It looks like sawdust, feels gritty if rubbed between the fingers, and can be collected on a sheet of paper under the suspect area.I have made one or two observations about woodworm: first, Anobium's staple diet is sapwood - the outer, growing, part of the tree. I told him that the holes may well be evidence that the boards once had woodworm, but since they are known in the trade as flight holes, what they actually indicate is that the insects have now scarpered. After a couple of years they pupate into little chrysalises, and then they hatch out as adult beetles, chomp their way to the surface and take off into the wild blue.So why do surveyors think flight holes - or compass holes, as we shall now call them - are evidence of continuing insect attack? After all, active infestation is easy to confirm - the munching larvae produce faeces which consist largely, you will not be surprised to learn, of wood. It is the larvae - the maggot stage - of Anobium punctatum that do the munching, and they do it below the surface of the timber. He's a building surveyor by profession, so naturally he doesn't know anything about timber infestation. Like most people, he assumed the little holes in the edges of his floorboards were evidence of wood-boring insect attack. As it happens, a friend called last week to ask what to do about his woodworm.
It reads: "Evidence of woodworm infestation can be effectively simulated by making clusters of small holes with a nail or the point of a compass." So now it becomes clear - half the population is trying to make new wood look old by poking holes in it, and the other half is spraying the holes with nasty chemicals in case something pokes its head out and bites them You couldn't make it up. "Riven exhibits a wilful neglect of the most elementary gameplay fundamentals," it said, going on to describe the game as "a big fat stupid lumbering overblown disappointment." Oh well. I suppose there are a lot of people who think Four Weddings and a Funeral is the funniest film ever made Each to his own, I reckon The game goes on.. I have come across an interesting passage in a decorating book called Period Finishes and Effects. I asked if she had a favourite and she reckoned it was the birthday cake with liver icing. "Probably a human wouldn't eat that one," she said.vYou say stupid, I say splendidFOLLOWING the piece I wrote last week about my excitement at playing the new computer game, Riven, I was interested to read a review of it in PC Gamer magazine. As dogs get older, they just can't cope with that sort of thing."Alexandra's recipes, on the other hand, feature fresh meat and vegetables and I have to admit that her dogs' dinners are probably considerably better than my own.
I was even tempted to try a couple of the meals myself and Alexandra confirmed that the meals are perfectly suitable for humans. It was a crushing disappointment.I was reminded of all this last week when I spoke to Alexandra Bastedo, who's the author, together with Jeannie Kerrmitzer, of a new book, Canine Care & Cuisine, which is largely a collection of recipes for dogs (meals for dogs, that is, not dogs as ingredients). The project stemmed from her long-held belief that many prepared dog foods are full of all sorts of dubious constituents. "If you examine the small print, they say things like 'contains 4 per cent chicken'," she says. "So what's the other 96 per cent? And a lot of these products have a lot of colourants and sugars and additives in them too.