Living dangerously

Grit takes Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a lecture room at the Open University to discover everyone is blasted by alpha radiation all day long. That is, when we are not being poisoned by radon gas, or blitzed by stray beta radiation - that's the type of radiation I can stop if I hammer aluminium saucepans on everyone's head. Strapping the lead suit on us all might be a tadge tricky and possibly dangerous, but it will stop most of the gamma rays from eating our brains and mashing our bodies.

As you can see, life after the children's radioactivity lecture is a lot more dangerous than it was when we started.

But this is possibly a good thing.

For example, it puts into perspective my worrying about the additional glass of malt whiskey following last night's particularly traumatic hair combing. Now I can have two glasses, the last one in celebration of surviving the radioactive rocks we foolishly brought back from Cornwall last July and which are sitting at this very moment like harbingers of doom on the front doorstep.

Knowing that life is dangerous at every turn also helps me elaborate my random dark depressive thoughts when I think I am going to die. Like, now the puffin which will kill me while I am seated on the toilet is actually a gamma radioactive puffin which explains why it is sailing through the air in the first place and can crash through the window above me.

But best of all I have now found a way of living dangerously everyday. Since children, life has just become too safe. Let's face it, the biggest risk I take is to occasionally drag the car out of a mud-congealed field without needing to hail a passing tractor. No. Now I can take a real plunge into the danger zone every breakfast time after that second cup of liquid radioactive coffee.

Pass me the brazil nuts.