And so to the latest adventures with the wormery. You’ll recall how in the absence of a garden I couldn’t get a composter and how I’d gone for an indoor wormery that would turn worms into my slaves, forcing them to eat my scraps and poop out a rich, nourishing compost. It’s not been the most successful of my many successful successes.

First there was the hilarious incident where I covered the floor and my feet in liquid worm poop. Then there was the time I opened it up and stank like I’d taken a dip in the Bog of Eternal Stench and had to take two showers with washing up liquid to get clean. And we’re talking Fairy Liquid here; that environmentally friendly stuff made out of leaves and happiness wouldn’t have touched that shit. But after those initial setbacks I successfully managed to get one lot of poop compost from the wormery to my potatoes. Glory be, it was looking like the effort was paying off.

Then the maggot infestation set in.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to open up a wormery and dig through rotting food and worm poop and scrape out a bunch of maggots and maggot eggs that were covering the sides from top to bottom and then felt like bleaching the inside of your nostrils until the foul stink of misguided environmentalism faded but if you haven’t let’s swap lives using the technology established in a number of 1980s high concept teen comedies because it’s an experience I could have done without. Which is unfortunate because last week the maggots were back and I had to do it again. How I laughed.

In summary, then: nuts to it. That’s the end of the wormery. This time when I dug through a wormery full of rotting food and worm poop and scraped out maggots and maggot eggs I also had to pick out every individual worm and rehome them in the three square inches of earth we have in the back yard because, God damn, that’s how inconvenient vegetarianism can be at times.

I’ve bought a composter. I don’t care if it has to sit in a shared back yard at the consternation of other residents, it’s going to sit there. And if any of them complain I can remind them of the times they all stole my bike or broke into my car or made me snitch to the police with their violent hijinks. It’s made from recycled plastic, holds 330 litres and only costs a tenner thanks to government subsidies. It’s brilliant. And if it doesn’t work out I’m abandoning the whole environmentalism thing and going on a rampage to remove every tree from the surface of the earth, sexually harass endangered species and use propellers from the nearest wind farm to mash up Al Gore’s stupid fat stupid face.

Photo credit: The Zero/Apple