A
Anonymous
Guest
Re: the giant crab spider.
If spiders get that big I'm never leaving the house again!
If spiders get that big I'm never leaving the house again!
A
Anonymous
Guest
Good news from Wythenshawe!
Lived here since I was born and the strangest thing I've seen was the remains of a baby bird which my mates said "just exploded"!
In regards to spiders - have you ever seen a web where hundreds of tiny new born spiders are crawling around? That's minging!
Other than that Wythenshawe is a pretty weird place. Europe's biggest Council Estate! Gosh, it makes me so proud!
Lived here since I was born and the strangest thing I've seen was the remains of a baby bird which my mates said "just exploded"!
In regards to spiders - have you ever seen a web where hundreds of tiny new born spiders are crawling around? That's minging!
Other than that Wythenshawe is a pretty weird place. Europe's biggest Council Estate! Gosh, it makes me so proud!
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2002
- Messages
- 158
I worked in a kitchen a few years ago, and the head chef would often get misty eyed about a huge spider that lived in the kitchen he trained in. He said it was by far the biggest spider he'd ever seen, but also admitted that he and the other chefs would feed it daily with off-cuts of prime steak.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Coincidence?!
This is true I swear! There's a trained Chef I work with who tells the EXACT same story about feeding a Spider in the kitchen he worked in! I hope it's the same kitchen (which would be bizarre!) cos I don't fancy the thought of Chef's throughout the land creating super beastie arachnids.
I'm going to find out where this kitchen is off my mate and post it on here. PLEASE be the same kitchen...
This is true I swear! There's a trained Chef I work with who tells the EXACT same story about feeding a Spider in the kitchen he worked in! I hope it's the same kitchen (which would be bizarre!) cos I don't fancy the thought of Chef's throughout the land creating super beastie arachnids.
I'm going to find out where this kitchen is off my mate and post it on here. PLEASE be the same kitchen...
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2002
- Messages
- 158
This chef was called John (can't rememeber his second name). The last I heard he was working for Gordon Ramsay. The kitchen was in a restaurant in Canterbury called "Beau's Creperie".
If this isn't the same bloke, I suspect it could be a catering industry urban legend.
If this isn't the same bloke, I suspect it could be a catering industry urban legend.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Update!
Spoke to my mate today and apparently the Spider he helped feed up lived in his garden! He did feed it bits of sausage and steak and whatever else he could get his hands on though.
He IS a trained Chef and the guy that taught him used to tap his knife (the way Sooty taps his magic wand) before he could chop carrots and stuff! Pretty weird in itself I reckon?!
Spoke to my mate today and apparently the Spider he helped feed up lived in his garden! He did feed it bits of sausage and steak and whatever else he could get his hands on though.
He IS a trained Chef and the guy that taught him used to tap his knife (the way Sooty taps his magic wand) before he could chop carrots and stuff! Pretty weird in itself I reckon?!
A
Anonymous
Guest
It may be a coincidence but a friend of mine used to work in a warehouse in Essex. Apparently they would get shipments from South America which would occasionally contain "hitchhikers" in the shape of giant spiders. I'm not sure how big they were exactly but my friend said they were enormous and really scary. Apparently the guys used to kill them with shovels or planks of 4 x 2 timber and apparently it took a few hits to do that!
Maybe they didn't get them all and a few escaped.
Maybe they didn't get them all and a few escaped.
A
Anonymous
Guest
jamesveldon said:
Other way round! It's a crab that looks like a spider, not a spider that looks like a crab!
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2001
- Messages
- 273
I live in a basement flat, full of very BIG spiders. Last year I was chopping olives in the kitchen, and thought I trod on one that had fallen to the lino,(it felt like it under my bare foot). On lifting my foot i saw the writhing body of the biggest spider I have ever seen. Utterly enormous. It was actually bleeding grey blood, for Cliff's sake. I put it out of it's misery and flushed it down the bog (flushing 5 or 6 times). A couple of weeks later a live one stepped out from underb the TV, and I kid you not, we could hear its footprints (very quietly)... leg span of around 7 inches. I'm sad to say I despatched it with the 'phone book, after my girlfriend had jumped into my arms like scoobydoo.
And until I moved here I was TERRIFIED of spiders. I suppose you just get used to it.
And until I moved here I was TERRIFIED of spiders. I suppose you just get used to it.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2002
- Messages
- 212
Bloody Hell. Really.
Bloody Hell.
Bloody Hell.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Along the lines of Shane's response, I would like to suggest that the repeated theme of either not being believed or being ignored is strongly suggestive of a dream state, particularly given the amazing nature of the subject. For example, it's more difficult to believe that a group of 9 year old boys would be completely disinterested in an enormous spider crouching in a tree than it is to believe that the spider was actually there; the same argument can be made for the person whose parents weren't interested in a spider large enough to eat their child lurking very near to where he was standing. In both cases, the inability to communicate one's fear or wonder strongly argue for the same type of mechanism responsible for other types of helpless feelings encountered in dreams such as the inability to run properly and the inability to scream.
None of this is intended to sugest that these well-meaning people did not actually encounter these insects, but the age reported at the time of both of the primary source accounts and statements suggestive that they themselves were not certain it was not a dream argue for a dream image which has entered the foggy realm of pseudo-memory.
None of this is intended to sugest that these well-meaning people did not actually encounter these insects, but the age reported at the time of both of the primary source accounts and statements suggestive that they themselves were not certain it was not a dream argue for a dream image which has entered the foggy realm of pseudo-memory.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Adrian Veidt said:
*gulp*
Where excatly in Essex?
A
Anonymous
Guest
Skynet said:
This would have been in the Southend area. I remember my friend saying " You could look these things in the eyes. They had personality"
A
Anonymous
Guest
Phew
Thank god for that
It would of had a heart attack trying to make it's way to Dagenham then.
Thank god for that
It would of had a heart attack trying to make it's way to Dagenham then.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2002
- Messages
- 212
Oh no,
Apparently they were so big they had thumbs. They would have no problem hitch hiking to Dagenham.
Apparently they were so big they had thumbs. They would have no problem hitch hiking to Dagenham.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Great! Giant spiders with opposible thumbs. Now they can open doors.
A
Anonymous
Guest
It raises an interesting question
Being prone to weird experiences [1] that are only sometimes shared by other people, I have given up trying to classify experiences into 'real' or 'unreal'. Was the giant spider really there? Objectively? It doesn't really matter, except in terms of whether or not another one (or even the same one) might pop up somewhere and have a go at someone (imagine seeing crawling out from under your bed). At the end of the day, as far as the person who had the experience is concerned, the spider was there, because all we have is our interpretation of the data that our senses provide us.
I am not sure a 4 foot diameter spider (that's more than a metre) would be able to survive. I don't think that the anatomy of a soft arthropod would be able to support its own weight under gravity, never mind spin a web. Spider crabs are different, being supported by water (I've never heard of spider crabs coming ashore - horseshoe crabs, red land crabs live ashore, all sorts of crabs come ashore, but I've never heard of spider crabs coming ashore. They are so spindly they have trouble moving out of the water and just sort of curl up and sit there).
The devil crab is a Norwegian species, I believe.
And anyway. If it was a spider spirit, I suspect it was more likely to be Anansi, the trickster, given the confusion and wonderment the experience has caused
My Mum was woken up one night by what she thought was a mouse. It was a bloody great spider, possibly a Goliath from the description. You can also hear spiders fall off ceilings in the middle of the night sometimes. They make quite a loud thud.
Sam
[1] As I posted in the thread about faeries, I lost my right eye when I was 15 months old and my brain has developed very asymmetrically, including the hippocampus. This could indicate TLE, so my weird experiences could be so much random em activity.
Being prone to weird experiences [1] that are only sometimes shared by other people, I have given up trying to classify experiences into 'real' or 'unreal'. Was the giant spider really there? Objectively? It doesn't really matter, except in terms of whether or not another one (or even the same one) might pop up somewhere and have a go at someone (imagine seeing crawling out from under your bed). At the end of the day, as far as the person who had the experience is concerned, the spider was there, because all we have is our interpretation of the data that our senses provide us.
I am not sure a 4 foot diameter spider (that's more than a metre) would be able to survive. I don't think that the anatomy of a soft arthropod would be able to support its own weight under gravity, never mind spin a web. Spider crabs are different, being supported by water (I've never heard of spider crabs coming ashore - horseshoe crabs, red land crabs live ashore, all sorts of crabs come ashore, but I've never heard of spider crabs coming ashore. They are so spindly they have trouble moving out of the water and just sort of curl up and sit there).
The devil crab is a Norwegian species, I believe.
And anyway. If it was a spider spirit, I suspect it was more likely to be Anansi, the trickster, given the confusion and wonderment the experience has caused
My Mum was woken up one night by what she thought was a mouse. It was a bloody great spider, possibly a Goliath from the description. You can also hear spiders fall off ceilings in the middle of the night sometimes. They make quite a loud thud.
Sam
[1] As I posted in the thread about faeries, I lost my right eye when I was 15 months old and my brain has developed very asymmetrically, including the hippocampus. This could indicate TLE, so my weird experiences could be so much random em activity.
A
Anonymous
Guest
damned spiders
I am scared ******** of spiders so this thread (!) has freaked me out. However, it reminds me of an encounter with a large, though not giant spider, in my house last year. Whilst watching a DVD I trotted off to the loo. I didn't come back for about 1/2 an hour, trapped by this mouse sized spider! My boyfriend tried to rescue me but it was hard to tell who was more scared, him or me, the spider sure as hell wasn't scared. I sacrificed a pair of boots to that little demon - God knows what I'd do if I saw anything larger, die on the spot presumably! Going to see Spider-Man tomorrow, small world (full of giant spiders).
I am scared ******** of spiders so this thread (!) has freaked me out. However, it reminds me of an encounter with a large, though not giant spider, in my house last year. Whilst watching a DVD I trotted off to the loo. I didn't come back for about 1/2 an hour, trapped by this mouse sized spider! My boyfriend tried to rescue me but it was hard to tell who was more scared, him or me, the spider sure as hell wasn't scared. I sacrificed a pair of boots to that little demon - God knows what I'd do if I saw anything larger, die on the spot presumably! Going to see Spider-Man tomorrow, small world (full of giant spiders).
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2002
- Messages
- 212
8 Legged Freaks....
To keep up the arachnid-type groove we got 'ere, theres a film coming out over the next few months called '8 Legged Freaks' about giant spiders.
Should be nice. Not sure if these ones have thumbs or not.
To keep up the arachnid-type groove we got 'ere, theres a film coming out over the next few months called '8 Legged Freaks' about giant spiders.
Should be nice. Not sure if these ones have thumbs or not.
A
Anonymous
Guest
I don’t particularly suffer from arachnophobia but giant spiders does not sound at all good
Could someone please answer me this question though: Why is it that a spider would collapse under it’s own weight after it grew to a certain size?
Could someone please answer me this question though: Why is it that a spider would collapse under it’s own weight after it grew to a certain size?
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2001
- Messages
- 1,186
The Edge said:I don’t particularly suffer from arachnophobia but giant spiders does not sound at all good
Could someone please answer me this question though: Why is it that a spider would collapse under it’s own weight after it grew to a certain size?
I think its because the mass of an animal increases exponentialy compared to its size. When a spider doubles its size its volume and therefore mass cubes so that it is eight times as heavy. Very big spider species have to have short thick legs. In general the bigger the animal the shorter and stummpier its legs are in proportion to its body.
Secondly insects and arachnids don't have proper lungs and rely on gass exchange through there skins to breath. I think I'm right in saying that very big spiders would suffocate for similar mathematical reasons to them needing short stumpy legs.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2002
- Messages
- 212
Good.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Austen said:Secondly insects and arachnids don't have proper lungs and rely on gass exchange through there skins to breath. I think I'm right in saying that very big spiders would suffocate for similar mathematical reasons to them needing short stumpy legs.
Indeed. They breathe through small holes called spiracles, and an animal of that size would not be able to supply an adequate amount of oxygen to its tissues and would suffocate.
Sam
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2002
- Messages
- 41
Keeping the perspective
93,
Just a quick anecdote about how big spiders can appear to be. I was out for a meal with my girlfriend when I spotted a little hunting wolf spider on the chair next to her, less than a centimetre in length, body and legs.
She saw me watching it and we started talking about 'spider consciousness' and the perspective of having that many eyes and that kind of sensory input from eight legs. So, I encouraged her to look at it more closely and she stared at it until she felt she could looking into it's tiny eyes.
I warned her that these spiders could jump,- she thought I was joking. Then it did, and she screamed and fell off her chair. Much to the amusement of everyone else in the restaurant.
The moment before it jumped she said she felt it looking back at her and felt like it had jumped to attack her.
The point is that the level of concentration and empathy that she had built up utterly distorted her perspective. This is perhaps the same thing that children can do when they focus in on something.
At the same time I can't reject a more Fortean explanation, having done some magickal work with Spiders and Japanese martial arts. Big Spiders are definitely out there.
93 93 93
Peter Grey
93,
Just a quick anecdote about how big spiders can appear to be. I was out for a meal with my girlfriend when I spotted a little hunting wolf spider on the chair next to her, less than a centimetre in length, body and legs.
She saw me watching it and we started talking about 'spider consciousness' and the perspective of having that many eyes and that kind of sensory input from eight legs. So, I encouraged her to look at it more closely and she stared at it until she felt she could looking into it's tiny eyes.
I warned her that these spiders could jump,- she thought I was joking. Then it did, and she screamed and fell off her chair. Much to the amusement of everyone else in the restaurant.
The moment before it jumped she said she felt it looking back at her and felt like it had jumped to attack her.
The point is that the level of concentration and empathy that she had built up utterly distorted her perspective. This is perhaps the same thing that children can do when they focus in on something.
At the same time I can't reject a more Fortean explanation, having done some magickal work with Spiders and Japanese martial arts. Big Spiders are definitely out there.
93 93 93
Peter Grey
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2002
- Messages
- 158
"having done some magickal work with Spiders and Japanese martial arts"
Please tell!
Please tell!
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2002
- Messages
- 41
Spiders
93,
I've worked with spider intelligence as part of a shape shifting experiment, using a blend of shamanic free form ritual and god form assumption from the western magickal tradition.
I'm a student of Ninjutsu and one of the ryu we use is Kumogakure, usually translated as 'hidden door school', the Kumo part can be translated as 'cloud' or 'spider'. This is one of the reasons I decided to try working with the spider. It's a perfect symbol for movement, entanglement, heightened sensory awareness, climbing, and so forth.
There's a lot to learn from spiders. That's the short reply, got to dash to a meeting...
93 93 93
Peter Grey
93,
I've worked with spider intelligence as part of a shape shifting experiment, using a blend of shamanic free form ritual and god form assumption from the western magickal tradition.
I'm a student of Ninjutsu and one of the ryu we use is Kumogakure, usually translated as 'hidden door school', the Kumo part can be translated as 'cloud' or 'spider'. This is one of the reasons I decided to try working with the spider. It's a perfect symbol for movement, entanglement, heightened sensory awareness, climbing, and so forth.
There's a lot to learn from spiders. That's the short reply, got to dash to a meeting...
93 93 93
Peter Grey
A
Anonymous
Guest
Peter Grey? Sure you're not Peter Parker?
(Sorry, was feeling topical and cheeky)
(Sorry, was feeling topical and cheeky)
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2002
- Messages
- 41
93,
Oh shit I've been rumbled. Leaves this thread quickly by firing another one at the building opposite and swinging away.
93 93 93
Peter Grey
Oh shit I've been rumbled. Leaves this thread quickly by firing another one at the building opposite and swinging away.
93 93 93
Peter Grey
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2002
- Messages
- 41
93,
Popping up again unexpectedly..
What's with all the 93's? It's numerology. 93 is the value of Love, and Will as well as some other significant words. It's shorthand for Aleister Crowley's koan: Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law, Love is the Law, Love under Will.
It gets used a lot on magick lists which is where I normally post.
So it's an affirmation, a statement of intent and a spell.
It also gives people an idea of what angle I'm coming from in the notoriously difficult medium of email and forums. This gives people the opportunity to interpret my posts without there being any 'hidden agenda'.
If that doesn't leave you any wiser you can try a web search under Thelema. Tag, you're it.
93 93 93
Peter Grey
Popping up again unexpectedly..
What's with all the 93's? It's numerology. 93 is the value of Love, and Will as well as some other significant words. It's shorthand for Aleister Crowley's koan: Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law, Love is the Law, Love under Will.
It gets used a lot on magick lists which is where I normally post.
So it's an affirmation, a statement of intent and a spell.
It also gives people an idea of what angle I'm coming from in the notoriously difficult medium of email and forums. This gives people the opportunity to interpret my posts without there being any 'hidden agenda'.
If that doesn't leave you any wiser you can try a web search under Thelema. Tag, you're it.
93 93 93
Peter Grey