Notes and queries: How long do house spiders live?

How long do house spiders live? There’s one in my bathroom and I need to know when I can stop strip-washing in the downstairs loo.

Several years. They can live for months without food and water, so prepare yourself for a long residency in the downstairs loo.

Seriously though, it’ll be more scared of you than you are of it, so ignore it. Besides, it’ll keep the flies (and other nasties) away. And who knows, if it bites you, you may develop superpowers.

NoLemons

Is there any evidence that spiders are more scared of you than you are of them? Neither arachnids nor insects seem particularly scared of me, unless I’m chasing them with the Hoover or something. While I am genuinely (irrationally) terrified of long-leggedy spiders and avoid them as much as possible, they seem to feel no similar compulsion to avoid me.

CJsoas

It might be about how you interpret “scared”. If an animal stands still when it is scared, it might be showing this when you enter a room. Whether spiders feel such a thing as our emotion called fear I have no idea.

BurningBus

It is not necessarily true that spiders are more frightened of you than you are of them. We used to have one living under our sideboard that would come out and try to attack the vacuum cleaner if you came too close. However, since spiders this size tend to move into houses only for the winter, if you give it another couple of weeks, it may leave of its own accord.

Rachelthedigger

All is lost. Board up your house, torch it to be sure and move into a nearby hotel. Keep moving and stay off the grid. Good luck.

ferret76

Why is it that when I am looking at someone across the street they often turn their heads to look at me?

Being aware of being looked at or within hearing distance of another person is quite an instinctive thing. There’s even a word for it: alert.

referendum

It’s more likely that you’re noticing and remembering when someone turns to look at you more often than you notice and remember when they don’t. It’s called confirmation bias, a cognitive bias that’s built in to the way our brains work.

I haven’t noticed people I happen to look at turning to look at me, but then I haven’t formed the belief that it happens more often than not and thereby become more inclined to notice the (actually fairly rare) occasions it does.

Pixel42

I’m not satisfied with the answer that just puts it down to peripheral vision (N&Q, 23 February). I have noticed that people are aware of being looked at even when they’re being looked at from behind (not that I do a great deal of that, I assure you). I’m pretty sure the mechanism goes beyond peripheral vision to something we really don’t yet have the science for. We could call it telepathy, or Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of “morphic resonance”.

PietroFergusoni

Who washes up in MasterChef?

At last, someone who thinks like me! Can I further that question? What about the horrendous food wastage that this series (which I adore in all other respects) advocates? It provides a window on the awful food wastage of the restaurant industry as a whole.

Shazzbot

Who does the washing up? I bet it’s a woman.

magickat

Will the world end with a bang or a whimper?

Yes.

(Fr) Julian Dunn, Great Haseley, Oxon

With a whimper. If by some chance it ends with a bang, complain to TS Eliot. The world will undoubtedly end with the words: “I wonder what will happen if I press this.”

Rod Bulcock, Eldwick, W Yorks

Any answers

So, after 50 years of James Bond films, who is the nastiest villain?

Sarah Henderson, Manchester

We now have signs on motorways announcing how many miles and how long it will take to get to a particular junction. How is this measured?

Chris Bloor, Langley Park, Co Durham

Why is it that though French markets groan with fantastic vegetables they rarely appear on restaurant plates?

David J Handley, Skipton, N Yorks