Pete Cashmore: Shop window scares, spider shock and an angry outburst

You know – sexy vampire outfits, naughty witch outfits, that kind of thing.

It's all rather perplexing, but for some people, going to a party feeling like you look hot is a nice thing to do – maybe I should try it sometime.

Anyway, I'm not going to condemn something just because it's just puzzling.

BUT.

In Wolverhampton there is a 'popular lingerie store' who will remain nameless, even though we all know which one I mean. And in the window of the shop there are large posters depicting various comely models rocking their scary range, as one would expect.

However, one of them depicts what I believe I am right in saying is based on the Harley Quinn character from Suicide Squad, and very small it is too. But that's not what's most arresting. The model is also styled with numerous large scabs on her exposed bits and is also covered in blood.

What are we supposed to infer from this? As far as we can see she's either meant to be a 'sexy zombie' which is the very definition of an oxymoron on account of her being, well, dead, and I'm not sure we should be promoting any clothing with the image of an undead woman. Or worse, she's just been in a particularly violent fight, which likewise is not really something we should be encouraging.

Am I wrong about this?

We live in a culture of complaint and all that – indeed, I'm going to have a wallow in it shortly. But isn't this, at the very least, a little tasteless? I'm shocked that I found myself shocked by the poster – that's a lot of shock – but, and I can't believe I'm saying this, in a high street store window, shouldn't we think of the children who might see it and be rather confused, maybe even scared? It is Halloween and all but still. . .

That's not the scariest thing I've seen this week though, not by a long chalk.

I have no real fear of zombies and vampires, however saucy, because I know that they are not real, and certainly there are none in Tettenhall.

Spiders, however, are real, and I am very, profoundly scared of them. I hate them so much, with their legs and fangs!

Well, a video went viral this week and I made the mistake of watching it. You may have been able to see it simply by googling 'spider mouse'. This is not a film about a mouse superhero with web-slinging powers (although that would be rather cool) or some kind of weird genetic hybrid cooked up in a lab (which would be less so).

It's a film shot by a homeowner in Coppabilla, Australia, very much the world leader in big horrible spiders, and depicts a monstrous huntsman spider on a wall with a mouse it has just killed. Fair enough, spiders eat mice, the guy has to eat.

But as the video unfolds, the spider carries the thing up the wall. He's carrying a dead mouse up a wall, and it's not a small mouse!

Huntsman spiders, famously, are known for liking cool dark places, and one of these is the sun-shade inside cars. Now, I don't know if this is a myth, but I gather that many car accidents happen when drivers flip the shade down and a great big huntsman flops into their lap, causing them to go a bit doolally.

But I promise you one thing – if you watch the video of this bad boy scuttling up a wall with a mouse in its fangs, you will never go driving in Australia again.

I mentioned the culture of complaint earlier. I read an article from the United States this week that made me chortle and roll my eyes in equal measure by a San Francisco author who really, desperately needs to grow a little backbone.

In it, he effectively – actually, there's no effectively about it, it's exactly what he did – accused his local coffee shop barista of fat-shaming him. How was this being done? Basically, the chap in the shop had the temerity to ask him if he wanted his latte to be skinny.

Horrendous fat-shaming, asking a customer whether he wanted a healthier choice! The shrill tone of the piece was really spectacular. Here is a sample. . .

"Do you see how you just pulled out all the stops trying to get me to reduce my caloric intake? Do you see how this could be construed as emotional abuse, how this kind of fat-shaming barista-rhetoric could lower my self-esteem and cause great mental anguish? Do you have an explanation for this? I have some theories about your constant harassment."

I won't trouble you with the theories, I will merely say that anyone going into a coffee shop who considers being offered a skinny option a cause for 'great anguish' really wasn't cut out for modern life.

Also, the word is 'calorific' – call yourself a writer, buddy?

Staying in America, where pretty much all of modern outrage seems to originate, we're off to California State University Fullerton where the levels of shrieking offence taken appear to make Coffee Man seem relatively sane.

They have released a list to their students of words that they deem appropriate. Fair enough, you might think, there has to be boundaries. And then you read the list.

The 'inappropriate' words include man, secretary, male nurse, saying 'hey guys!', weatherman, among many, many ridiculous options.

The reason for their inappropriateness is that they are gender-specific, of course, and more and more people are attempting to destroiy the concept of gender difference altogether.

And that, appropriately enough, is a scary thought. Although not as scary as a spider that can carry a mouse up a wall.