Thanks Chris! Yes, I see the phrase 'Norwegian whaling ship' plainly offers a guide... I was rather slow on the uptake! (My alternative confabulation now strikes me as thoroughly bizarre !)

'Yes, the garden's coming along well, but the seasons are all skew-whiff these days,' she laughed into the phone. 'Last summer with all that rain – remember the slugs and snails everywhere? And this May it was weird, with all those bright yellow caterpillars. Never seen anything like it. Should make for a beautiful butterfly summer.'
It was when she switched off the phone that the first butterfly landed on her, its wings intricately patterned with bronze and deep orange and rich purple. She was quite charmed by the confidence with which it sat on her sleeve, but then more came towards her, zig-zagging as butterflies will, but with an odd determination. They settled on her so thickly that her screams were quite muffled. When they left her face, nothing was left but white skull, flecked here and there with shining pink fragments of cartilage.

At first I thought I was imagining it, the soft murmur of a deep voice seeming to say "Why did you name me Fido? Fido is a stupid name." I rolled over and went back to sleep, but suddenly I woke to the same words, only this time spoken with unmistakeable menace. Fido's cold wet snout was in my ear. I bolted upright -- or I would have done, had I not discovered that my body was fastened tightly to my bed by Fido's metal leash. Fido calmly walked to the door and nuzzled it open. The German Shepherd from down the block wandered in, and though his mouth did not move, I plainly heard him say, "Is this the fool who named you Fido?" Fido nodded before his friend began, slowly and methodically, to tear apart my flesh with his pointy fangs.

I'm glad you lived to tell the tale, Roger.

This stuff is truly awesome. Spherians have found their metier. Flesh-eating butterflies could make it to Hollywood.

Yeah, they might suck all the Scientology out of Tom Cruise.

Brian, I became one of the walking dead, a zombie who wanders the earth in search of human flesh while occasionally pausing to enter magazine competitions.

What? You turned into a Tory?

I so wish that this had been what I meant, Graham!