This message is for andyc, phillip, trevor, and anyone who wants to keep Great Britain safe.
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a Boston Globe story about a woman who had encountered a fisher cat “the size of a coffee table”. This prompted one of the above posters to inquire (in the scholarly spirit so often evidenced in this forum): “How big are your coffee tables?” Well, just yesterday I ran into a friend who told me that she was sitting at home recently and heard what “sounded like murderers mating” outside (I could only assume that she meant that there seemed to be two simultaneous activities). She went to the window and saw four fisher cats, which she said were very large. “Like a coffee table?” I asked, thinking that she might have seen the article. She looked at me askance, however, and said that though they did have short legs like one, they didn’t have a little drawer underneath to put coasters and a deck of cards in, and were more animated than any coffee table she had ever known. She said that this vision offered insight into the uncharacteristic lack of representation among rabbit and squirrel types in her neighborhood of late.
I am here to remind you that these creatures are misnamed, and may be only too happy to take advantage of this fact. They are WEASELS, and particularly vicious ones. Do not welcome them thinking that they might be feline agents of aquarium population control. You need only let two amorous members of this murderous tribe into your country and before you can say “monster fangs” an army of them will be flashing evil grins at those surveillance cameras you Brits like to decorate with.
Note: My subject line may have been misconstrued, for such is linguistic subtlety and modificational mistiness. Even “transatlantic” itself can mean either on the other side of the ocean or going across it, and of course "report" has a number of meanings, so you might have thought that this referred to a weasel that was on its way over and had made an unwise menu selection in the ship’s dining room, say, or gobbled up a too-large child beside the pool (as in “Pop Goes the-“). I regret any disappointment you might be experiencing.