Man Vs Fly

- Don't let his smile fool you, Henry is a fly-killing machine -

The most devilish, cunning, pestering and persistent of all creatures has finally met its match. Locked away in my tower of study and then in my tower of summer ( the same tower - I say tower, I mean bedroom - though the summer tower has a pile of smouldering ashes where my books once dwelt ), I have come face to face with what has commonly become known as THE FLY. Some say that its true name is so terrifying that to utter a single syllable causes the average sized man to lose an arm.

You must know that THE FLY and I have a history of conflict. I was the victim of a kamikaze attack by an armed fly as a child. Although I posed no serious threat to it or its winged friends, it targeted one of my more vulnerable areas. Clearly my eye had been identified as a weak point and this plucky, some would call brave   fly, proceeded to charge directly in to the corner of my eye. Now I do not know if this fly acted alone and the damaged sustained by my attacker (he didn't make it out alive) far out weighed the slight inconvenience that I suffered, but historians acknowledge this as the catalyst for what would become known as The War of the Flies.

While many smaller insurrections took place in between, on 21 July 2008 the war escalated. Having purchased a swatter, I was again the target. This time of a stealth attack. They struck at night when my defences were down. As I lay in bed, asleep, a small band of insurgent flies unveiled their new weapon and ally - THE WASP. It set up camp on my pillow and succeeded in stinging me right on the top of my unguarded head.

The revelation of the new alliance between THE FLY and THE WASP forced me into forming allegiances of my own. In August of that year a deal was struck with the spiders to from the first line of defence against attack.

The next major attack was the result of sheer opportunism on the part of my enemy. My weakness - an open window and a light left on. At night, they swarmed around the dangling lightbulb and brought in the heavy artillery - moths. The moths' main aim is to prevent me from having warm feet - just like the Nazis hated everyone else - moths hate socks. Here I deployed my newest and most effective weapon. I swatted multiple platoons at a time with a large towel and eradicated the buzzing menace. Alas I did not learn from my mistakes. By the second lightbulb attack, I was way ahead in the arms/wings race. The tiny foes were no match for the nozzle and sucking power of Henry the hoover.

Recently they have reared their ugly heads once more. Intent on causing me to fail my exams, they distracted me from my study, buzzing like stripe-less bees. Their most inhuman act would come at night. Dissident flies whizz past and land on my iPod screen. Their determination unwavering, irritation their goal.

I'll admit I have not been able to entirely quell the uprising. As I write, a lone bluebottle has infiltrated my lampshade, its sole purpose - make as much noise as possible. I think I got it, but they're resilient. It may just be playing dead.