They know somehow, don't they? The little buzzy things—flies and mosquitoes and the like. They know when you're about to fall asleep; that's when they dive-bomb your ear.

I have this thing, I don't know if anyone else does, but when I'm just about to fall asleep—seconds away, I mean, I'm teetering over the edge, like a man in a 1920s madcap movie, just about to plunge over the cliff into full-on sleep—if something makes a noise at that precise moment, I wake up fully and am wide awake for a matter of hours after.

And in Australia for some reason they don't believe in screens on windows. And since we don't have air conditioning I have to keep mine open to keep my bedroom cool, at least from the time I get home to the time I turn out the light. So they fly in, just one or two. But that's all it takes.

I just happened. It's 12.23am for those of you keeping score, and I just got dive-bombed by an evil mosquito that hadn't come near me until just at that second.

Fucker.

And I can't even see it now, in order to kill—wait, there it is. Crawling on the ceiling, which is way too high to reach, even if I stand on the bed. Maybe I can throw a shoe. But it'll probably come back down and hit my head. Or my new camera, which is sitting right there, underneath. Or this computer. This is a bad idea, but he must die.

It happened last night (so this will be two nights with severe sleep deficits), but I found that one sitting on the wall. I smacked it and now there's a little red blood mark on the wall. I know, that's gross. It's probably my blood.

Sometimes it's one of those flies that can't be caught, so I open the door and try to will it out, shooing it with a shirt or something. And I feel a bit more honourable about that, like I'm trying to give it a chance to live because I, like St Francis, am a friend to creatures great and small.

But usually they're just dumb little shits and I end up hating them anyway. (And mosquitoes don't get the St Francis treatment, by the way, for they are of Hell and must return thence. (Yes, this is the twat that I sound like when it's the middle of the night on a work night and I can't sleep.))

Does anybody else have this problem? I really wish I could sleep like a normal person.