population control advocacy

Today I would like to share one of my childhood hobbies: the art of shooting flies. I think that the pest population would be brought under much tighter control if every Singaporean would do their part to destroy this scourge.

I never had any intense dislike for flies. This is in spite of the fact that they spread disease and irritate me. Rather, this hobby was born out of the necessity to feed my pet frogs back when I was a kid. I used to spend a lot of effort catching the flies with butterfly nets, but some scientific enquiry soon led me to a superior solution.

To begin with, we need to understand the insect eye. Apart from looking like the Esplanade, the housefly can see 360 degrees and is most sensitive to motion and changes in air current. This is why you can almost never kill them with your bare hands. But a flying rubber band moves faster than the fly, and does not create much disturbance in the air. It is the perfect solution.

And you don't even need to be a superb marksman. You can get within 10-15 cm of the fly if you keep low and don't alarm it. At that range, it is really hard to miss. And as you get better, you can hit the big ones at ranges of 2-3 metres even. I once shot a giant flying ant in mid-air. Practise makes perfect.

I highly recommend this hobby to everyone. Not only will the NEA thank you, it is also highly therapeutic. There is nothing more satisfying than to see the body of a fly tossed through the air, with the head landing a metre further away. For hygiene purposes, please do not reuse the rubber bands.