If it were safe to press an ear to the earth surrounding a jack

jumper nest, you’d hear the liquorice hundreds simmering just

below the crust, forging, following through on lavish routes and

threats.
Hereabouts a nest swells up every ten or so metres, and

every mound boasts multiple vents. You might – but you won’t – be

forgiven for thinking that some of that subcutaneous pressure

must, of necessity, steam off.
Local farmers make no bones. One recently capped ‘the mother

of all nests’ – for years bullying the home paddock – with

concrete.
But the whole post code’s precarious, hotspurred,

uninsurable as Iceland.