Novelty Items

Some time ago, I offered a useful guide to catching killer hornets. Apparently, their stomach juice boosts energy levels and gives a person a tremendous sense of well-being. This fascinating fact emerged only because Naoko Takashashi, a Japanese marathon runner at last year's Olympics, prefers hornet juice to a popular soft drink, and those bizarre isotonic drinks that supposedly make your muscles bulge nicely, and she won the gold medal, so there must be something in it.

Anyway...if you missed the column, you won't have been practising the tricky manoeuvre of knotting a thread belt around the hornet's slender waist, nor will you have learned how to follow the insect to its lair.

But, if you did read the column, you might just recall my rash promise at its conclusion to provide details of the exact procedure of extracting the hornet's stomach juices. I trust that many of you have been on tenterhooks waiting for this valuable information. I personally know, for certain, of one gentleman who awaits this revelation most eagerly. So, if no one else reads any further, I trust that he, at least, will oblige.

As the extraction technique has not yet been published in official scientific journals, I offer a basic DIY version, beginning with some advice from über-cook Madhur Jaffrey on the slicing of hot chilli peppers: 'You may want to wear fine rubber gloves while doing this. If not, refrain from touching any part of your face before washing your hands thoroughly with soap and water'. A useful tip, and equally applicable to the handling of killer hornets.

Think of your hornet as a chilli. Approach it with gloved hands and caution. It may be small, but it can be lethal.

As you probably don't have a killer hornet on your person as you read this, and as chilli peppers are more readily available at the market than the aforementioned insect, try experimenting on a chilli. First, hypnotise it. I mean the hornet: the chilli won't need to be hypnotised. Play it a little music, or dangle a pendulum before its eyes, or administer a sharp tap to its right frontal lobe to induce unconsciousness.

Then, very gently, make a tiny incision on its furry belly, three stripes down, two stripes up. (Your cut of the chilli can be random). Now, take a pipette (available with any good brand of eye-drop or chemistry set) and slowly draw the juice from the stomach. Next, filter the juice through a small square of muslin and leave overnight in the fridge for seven hours, 19 minutes and a quarter second.

Meanwhile, sew up the hornet's stomach. No hornets should be harmed in this procedure, only emptied.

Finally, drink it. To fill an average sized glass with juice, you would need to drain approximately 5,064 hornets. This should keep you occupied for a couple of years, by which time the Olympics will have come around again and you should be ready to compete.