On the use of deadly animals in crime fighting

"When someone is hiding in a building," says Twitter's Richard Wiseman, "I always wonder why the police don't throw a wasps nest through the window."

This is - all told - a brilliant idea, for the addition of angry wasps to a siege crisis would bring about a solution in next to no time (unless the crim was a heavy smoker, and the wasps are rendered drowsy by the fumes). But why stop there?

Police forces should become adept at using dangerous animals to bring potentially dangerous situations to a close. The addition of a couple of angry swans to a siege situation would be just as effective as the angry wasp scenario, with the added advantage that clouds of cigarette smoke would make them even more furious. Not even the most hardened of crims in the most desperate of straits would want to be in the same room as angry swans, who - according to SCIENCE - can break a man's arm with a single flap of their wing.

Also, some sort of gun to fire deadly snakes up exhaust pipes during car chases, the last words of the hooded chavs making away with some poor old lady's Citroen Saxo being "I've had enough of these melonfarming snakes in this melonfarming Citroen Saxo." And just as they think their day can't get any worse: Activate the wasps.

Then, it's back to the station to feed the constabulary leopard, and train it to attack only crusties and card-carrying trade union members.

I am not mad.