Let’s crawl to the ugly bug ball

TALKING of tempting fate, on tuesday I speculated that now the NHS had resurrected the use of maggots it wouldn’t be long before they resorted to leeches, too.

Not for the first time, I should have known better. thanks to all those readers who have written to tell me that the health service is already employing leeches to treat certain conditions and improve blood flow.

After they’ve done their job, they are dropped in alcohol. the leeches, that is, not the patients.

Both the maggots and the leeches come from Welsh farms. Wales may not have much left in the way of mining or heavy industry, but it has cornered the market in creepy crawlies.

I can see the greenbottle blowfly maggot becoming a regular in this column, along with our old friend the depressed river mussel.

One puzzle remains, though. A number of keen anglers have written saying they can buy a gallon of maggots for £12.99. No one is quite sure how many maggots there are to the gallon — they’ve never counted them — but it runs into the thousands.

So why, they ask, is the NhS forking out £300 for just 400?