red:

Being in a spot of bother with the Bolgers was rather like saying he'd had a brush with the Taliban or a minor skirmish with al-Qaida. The Bolgers didn't do spots of bother. They did mayhem. Revenge beatings, drive-by shootings, and in the last few months scalped a guy they felt had slighted them.

The worms start life as microscopic larvae inside tiny pondwater fleas but, once swallowed by people, emerge a year later as yard-long strands resembling fine spaghetti but wiggling out of acid-filled blisters, causing excruciating pain.

the convicinity and contiguity of the two parishes