For some weird reason, the part of Bristol where I live seems to abound with disgusting slimy slugs that creep under the back door and into our kitchen. I've lost count of the number of times I've come down in the morning only to be greeted by a trail of slime meandering across the floor. The only solution is to get up early when no-one's around and see if you can catch the blighter mid-journey and chuck it out, or worse.

So I have absolutely no love of these creatures, whose point is beyond me. But no matter how vile they are, the name in German makes them sound kind of cute. Kind of. That's because NACKTSCHNECKE is literally a "naked snail", as opposed to an ordinary, SCHNECKE, which has a house on its back. I'm wondering, though, given they tend to show up at night, if they shouldn't really be called NACHTSCHNECKE.

Either way, they're still disgusting.