Junk mail always annoys me, but it can also astound me as well. To be accurate it’s not the junk mail that astounds me, but the stupidity of the complete Muppets that post the stuff. I once received some junk mail from the Stannah Stair Lift Company, addressed to ‘The Occupier of the Ground Floor Flat’. I also class those begging bags that request clean, old clothes are placed in them, so that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Children can make some cash, as junk mail. Let’s face it, to me old clean clothes are simply called clothes and I wear them. I’m not uncharitable, or miserly, I’m just sodding skint! Daily a torrent of refuse is crammed through my letter box, everything from Avon catalogues to menu’s from the latest Indian Takeaway. Okay I will admit to actually buying the set meal for two from the Mysore House Tandoori after they had stuffed their menu through the letter box, and was mightily glad of the heaps of junk mail that I receive when I realised I’d run out of bog roll. Several hours after consuming said meal for two, I was the wincing owner of a ring piece not too dissimilar from blood orange. Consequently I have renamed the restaurant as the My Sore Arse Tandoori.
The local freebie newspapers are also classed as junk mail. They are rarely read, probably due to headlines such as ‘Edna reaches eighty and celebrates with a cup of tea’. Why do old people suddenly pretend butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths when they get to eighty? My Dad was in charge of a day centre for the elderly in the old dock town of Goole. One old lady there was always ignored by the other old ladies, yet the old blokes always had a wink and a smile for her. Turns out the old girl was a dockside prosy and had worked her way through the male populace of the town in her younger days.
Last Friday’s free news publication carried a headline that I did notice. At last I got round to the subject of fishing! ‘Otters to be released on local marshes’ it screamed above an image of what could only be described as a geek. The kind of bloke, wearing the kind of clothes, carrying equipment that would fit anyone from a train-spotter to a ‘dogger’ (not that I would know)!
Honestly here’s the fishing bit! ‘Great!’ I thought, ‘in-between cormorants, Eastern Europeans and sodding otter’s there are going to be no fish left!’
Now today I went fishing (see I told you I was going to get to the fishing). I saw tench, they swimming in the margins right by my feet. I also saw roach and dace (these were in my keep net). I also saw a nice perch of around two pound, this I caught and released in case it ate the rest of my catch. I thought the poor fishing today was due to the pike I could here thrashing in the reeds to my left that would occasionally send small fish porpoising over the water surface. Vast stretches of dull grey cloud covered the sky and spatters of rain hit my face as an almighty splash erupted from the margins. Swimming out of the margins a dark shape merged, swimming across the drain.
“Oh bloody marvellous” I thought “some plank is letting their dog swim right where I’m fishing!”
But then the ‘dog’ dove under the water and emerged several yards down to my right, clutching a bream between its jaws. This of course was no dog but an otter! Yup the week they announce they are releasing otters back into the wild because there are none, here is one fishing right at the side of me!
Now call me an old cynic, but something tells me that these naturalists never get out of their armchairs. Maybe they should take up fishing, and see some wildlife!
