"I keep a banjo in my toolshed. It's for the slugs. See, a few years ago I came out here one morning and the little slimy bastards had eaten all my hostas. Then I noticed that they'd eaten all the hostas but left the grass. 'Aha,' I thought, 'they hate grass. They probably hate bluegrass even more. Everybody else does'.
"So every once in a while I come out with the banjo and play five or six verses of some Kentucky hillbilly bollocks with lots of yodelling and nonsense lyrics about a mining disaster. Within about 15 minutes they sort of pull their antlers in and go stiff and fall on to the ground. You've got to be a bit careful with the yodelling, though. After half an hour there's a danger of leaf curl.
"I could leave the dead slugs for the birds, but I collect them up in a tin, sprinkle them with paprika and pop them in the oven until they're nice and crispy. Then when those fuckers from the record company come round I tell them it's an exotic Tibetan bar snack. The Head of A&R got through nearly half a pound last time.
"I tried to market the banjo slug repellent idea once, but my manager told me garden centres were having trouble working out where they'd fit an Appalachian string band on their shelves. Shame."
