell to such elephantine proportions that people are left staring in the street. Just as an example, the one just above my elbow (currently the most impressive) is a gargantuan 12 cm in diameter, bright red and swollen and exuding enough heat to warm a Russian winter. It's gross. Though it does help me with my John Merrick impersonation, which is going from strength to strength.

That's only half the problem. These mossies, they come in the night and make a noise like an aeroplane landing. Where is it they are landing, like chunky little pennies from heaven? Oh yes. ON MY FACE!! Seriously, I sleep like the dead. It was like being slapped with a fly swat. At four in the morning. Every morning. Ironic, because a fly swat is the last thing that comes to hand when you're swiping wildly at your own face in the dead of night... Usually, what comes to hand is a glass of water, a massive copy of Phillip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy or a pair of glasses. None of which you want to be jabbing at yourself, especially around the eyes.

Speaking of glasses, have I mentioned that my eyesight is tragically bad? Well it is. Without my glasses, there's no chance of my hunting down and killing the little git in the manner it best deserves. (which is violent and hopefully painful.) The first night I got in a lucky slap to the forehead before it got me at all! (Having hurled a glass of water into my face prior to this.) Smug much? I was ninjalike in my attack. That mossie never saw it coming. Eat it, Obama!

However, I paid for it the next night, or should I say bloody early in the morning, because sure enough, at the stroke of 4 am, a familiar whine woke me from my slumbers. And this one was a whopper. I was woken by it gently crashing into my face at what felt like 70mph. Despite my best slapping actions, the beast was still at large, waiting seemingly until I had drifted off before returning with a vengeance. After what felt like an hour of battle I realised the only way to defeat the insect foe was to get cunning. I know that they are attracted to noise and to carbon dioxide so I did what must have sounded like some rather fine cow impressions to my neighbours and huffed a lot and allowed it to get as close as possible before launching a whirlwind of slapping and screeching. No luck. Finally I put my glasses on and turned on the light. To my horror, the little fucker was lounging on the edge of my pillow! Like it was having a little rest to watch the show. Holding my breath, I slowly reached for my doorstep- style bedside reading and dispatched the fiend immediately and very satisfactorily.

Sadly, as I noticed during the dispatching, the mossie left rather a large blood spatter on the pillow. MY BLOOD! Damn it! So really, it's clear that although I won the battle, mosquitoes are truly winning the war... That is until I went and purchased antihistamines and one of those mosquito murdering plug in things from the shops. Yes, I'm inhaling a million cancer causing carcinogens, but I'll be laughing all the way to the grave!