Spot the Frippet: dust.

It won't take you long to spot some dust, but what will you do when you find it? Will you wipe it away, leave it severely alone, or, if it's a cake that's been dusted with cocoa or icing sugar, eat it?

(As far as biting the dust is concerned, this is the strongly recommended way to do it.)

Perhaps the dust will come in the form of a dust bunny, one of those wisps of fuzzy stuff which lurk in corners and under furniture; or perhaps as a dust devil, a miniature whirlwind.

Luckily you will not spot any dust mites (illustrations are available if you want to freak yourself out). They are too small to see, but it is said there can be as many as ten million dust mites (and even more blobs of dust mite poo) in a middle-aged mattress.

Still, never mind. Because we can't spot them, we can all quite happily pretend they're not there. Can't we?

Spot the Frippet: dust. The Old English form of this word is dūst. The word is related to the Old High German tunst, which means storm.