Herald of the morn.

So it's the early bird that catches the worm, right?

So they try to tell us. But the logical projection of this pious taradiddle makes a complete nonsense, so any metaphorical inference drawn from it is quite valueless. It's not Holy Writ, just blatant anthropomorphism hard-sold as a basic truth by a dour Puritan minority as a step up to that moral high ground they seem to crave as their right. while denying it to the rest of us foolish virgins. But the control freaks have got it wrong. Logic module malfunction. Abort. Cancel. Retry.

After all, what about the early worm ? Leaping virtuously out of bed at the crack, full of rich nourishing compost and good intentions, didn't exactly do that poor creature any favours, did it. Had it stayed in its comfortable pit of a morning like a sensible worm oughter, idly dozing, making slithery love to its comely wormwife, or as is often the way with hermaphroditic wrigglies, itself, (hence, I suppose, the proliferation of blindworms,) hacking into the wormish equivalent of Earl Grey and Weetypops, and snuggling under its loamy duvet doing its lazy vermiform thing, instead of dancing shamelessly about on the lawn wiggling its bum in virtuoso linguine impressions and generally showing out to passing fowls, it wouldn't have ended up as a blackbird's brekkie.

If you're a worm, matitudinal misjudgment can seriously endanger your health. And blunt your sense of humus something permanent, I shouldn't wonder. Tardiness should be next to Godliness, in Wormworld. As the vermicular versifier, Williworm Wormsworth, has it:

Early to rise, and early to bed
makes a worm healthy and wealthy and dead.

So before you set the alarm tonight, undress, turn around, and take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Any evidence of feathers, bills or talons, and you're onto a hot date with Aurora. 4AM will do nicely. And don't activate the snooze button, Woody. Get up, get out there and get the vocals going full blast. It's all you're good for, let's face it.

But otherwise, my old son, if you're feather-free, downless as an egg rather than descended from one, not a beak to see you through the week, you ain't a Woodpecker, you're a Worm.

So sling the timepiece out of the window, take the phone off the hook, snuggle up, and allow yourself a nice long lie-in. You'll feel better for it, I promise. And when, overcome by exhaustion due to lack of sleep and all that singing on an empty stomach, the early bird falls off his perch slap bang onto your front doorstep, that's the time to rise and shine. Bye-bye Blackbird, hello Brunch. That's the watchword, wormwise. While birds have their set of laws, worms must live under a completely different code. And not one concocted for them "for their own good" by nest-featherers masquerading as do-gooders.