I have a pretty far-reaching theory that I would like to share with you: There is nothing in your immediate vicinity that could NOT kill you.

‘Oh, yeah?’ I hear you scoff, but I can prove it. Look around you. Can you see anything life-threatening? No? Then you’re obviously not looking hard enough! That supermarket receipt on the table. It could blow into the electric fire, set fire to the carpet and burn you to death while you snooze. A prawn or a slice of courgette could choke you to death. You could fall over and smash open your skull on any hard object. Your beloved, dog, cat or marmoset could trip you down the stairs, leaving you in a mangled but still warm heap that it could then go to sleep on. Heavy furniture could crush you, lights could plummet from the ceiling and mash your brain into strawberry pulp. A tiny fly could enter your ear and drive you suicidaly insane with its endless buzzing. Anything electric can electrocute you. Anything gas can gas you. Anything hanging can hang you and, presumably, anything wicker can wick you, which isn’t a pleasant concept.

It’s a miracle any of us survive at all. The only major predators we have in this country are tax inspectors and motorists but there is still danger everywhere. And we ignore it. We have to. If we didn’t we’d all go insane with paranoia.

It’s a fact that the vast majority of accidents happen at home. So, maybe the best thing you can do is move. It’s not surprising that homes are so dangerous though. Think about it. The kitchen is full of razor-sharp knives, microwave generators, blenders, mincers, grinders and graters. The lounge bristles with high-voltage equipment such as TVs, hi-fis and lava lamps. In the garden, the lawnmower waits patiently for the moment it can remove your feet. The bath sits with bated bubbles in anticipation of the moment you slip up and bash your head on the basin and die with a tap rammed up your nose. The chemicals we casually fling down the toilet skulk in cupboards, in expectation of the moment we get the formula right and blow the bog through the roof. Somewhere in the roof cavity lurks a huge brass bomb full of boiling water under enormous pressure. That sounds safe doesn’t it?

Why are you still reading this? Why have you not ran screaming into the street? It’s not a jungle out there. Jungles are safe compared to the average home. Take a member of a recently discovered Stone Age tribe out of his jungle, stick him in a modern flat, and he’d be dead, mutilated and partially cooked, in forty seconds. The last sound he would hear would be the ping of the microwave, just before his head exploded.

How do we cope with the constant danger?