There’s a time for everything. A time for jokes; a time for allowing a joke-teller to split your sides when he enquires (with innocence) why, when we call a ring on a toe a toe ring, a ring on the ear an earring and a ring on the nose a nose ring, we do not call a ring on the finger a finger ring? (The answer, of course, is because its meaning has been so usurped it is impossible to use in a sentence, particularly at an engagement or a wedding.)

There’s a time for that ... and there’s a time when laughter should be stillborn in the throat, trapped there, because what is intended as a joke by one might not be joke-worthy in the eyes of another.

But first, to the abbreviation LD. Now, LD could stand for many things. Liberal Democrat, Laser Disc, Legal Department, Low Density ... or Lethal Dose. If the abbreviation is written LD50, it can only refer to Lethal Dose. In toxicology, LD50 is the measure of a toxin, the 50 indicating 50 per cent or the dose required to kill half the numbers in a tested sample.

So when one is setting out on a camping expedition, one reads up on the dangers that exist in the Aussie bush and, in doing so, is certain to encounter the term LD50. This, of course, is because Australia, the birthplace of the cuddly koala or the pattable wallaby, is also home to some of the most venomous snakes in the world.

It is, for instance, home to the eastern brown snake which, to make it sound even more frightening, is also referred to as the common brown snake ... it’s the word ‘common’ that heightens the fright value, implying that it could be found anywhere and everywhere, like those ubiquitous plastic food containers.

One undertakes a camping trip armed with such knowledge, and more. For instance, the eastern brown snake is not easily identifiable because it can vary in colour. The colour alone — generally brown — can range from pale fawn to almost black! To complicate matters further it may be patterned with speckles or bands. It may have red spots on its belly — a detail I think no person in his right mind will be stopping to check. Fancy turning an eastern brown over to take a peek at its underside, all the while expecting the snake to roll over docilely and prepare itself for a right old tummy-tickling. Eastern browns are not the ‘roll over’ types. They are diurnal (active during the day) and noted for speed and aggression. The eastern brown, when agitated, will hold its neck up high, pulling its length into a virtual upright ‘S’. A sight to behold, no doubt. But also a sight to flee from if one has the legs for it.

All of these details were known to my prankster mate, Barney. You could say they were ‘at his fingertips’. He’d been foraging in the library for weeks, swotting on ‘wildlife’ in the bush, prior to his camping trip with another good mate of ours, the high school teacher Ryan, and a bunch of his high school pupils, two of whom Barney had ratted on to Ryan, for smoking cigarettes behind a gum tree on day two of the camp. Cigarette smoking was one of the ‘no-nos’ on the trip. Anyhow, it was in the early dawn of day three that poor Barney, still in his sleeping bag near the mouth of his tent, opened his eyes, rubbed the sleep out of them and beheld, standing straight up like a majestic ‘S’ an eastern brown.

It’s a wicked joke to play on anyone, but on a person that’s not quite fully alert it had serious consequences. Barney screamed ... and fainted (a fact imparted to me discreetly by Ryan.) And the rubberised snake slid away into the adjoining tent. Later, in typical student speak they said, in their defence, “We were just fingering him for fingering us.”

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.