A spit roast and hurling a bird without wings

Back from Corfu, having endured conditions not seen since Tenko as we were corralled in the midday sun at the airport while Spiros finished his fag before allowing us on to his bus to transport us across twenty yards of tarmac to our tangerine plane that would lift us back to this river.

The snorkelling was great but hopes were not high after Madam's first forays with the mask led her to declare that there were no fish in this part of the Ionian. It transpired that she had my mask on which is a prescription piece for my duff eyes so she probably thought it was quite cloudy too. The few weeks prior to our departure I had heard intermittently the same statement from the odd angler so I entered the water under a black cloud but emerged smiling as there were masses of fish willing to play up to the camera. This corner of Corfu that sits under the gaze of Pantokrator has steep cliffs and small beaches, freshwater seeps through the cliffs into the sea and several spots can be quite refreshing as chilly spring water spurts from cracks into the sea. I've half a mind to get the snorkel and mask out and film a few fish in this river, the water is just as clear and with a live link to a big screen in the fishing hut it may be a way of demonstrating that there are far more fish in the river than some may think.

Extra stocking is not the answer, it is not unusual for fish stocked in August into this river to lie dogo for several weeks before putting in an appearance sometime in September, too many fish in the river over winter used to result in a lot of thin fish the following spring although the result now is more likely to be fatter Otters. While we were away one of our regulars caught the biggest fish so far this season, a fat hen of five and a half pound that had been in the river several seasons, there is one that may be bigger that sits directly opposite the fishing hut and has moved up from the bottom bends sometime in the past month. Reports of tricky fishing abound from the headwaters to the middle river, weed is in pretty good shape and the water level is ok for the time of year, it's just the fish that are not playing ball but I am reasonably confident this will change sometime in the coming weeks. Number of fish caught per hour of fishing effort always increases through September and early October, and several seasons have seen big fish who have been circumspect throughout the season make a mistake in the final fortnight.

Twenty four hours after landing from Corfu I was required to remove my water keeper's hat of office, light my lamp and don my Florence Nightingale outfit in order to administer first aid in the field. The most common injury I am required to deal with is a fly stuck in some part of an angler's anatomy. If fish are rising or the angler has travelled a long way, three hours in the local accident and emergency ward often doesn't appeal, so come on Chris get your pliers out. It often happens mid season when fish are not as free rising and anglers switch from dry flies to a sunken nymph. A weighted nymph takes a different trajectory through the air to a dry fly especially if there is a breeze and there is a case to be made for a novice angler to don a helmet and goggles when switching from surface fishing to sub surface fishing to avoid multiple piercings. On this stretch of the Dever sub surface fishing is not permitted until half way through the season, a decade or more ago I was called to remove a large Montana nymph from the eyebrow of a regular rod in early May when a Hawthorn should have been his fly of first choice. He couldn't avoid my gaze during the ten minutes it took to remove the illegal fly from his brow, although I could probably have done it in just under two. Ears are tricky as are lips. Cheeks and neck depend a lot on skin tone, age and the use of night creams and moisturiser, I once plucked an Adams Irresistible from a weathered old General's neck who was keen to get back to the river, a lifetime of campaigning had loosened his skin somewhat and it is the only time I have suggested that we may need to go to the workshop to put his head in the vice.

To remove a barbed hook from a face the hook must be turned to push the barb out through the skin. The barb is then snipped off and the remainder of the fly removed. Some anglers will not flinch and one brave chap even implored a teenage child A, who, at the time struggled with scissors, to have a go at the Grey Wulff stuck in his outer ear, as I was out of town and a heavy fall of sherry spinners was underway. Others will pace our kitchen for many minutes before settling down in the chair sometimes fortified with liquor. The chap who had a weighted nymph stuck hard in his cheek last week repaired to the local A&E as I don't think he had much confidence in my methods.

I may have omitted to mention that Otis has been rattling around full of pills for quite a few months, he has a funny infection between several of his toes that is proving difficult to get rid of. Sometimes he is the Black dog with the Black dog as the pills can suppress his mood, but the last month has seen him perk up significantly. With the children away at University he now receives the full focus of Madam's attention and has been gifted a basket full of his favourite balls. His Uncle Zebo was the cleverest dog I have ever known who Otis has always compared with unfavourably in the intelligent stakes. He likes a laugh and buggeration is definitely his thing, but we have noticed of late that when we watch tennis, he gets a tennis ball out of the basket, when Rory is pictured addressing his ball a Slazenger special is presented and during a recent one day international he fielded a chewed up old cricket ball from a dark corner of his basket. Ok he struggled with the athletics and also the yachting so we have drawn the conclusion that he only does ball games, although he misread the Hurling and presented us with a miniature rugby ball which may have its roots in knowledge of posts after a lifetime of cocking a leg.

But Hurling, what a game!

Somehow Hurling has passed me by.

I caught the recent All Ireland Championship final between Tipperary and Kilkenny on the Gogglebox and could not take my eyes of the action. Men with big wooden spoons run flat out while balancing a ball on said spoon before flicking it up to fire it fifty yards into the goal, and all while the opposition are trying to take you out with kicks and sticks. It's brilliant and seems to follow similar rules to Quidditch, Eighty thousand screaming fans packed the stadium for the game which ended in a draw so they will all come back again on September 27th to go through it all again. I am hooked and have set my phone to remind me of the fixture, a habit that Madam increasingly encourages me to do in other areas of life as she says that I am becoming ever more easily distracted.

Child A is currently in Budapest, having already visited Sofia, Bucharest and Timisoara, four cities in her first week riding the trains of Europe, with three more weeks to fill she may well run out of Europe at this rate. Madam and myself are very envious and we are plotting her progress on a map fixed to the fridge door with a magnet with a photo of Child A marking her current position.

Child B has returned from the carnage of a cricket tour to Devon and postponed his return to Cardiff as Barrack Obama was briefly in town and South Wales was shut. Barrack popped into Stonehenge on his way home which was also cleared for miles around. I remember two occasions when US Presidents visited this valley to flick a fly, a few spooks were posted at either end of the beat, but the surrounding villages were not evacuated and the North Atlantic Fleet did not nose into Southampton water.

Last weekend while Madam was playing with her friends over card, paper, envelopes and pens I popped over to France to pick up supplies for ourselves and the cricket club's impending presentation evening. I would classify myself as a veteran of such trips and paid little heed to stories in the press of people climbing into cars to gain entrance to Blighty, but pulling into the mother of all Auchan's I was slightly perturbed by the thirty odd chaps fresh up from the Horn of Africa hanging around the car park. They weren't offering a car care service or after fifty po for looking after your car as was the case when parking your car in Liverpool during the eighties. I don't know what the answer is but it is pretty desperate stuff.

Back home Madam had hardly registered my absence and was cocooned in her shed, which Otis has also adopted and stands sentinel at the door preventing anyone from entering. For the cricket club do I must cook a pig. I have done a few before and set the seventy kilo beast spinning on a spit at home some six hours before its presence is required at the perennial bash. It is then loaded on to a trailer and transported to the neighbouring village. The key is to take time fixing the animal to the spit as there is little scope for adjustment when cooking is underway. I may be tempting fate here, bit it is a relatively easy and economical way of feeding a large number of people and the only disaster we have experienced to date was a pork dripping incident on the A303 during transit. The evening takes the theme of the season's principle Test Touring side which this year was India, subsequently the hall will be decorated with Indian Flags and bunting, there will be blow up tigers and inflatable elephants and a life sized cardboard cut out of Kylie Minogue in a sari will greet the throng; last year's theme was Australian and we haven't been able to source a cut out of Mahatma Ghandi in budget but Kylie will pass for Indira Ghandi if we keep the lights low.

I don't like to promote stuff or advertise and believe it or not this pile of rubbish has received enquiries, mostly to do with erectile dysfunction and hair loss but enquiries all the same. As an alternative to lager we put on some draught beer from a micro brewery in Winchester. King Alfred's is the name and their "Saxon Bronze" is what some old boys would term a great "session beer" It is really good stuff. The pig came from just up the road too.

The depressing nature of the news continues and I finished Louis de B's Birds without Wings half way through the holiday and will read it again later this month.Ten years after everyone else but that's just how we roll around here, we're only just done with Pokemon. Captain Corelli is often one of the set texts for A level, Birds without Wings will surely follow suit, it is a very good book and I commend it to the house.

At school in the eighties Gerard Manley Hopkins and Jeff Chaucer were forced upon us ad nauseum, although Ted Hughes, George Orwell and Wilf Owen were ok, as they had some relevance, but Chaucer should have been bunted into touch at the meeting when alchemy and the four humours of Hippocrates were removed from the science curriculum .

We didn't study history at our secondary state school, it wasn't offered as an O level or A level subject which is probably why de Bernieres' books now appeal. The view at the time seemed to be what's the point of history? All relevant historical teaching came at home via Ladybird books and Asterix the Gaul. Instead we were subjected to a social experiment called "Humanities" that strived to combine History, English, Religious Studies and the opening gambit of sex education, oh and we'll teach it an open plan area with four or five classes at one time, in a rowdy atmosphere that merited a strong showing of stewards.

Allied to this was MACOS

which stood for Man! A Course Of Studies!

the highlights of which were herring gulls regurgitating fish for their young, the lifecycle of the Atlantic Salmon and Inuit shoving their elderly out on the ice once they have passed their period of usefulness. I don't know if I am any more humane for having studied humanities or more aware of Man having studied his relationship with herring gulls and Atlantic salmon although I experience an increased empathy with old eskimoes. I, and several of my contemporaries, would have lapped up a proper history lesson or a book by the de Bernieres of the day.

The language and emotion of GMH and E.M Forster may also prove alien to many teenage boys and nobody understands Chaucer, it may well be James Joyce written backwards. Orwell was particularly relevant at the time because of the Warsaw pact and the cold war, and subsequently his books were the only ones on the curriculum that I read, and still read, for fun. Homage to Catalonia while fishing in Spain made mention of an atrocity during the Spanish civil war a few swims down from where we fishing which was spooky.

Louis de Bernieres' books may not appeal to all, but Birds without Wings and Captain Corelli (forget the film) are historical novels that highlight the folly of extremism and the merit of tolerance and humanity, are relevant to today's society and if a teacher picks over the bones of either of the books with a class of all denominations it can only do good.

Bugger Chaucer (which I think may have happened at some point during the Nun's Priests tale) and Gerard Manley Hopkins too, education is everything
but let's get kids reading the right stuff.

This has been a broadcast by the children of librarians forced to read in a house full of books from an early age party,

or CLFRHFBFEA for short,

Freedom for Tooting!

Wasps get a bad press

As I write, Annabel has just been stung by a wasp.

Wasps are quite the thing in this corner of Corfu and the creature whose existence I have previously questioned proved its worth as it cleared Annabel from the camera shot of a particularly attractive landscape.

Annabel was ok, but made quite a din as she interrupted Daddy's post prandial consumption of rose at a taverna in the next bay.

We are in Kalami, Corfu and I apologise for the quality of the photos, but there is no editing in the field, in reporting terms this is Kate Adie dodging missiles in Tripoli, David Attenborough being touched up by gorillas in the Congo or Brian O'Hanrhahanhan on the deck of the Hermes counting them all out and counting them all back.

Albeit with the sustained consumption of Mythos, a swimming pool and a surfeit of feta cheese.

Kalami is the place where Laurence Durrel wrote Prospero's Cell on the cusp of the second world war. The White House where he lived for fifteen months still remains, as do the rocks on which he and his wife lay peering down into a fathom of gin clear water and are relatively unaltered. The House is now a Taverna of not very much repute and the rocks play host to a boat hire company. It still attracts a crowd as this corner of Corfu is quite "chi chi" (until we turned up) and while chasing fish with a waggler and float one afternoon a few days back I was joined on the rocks by Imie and Millie, two young girls who I assumed had an interest in fishing. After talking them through my tactics and explaining that the weed that was putting a bend in my rod was not a fish, a fast boat entered my swim and radioed back to base that the girls had been found, siblings appeared and the girls were returned to their parents in the neighbouring White House Taverna where the parents were sited, punishing the Rose.

Which is great, they'd had an adventure and it all turned out ok, few kids now spend afternoons drinking water to see how far they can wee across the road, building dens or climbing a long way up trees, as they are protected more and more by well intentioned parents who end up doing the child's thinking for them. A few years ago while tending the pitch for the local football team a lad fell out of a tree and landed on his head, a crowd gathered and n ambulance was called and while treatment was underway a retired brigadier in pink trousers happened by with his small dog and made enquiries as to the nature of the incident, to which he replied "Well done! small boys should climb more trees" The lad was more than a little robust and today is one half of a duo who are the local town's finest deliverers of beds.

and with a nod to Annabel, a friend of mine who once ran a half mile home at an age in single figures pursued by a swarm of bees, because it was his turn to climb the tree and poke the nest with a stick ended up as a Major flying helicopters in the Balkans and Afghanistan,

He also played a good game of army, although he wasn't so great at reading maps, although that may have been me.

Returning to Corfu, I can't imagine that Madame evolution picked a beach in Kalami for the location for her fishes to emerge and populate the lands of the earth. On most beaches of this corner of Corfu, The lady on my left and myself exit Neptune's locker on all fours grasping for flip flops on smooth round stones that invoke Peter Crouch style robotics at the first attempt of two legged locomotion. My current pallor has led Italian Mammas to urge their bambinos to meet by the man with the big red face should they get lost, such is my status as a "Stand Out" landmark when laid prone on the beach.

Our apartment is tucked in an Olive grove and a hundred lemons hang from the tree that shades the door, in the apartment next door. An energetic couple in their early forties jog each morning and conduct an hour long exercise routine before reading self improvement books by the pool fro the remainder of the day, the ying to our yang, Mdme and myself feel duty bound to act as slovenly as we can to restore some form of balance to the day.

Which we are doing very well.

Yesterday we hired a boat, a small craft, but seaworthy nonetheless that almost carried us inadvertently to Albania, a map thing undoubtedly, but that's for another day.

Our passage carried without any real incident bar myself and a large pleasure craft carrying a hundred people or more who tried to park on top of our insignificant skiff in the town harbour, five minutes of floundering with painters, anchors, jibs and keel hauls set us right and waving my fist at the smiling skipper with "f*** O** you failed fisherman eased my agitated state.

We found some wonderful beaches, that even in this part of the world you can pitch up to in a boat and have to yourselves, although it pays to take some binos as one we pitched into was like the land that time forgot sans Raquel Welch and her fur bikini where clothes had yet to be invented and all stood loud and proud as God/Allah/Hal intended.

Each to their own.

We chucked no end of spinners at flashy fish in bays without any real success, had a fantastic picnic in a small bay surrounded by fish who ate our spare tomatoes and peppers but wouldn't touch a cucumber (note to self, stick to flies with a bit of red in when saltwater fly fishing in the Ionian) before returning to the jetty to bumble back to our digs, arm in arm singing "Shore leave shore leave"

We have a little bit of wifi. It's a valuable commodity that proves a bigger draw to a Taverna than "Happy Hour" or "Fresh Fish" emails are checked and sport followed but in such a contented state the news can be fairly grim. Reading choice for the break is Birds without Wings by Louis de B( I am not allowed to read Captain Correlli on holiday in Greece any more, it is stamped on my passport) the following quotes from a proper writer seem somehow pertinent

"history, which is finally nothing but a sorry edifice constructed from hacked flesh in the name of great ideas"

"the triple contagions of nationalism, utopianism, and religious effervesce together into an acid that corrodes the moral metal of a race and it shamelessly and even proudly performs deeds that it would deem vile if they were done by any other."

Madness and inhumanity currently prevail in several parts of the world, if you were an outsider looking in,

Mork perhaps (Robin Williams, what a man!)

Sparg from Kronk or those octopedial aliens on the Simpsons,

you could be forgiven for thinking, "what on earth is going on, will they ever learn?"

Camping on trout and a daddy one leg

Dosed up with truth serum, I'll happily admit that August ain't the best month to be fishing the headwaters of a southern chalkstream. A quick flick through the catch records in the fishing hut reveal many seasons when as many fish have been caught in the last week in May as the whole of the following August, a diminishing river gin clear water and fish with their eye in make fishing a tricky business and many would attest that a single fish in August is worth four in May. In terms of Masterchef, your August Brown Trout is somewhat akin to Greg and Phil with their glasses on. They are seeing things well, the offering must be perfectly presented, easy on the eye and reasonably appetising. It doesn't take much for your August Brownie to turn up his nose, it's the principle reason why Rainbow Trout were first stocked into the river, a fish that is more willing to accept an angler's offering in the dog days of summer, although they are now introduced to some stretches throughout the season.

Some fishermen will return home in August with a dry net, and it is easy to slip into a habit of fishing by rote, failing to fish the whole river and moving quickly from one spot where success has previously been enjoyed to the next,ignoring the bits inbetween while replicating methods that were successful for them earlier in the year. The Brown Trout, their habits, their appetite and their diet have all altered in high summer. On this stretch of the Dever Brown Trout predominate and it pays to adopt a flexible approach, there are a few general rules throughout the month, numbers of sedge will always draw the eye of fish as the light fades at the end of the day, and a hatch of Blue Winged Olives or a fall of sherry spinners will always cause a few fins to twitch, but flurries of BWO are far less numerous than thirty years ago and those fish that sat midstream high in the water in the early part of the season are now far more circumspect and prone to tuck themselves away if they are not in the mood.

One of our regular rods advocated "camping" on a fish if it was the slightest distance off the bottom of the river, concealment and fine presentation are key if the method is to succeed, but as long as the Brown Trout remained on station he would systematically go through his fly box deftly presenting each pattern, and if the fish didn't spook or failed to rise, the fly would be changed. It was an arduous pursuit that required no little skill but was often successful, although some of our more senior Brown Trout who have been around the block will happily stay on station even if an angler reveals himself, in cricketing terms they are in and "seeing it like a football". Another regular rod who occasionally tried camping on a fish went twice through his fly box on a large Brown Trout tucked under the near bank, after a considerable length of time his exasperation knew no bounds and he stood up and poked the fish's flank with the end of his rod, the fish slowly moved across the stream a few inches and maintained his station.

Others swear by a Daddy long legs for August and rarely change their fly, a Doctor who fished here regularly in the middle of the week was a skilled angler but found himself struggling one week so purchased his first Daddy Long Legs from the fly box in the fishing hut. Within the hour he had broken his duck and ended up with three fish for the day. He didn't change his fly for the remainder of the month and caught fish on each visit despite a fly that when finally taken off his line was a Daddy One Leg.

Whichever approach is taken by the angler in tricky August conditions it has a far better chance of success if it is carried out positively and with confidence in the method, a negative approach leads to fishing by rote and fewer fish being put on the bank, and the succour that is September when conditions improve and fish feed a little harder in preparation for the rigors of spawning is just around the corner.

The August weed cut is upon us, twelve months ago the weed was dying off and algae was on the rise, this year the weed is in good health with less blanket weed, healthy weed at this time of the year helps to maintain water levels and it has just been a matter of trimming out the ribbon weed that threatens to grow clear of the water and hamper presentation of a fly.

The aquifers that feed the chalkstreams have fallen considerably since the flooding of last winter, historically they reach their lowest levels during September and October.. All the weed in this stretch of the Dever is cut with a scythe and it is possible to be fairly precise and cut bars that extend across the width of the river and help to hold the water up. Some anglers don't believe that it is possible to hold water up with weed, but each October I cut back much of the weed in the river and the level will drop up to ten inches, if a swan rips a hole in one of the bars or the weed becomes weak or smothered by blanket weed and pulls out and heads off downstream water depth on shallows can be reduced rendering them unattractive to brown trout and grayling who consequently congregate in deeper holes and sulk, continually spooking each other forgetting to feed and offer an easy target for avian predators. It's a particular problem on this stretch of the Dever which has quite a steep gradient for a chalkstream and the water doesn't need much of an invitation to rattle away through a gap in a bar of weed.
On the short stretch of the river Itchen that I look after there is no danger of this happening, it is not in the headwaters and has a greater discharge, the weed is cut in a completely different way, still with a scythe, but not with an eye to preserving water levels, it is much deeper with no shallows as such and the principle weed is ribbon weed that has been flowering four feet clear of the water' surface for a few weeks. This can make getting a fly on the water a little tricky so the plan for August weed cutting is cut all the ribbon weed out, the only short shallow lies at the head of the beat where the water exits a large hatch pool, the floods of last winter have scoured the pool to such an extent that a large amount of gravel spewed out of the tail of the pool leaving a sparkling gravel bar that is completely void of weed.

The marginal weeds have a big part to play in preserving the level of a falling river, currently in full flower and home to a million insects that draw the eye of pheasant poults on their first forays from the release pen, the marginal growth is slowly creeping out into the river helping to squeeze the diminishing flow and maintain a speed of flow that does not allow any deposition and keeps at least some of the gravels nice and clean. Each autumn I cut this marginal growth back. to open up the channel for a much need scrub behind the ears by increased winter flow. Over on the short stretch of the Itchen the depth of water means that the marginal growth does not encroach in the same way and it is managed in differently with the top taken off a few times a year. Each autumn I take the marginal growth down to half its height and cut back a proportion of what extends out into the river, it's been carried out this way for hundreds of years and also aids flood defence. I know when I first started on the river the theory was to get a neat and tidy line to the bank in order to get as much water scouring the edge of the river as possible, which has some merit but advances in machinery meant that this was carried out a little over zealously. A few years ago a complicated cabal of "experts" decreed that the practice was to be discouraged and many were instructed to cease management of marginal growth and allow it to do its own thing and grow out into the river. Last winter a short section of river upstream from here that, on expert advice had been managed in such a way for five years or more, (over the instincts of the resident riverkeeper with forty or more years experience). Infringed the main river channel to the extent that much of the river took a new course, backing up through the stock ponds of a nearby put and take trout fishery before breaking out across the water meadow to rejoin the main channel a hundred yards downstream, many fish escaped from the stock ponds and this year our anglers have banked many rainbow trout between two and four pounds, we don't stock rainbow trout and go some seasons without any being put on the bank.

The Dever converges with the Test around a mile downstream from here for the first four months of this year they made contact a mile further upstream as a Test carrier stream that had been "let go" made its way through an electricity substation across four fields of pasture to take out a chalk wall of several hundred years standing that never expected the river to come this way before making its way down the road into the river Dever.

There is a danger that people will drive at these two stretches of river and many others, with diggers and machines and clear marginal growth back every five years or so, although those charged with the care of the stretch upstream from here are making efforts to sort the errant growth out by hand on an annual basis. Management of marginal growth on this river may have become a little over officious but on a river that has been managed by man for a century or more the answer did not lie in abstention from a practice that had been undertaken for aeons, but in a recommendation to carry it out more sympathetically. The two stretches of river that I look after require different methods of fishery management, they can't be covered by a list of half a dozen modes of practice.

There are signs that the current River Restoration Strategy recognise this fact and also places some value on any local knowledge that may have accrued, unlike the daft policies of the past decade where management policies were generalised/nationalised and all were invited to conform to preconceived plans drawn up by "experts in the field"

On a lighter note, and donning my cape and cane, Calamity Jane at The Watermill Theatre was a triumph, the Kennet looked in pretty good shape too.

As I write England have just trounced an Indian side who no longer seem to have any interest in five day cricket. Shorter formats of the game are favoured in what is often described as the powerhouse of world cricket and their skill levels have suffered all the more for their extended time spent in their twenty over bubble. If India no longer value Test Cricket don't give them a five Test series, Sri Lanka, who were only granted two tests at the start of the summer seemed far more up for a game.

Automatic Reply: I am out of the office for a few days and will respond to your correspondence on my return. If your enquiry is of an urgent nature I can be contacted at chrisandtheladywhosleepsonhis left@snorkellingoffabeachincorfu.com

Thanks to everyone for filling in while we are away.

Looking for a patient, a sailor boy will do

Well all the water has nearly gone, and with the onset of ugly algae the sparkle that the river bore for the first half of the season is now dulled. Blanket weed and brown sludgey algae are a depressing sight after things had been progressing so well, but if this is the climatic boom and bust that we have been assured is on its way for the south east of England, we will need another winter like the last to restore the sparkle to the river. No mention has been made of diminishing groundwater in any form of media, but a quick peek down the borehole on the edge of the square of our local cricket pitch which sits slap bang in the centre of the river valley, reveals groundwater levels that are falling fast. It has made for tedious high summer fishing in the headwaters of this river, although from the middle river down fishing should be a little easier. Gin clear water and educated fish mean that tackle must be fined down and a fly presented with the utmost delicacy, it isn't easy and fading light at the end of the day improves the angler's chances when a host of caddis may persuade a fish to drop its guard, nymphs are worth a go in the day when many fish stick to sub surface feeding but anything too flashy or splashy will spook more than it attracts so drab patterns sympathetically presented are the way to go. The fringe in full bloom serves as part compensation for difficult fishing, it is at its most colourful throughout this month and draws the eye of a distracted angler with a plethora of butterflies, flutterbies and pretties.

A few times this week the light outside our front door has been left on in order to guide Child A and Child B home following midnight manoeuvres. Lights at University conveniently turn themselves off to conserve energy and minimise bills, which is great, but has rendered a generation unable to use light switches, or basin taps whose flow is quelled after ten seconds by magic sink pixies but at home quickly fills the soakaway.

Anyway,

On two occasions the outside light was left on through the night which attracted all manner of funny moths. This river valley is decidedly moth rich and each August we have a variety of colourful and intricately patterned moths cling to the wall. The pick of the bunch this week was a leopard skin number with an auburn head that we don't know the name of but have nicknamed Joan Collins. There have also been quite a few Blue Winged Olives hanging around the door, It's peak time for the BWO but numbers are still not a patch on twenty years ago.

Last Sunday morning while returning from the river a hen harrier worked its way up the valley, en silhouette it was difficult to determine whether it was male or female, but hen harrier it most certainly was. The common land downstream from here is prime hen harrier territory with wide expanses of low cover that they can take in while circling gracefully at height before descending to flop around at low level to seek out their quarry, they also work a few strips of maize planted for cover crops. Midweek while recovering from a season of educating small children, Madam was lazily reclining in the garden popping grapes into her mouth when looking up past the umbrella of her cocktail she picked out a quorum of birds at height, I was dispatched to retrieve binoculars and provide the information that she required namely "what are those birds" my trusty ten by twenty fives confirmed that one of the birds was undoubtedly a harrier, another two may also have been, they were a long way up and Madam was making other demands.

Hen harriers have been in a tad of trouble for some while, the RSPB and several others pointed the finger of blame firmly in the direction of the shooting community and illegal culling, a plan of action to aid its recovery was drawn up by DEFRA following consultation with Natural England, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the RSPB, and The National Gamekeepers Association. This was several years ago, The Hen Harrier Joint Recovery Plan has yet to be published there is suspicion that the report's findings didn't confirm preconceived ideas over the hen harrier's decline. We have hen harrier/ harriers on a substantial water meadow surrounded by three large commercial shoots run by professional game keepers and one small shoot keepered by a doofus who has been winging it for years.

An isolationist at heart who hankers for a cave and a stockpile of tinned food, I don't normally do petitions, but if you would like to see the hen harrier recovery report published please sign here :

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67527

Freedom for Tooting!

We also had a Hobby about last week,whuch is quite unusual but no petitioning required.

and now here's Bob with the News

In a speech this week, Coalition leader Prime Minister Cameron stated that Fracking in National Parks and environmentally sensitive areas will only be carried out in exceptional circumstances. What happened to the "Race to Frack" is a mystery that some have suggested is linked to the next general election.

A party spokesman said

"The accusation that the exceptional circumstances to which the Prime Minister referred are safe seats and no mention must be made of shale gas extraction in any marginal constituencies is completely unfounded"

Concerns remain over the current Government's eagerness to slacken shackles placed on fracking by the EU law, and some have interpreted today's statement as an attempt to reassure sceptics that the Government can be trusted to implement the required safeguards with regard to fracking,

A Mr Horace Hermit was quoted as saying:

"Weapons of mass destruction, failure to increase threshold on inheritance tax, stamp duty, national policies on fishery management, inept reports by companies of international repute, and the price of cider, yes, the price of cider, I could go on and probably will, but we are increasingly being mugged off by the loons who lead us"

and finally,

In a remarkable volte face, former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, aged 78, has had second thoughts on the sanctity of life and thinks that Dignitas may be on to something.

While we may do many aspects of life spectacularly well the western world's struggle with life's denouement is maintained.

Here's Tanya with the sport,

The Commonwealth games have been good, great atmosphere and well supported. The Gymnasts may carry a tad more timber and the divers shift a bit more water than Olympic competition, but...

Sorry while we are on gymnasts, when they are out walking in the country, and the law of percentages dictates that a number of their bendy band will be ramblers, how do they deal with gates and styles? is cover maintained and they pass through the obstacle as any other rambler would or is it too good an opportunity to miss for a brief run through of a routine.

Wardrobe have been asked to make Gary Lineker look a little less "football" his waistcoat midweek invoked a Pearly King/Queen on a down day, and the comfy sweater and slippers for the bowls coverage set the tone perfectly, thankfully he didn't do the diving. In the "Strictly" season Madam insists that she can identify who are wardrobe's favourite by the gowns they are given in which to implement their hoofing. Wardrobe's favourite at these games must be Rebecca Adlington who has looked sensational and made a fair fist of punditry by the pool, I couldn't comment on what Victoria Pendleton was wearing as she worked the radio waves in the Chris Hoy Pleasure dome, but she is a natural on the radio and an innovative analyst.

This week a senior Turkish minister called for women to smile less. In a Birmingham school girls were asked to sit at the back of the class, in some parts of the world, girls are denied an education and Prime Minister Cameron chaired a summit to highlight female mutilation.

Dark ages anyone?

A list of significant females could follow but won't, for fear of running out of download space, megabits or internet blobs.

From personal experience, if Child A had been denied books, an education, a smile, laughter and friendship with males she would be significantly diminished.

The subjugation of women by some societies is bonkers/abusive

Madam's mum has come to stay and the two have just returned from an evening at The Watermill Theatre near Newbury to take in a production of Calamity Jane, that they described as one the best theatrical experiences they had ever had. Tickets have been booked for a return visit with yours truly and Child A in tow; report to follow.

Several would testify that I will not watch a film unless a submarine features at some point and live theatre has never been my bag, but at the back of our wardrobe sits a cape and cane that were earned following hard graft treading the boards.

A seven night run as Lead Nurse in the 1978 Gang Show at Chester's Gateway Theatre has been described by some (mostly myself) as a triumph for provincial theatre and Melvyn Bragg once bemoaned the fact that fishery management's gain was the theatrical world's loss,

albeit during an advertisement break on The South Bank Show.

Most days I still run through the lines and ponder what could have been:

Lead Nurse; ( gusto )

When the Soldiers are in battle and the navy's gone to war,
they need to have a helping hand as all their wounds get sore,
we smother them in bandages and then we try to nurse,
but we seem to make them ten times worse,

Chorus: (ad captandum vulgus)

Looking for a patient, a sailor boy will do,
slings and splints and medicine, especially for you,

Barbra Dickson nabbed my gig in Chess and when I eventually bump into Elaine Paige I will remind her of that fact.

A portal to middle earth and the aquatic Von Trapps

The principle reason for this second sudden post lies with the Nicholas Chientarolli Trio, whose agent is insistent that this site has failed to fulfil contractual requirements,

So here’s another film with musical accompaniment by THE NICHOLAS CHIENTAROLLI TRIO (Block capitals as requested)

Here’s hoping Nico has finally developed a feel for the flugelhorn.

The film strives to achieve an aquatic version of the Sound of Music, with the transit Von Trapps portrayed by a pod of grayling. The minnows are edelweiss, and the fronds of ranunculus are Alps swaying in the breeze/flow.

Somewhere in the mix is a juvenile brown trout, feeding hard. We are told that forty or more years of stocking with diploid trout will have rendered him extinct, but there he is, like will o the wisp, coping admirably with all around him bar a grumpy grayling.

National Strategies for Riverine Fishery Management - load of b*&*!"£s, Regional's the way

In all this media stuff, I forgot to mention the large hole in the riverbed that had passed unseen below luxuriant weed until the weed cut just past.

About a foot in diameter and a gateway to inner earth, it is manna to the likes of Jules Verne, and conclusive proof of the existence a subterranean world. In reality it is probably a dormant portal to a groundwater supply that was pressurised during the winter months and found a convenient release into a bend of the river that was at the time in a state of turmoil.

Crustacea are not to be trusted

The July weed cut and in a diminishing discharge, today’s clearing down of cut weed has taken twice as long as during the June weed cut. Fishing is also twice as hard, with gin clear water and educated fish, a fish off the top in these times is worth four fish in May. Many fish will only look up during the last hour of the day and stick to sub surface dainties for sustenance on sunny days.

The fringe is bursting into bloom with monkey flower, loosetrife, forget me knots and many species of mint most prominent, while along the edge of the river cress creeps out providing a welcome squeeze to the flow. Blanket weed is putting in an appearance although not to the extent of recent seasons, and ranunculus that this time last year was dying off in what was a pretty sick river, is still in pretty good nick. We have a huge Pike on our bottom bends that spends much of its time lurking in the shade of various willows and on the flight pond where lilies flower and fledgling Kingfishers dive in gin clear water for Roach, Rudd, Perch and Bream fry,

Here for the first time is a short feature showing life in the pond,

We are contractually obliged to provide a musical score by Nicholas Chientaroli Trio in their chosen (if not mastered) medium of free jazz,

for which I apologise,

Take it away Nicholas

Two, three, four



The principle weed in the pond is canadian pondweed, many aquaria will sell the stuff as an oxygenator, and on this bright sunny day the bubbles of oxygen it produces via photosynthesis can clearly be seen. Most with a modicum of CSE Biology will be aware that the stuff will switch to respiration when the sun goes down and the bubbles will be full of carbon dioxide which will reduce the dissolved oxygen content. Low pressure also reduces the ability of a body of water to hold onto oxygen, which is why fish with a high oxygen demand in weedy water in warm weather with thunder in the air can find life a struggle, although these Perch appear to be in mid-season from.

No large fish now remain in the pond, fifty double figure carp and a similar number of bream to eight pound have been dragged out by the Otter. For the fish populations in this river and those charged with their care, Tarka is fast becoming “the elephant in the room”

A decidedly dopey swan also hung around for a while before disappearing last week, and today one of our chooks, who obviously didn’t attend the Tufty Club, cashed in her chips on the road. I’m not normally one for road-kill but this was a young bird with jugs like Jordan and had led a good life, so into the freezer she went. The winter barley in the back field has been cut and most nights draws the attention of the owls of this parish, most of whom visit the sycamore tree ten yards from our bedroom window at some point of a night to conduct a reverie of screeches and hoots.

One month ago a Biosecurity alert flashed through the ether warning of the presence of Signal Crayfish in the middle Itchen. A non native species and carrier of the notifiable disease “Crayfish Plague” it is bad news for any populations of native crayfish. Provided it is not stressed a Signal Crayfish can cope with a dose of the pox, the native crayfish has no immunity and can succumb quite quickly. Populations of native crayfish in the Test and Itchen are few and far between, but if one is found, and powerful people are employed full time to seek them out with their traps and baits, security are summoned and pickets posted. I have only ever seen two native Crayfish in this river system, one in a stew pond on the middle river and the other in the middle of Whitchurch twenty five years ago. The signal crayfish was introduced to Europe from America in the 1960’s and into the UK in the 1970’s to replenish native populations of crayfish that had succumbed to the plague, unfortunately it was not known at the time that most signal crayfish were carriers of crayfish plague. At college during the mid 1980s when famine was all over the press and fish farmers were going to “feed the world” crayfish farming was promoted as a prime business opportunity and many lakes were seeded with signal crayfish. Successes were few and far between and yields were much lower than those promoting the schemes promised, one of the characteristics of the signal crayfish being that if it doesn’t like the pond it is in it will get up and walk and find a body of water more to its liking. I once worked on a fish farm on the River Chess that was riddled with the things, a large hatchery sat at the centre of the site and once a week eggs would be treated with the fungicide malachite green (since banned after it made the ears fall of some mice during trials in the US) the ponds that received the water flowing out of the hatchery were void of crayfish, they don’t like malachite green, so they climbed out and walked off to another pond.

A chap who had a contract with British Airways to supply flight meals for the nabobs in first class, regularly set traps in the gravel pits surrounding the site. Fishing one gravel pit for Tench early one morning I swung in a dozen or more signal crayfish that the chap later told me that at over 20cm in length would be too large for first class BA who despite being accommodating towards hand baggage had strict rules on oversized freshwater crustacea.

The chronic advance of the signal crayfish offers little succour for the native crayfish which may well suffer the same fate as the Dodo sometime this century.

I may be leaving myself a litle open at this point bit I should point out that I don’t dig crustaceans in any form,

never have, never will.

It’s spiders for some, latex and rubber for others but show me a crab or any of its associates and I am on the back foot. A scuttling habit that betrays their shiftiness they possess claws that can sever a limb in a trice.

Crabs are not to be trusted.

The lady who sleeps on my left will confirm that I once woke screaming following a surfeit of cheese, convinced that a six foot lobster had taken up residence under our kitchen table.

While working part time at a leading saltwater aquarium on the south coast that once boasted the largest tank (aquatic not artillery) in Europe, my phobia was picked up on at an early stage. Three weeks in I was asked to pick up a hammer and secure some floorboards in a raised floor behind one of the displays, Hammer raised I homed in on a nail protruding from the floor, only for the boards to part and the mother of all edible crabs (at least two feet across) was thrust towards me from a “colleague” concealed beneath the floor. I fled through the public aquarium, arms flailing while the mother of all crabs with a four inch nail protruding from her left claw was an attraction for quite some time, until the nail worked its way out.

No, crabs are not to be trusted, and positions must be defended with sufficient force.

Around the turn of the century, in an unintentional incident of carpet bagging, instigated by advice to opt out of Serps, Mdme and myself received a four figure windfall. Brief consideration was given to saving the money, paying off debts or investing wisely, which were swiftly dismissed, and the bunce blown on a three week trip to Sri Lanka to watch some cricket and sit on the beach. Not an official tour, we rocked up at Colombo with a six year old and eight year old to take in teeth in temples, orphaned elephants and a cricket crazy country. We hooked up with a tuk tuk driver called Jai who transported us everywhere and insisted we sit with his mates in the old Test Ground at Kandy for a ticket that cost fifty pence. Our hotel sat on top of the hill, had a swimming pool full of frogs and was surrounded by chattering monkeys. A spider as big as my hand resided briefly behind the loo in our room before it was carefully relocated outside at Madam’s request. Two weeks later we were ensconced in a bothy on a beach near Galle when, with night time ablutions complete, scuttling from underneath my bed came a crab, Madam returning from her toilet was unperturbed and bent down to relocate the errant crustacean when from over her shoulder came a shoe travelling at pace, that smote the invader and reduced it to a hundred pieces,

High on adrenalin standing on the bed fists tightly clenched and pumping, I was slowly coaxed back to planet earth. Child B, a budding cricketer was impressed with my throwing accuracy, but deep down the fatherly advice that I desperately want to pass on was that crabs are not to be trusted.

To carry on with cricket, Mdme and myself enjoyed the fourth day at the Lords Test. We are very fortunate to be chucked a couple of tickets by one of the regular rods, and one, both or child B and friends have been rocking up in the Member’s friends stand for over twenty years. I keep an unused ticket for the Ashes Test in 1993 in my wallet. I was due to attend but Mdme went into labour with Child A and I took in the game from the maternity ward, the ticket is regularly produced as evidence in discussions with Child A over sacrifices made over the past few years. In a West Indies Test Child B and myself were recruited as back ground eye candy to Channel 4’s pre match coverage and had to sit on a picnic table on the nursery ground next to a big West Indian man and a chap in stripey blazer and feign cricket based conversation, while Channel 4’s “stars” sallied forth on the issues of the day on the principle picnic table. Mike Atherton, Michael Holding and Simon Hughes all came over for a chat once a wrap had been called, and Mark Nicholas sailed by summoning subordinates, make-up and hair.

Top tier of the Warner stand is the goal, but seats are not allocated so a queue forms from 8am of members and friends. Once your seat is secured it is yours for the day a Duchess could dump her tiara on her seat in the Warner Stand and pootle off for a circuit of the ground in the knowledge that all will be in order on her return. Champagne corks are popped from 9.30 am onwards and many have dozed off by the start of play.

The men’s loos in the Warner stand have some of the few urinals at Test grounds that provide a clear view of play, I once relieved myself next to Brian Barwick former CEO of the FA, at the time I was on the committee of Barton Stacey Football Club and was particularly irked over the FA’s decision to ban any reporting or recording of Under 8 football results, while he battled to maintain a steady stream I struck, and in full flow, berated him on the FA’s position and also on their “Respect” campaign that grass roots clubs were earnestly trying to implement while the professional game paid it lip service. Barwick’s response of zipping up his flies and exiting stage left seemed a little unsatisfactory and I was more than a little pissed off, although the few drops spilt on his decidedly pricey shoes served as some recompense. I could go on, and have a fund of tales of brief encounters with all manner of celebs and sportsmen. Cricket highlights include an ugly double hundred by Graeme Smith that was not the most intriguing day’s cricket but a young Andrew Flintoff who never gave up despite Smith’s turgidity was an inspiration for a young Child B, and ticking the box that you have seen Tendulkar, Lara, Pietersen, Murali, Warne, Ambrose, Kallis may bore the next generation but may also serve to keep a flame burning in later life. The atmosphere at South Africa’s reintroduction to Test Cricket in 1994 was unforgettable, and the tension times ten that comes with watching Ashes cricket contrasts completely with the conviviality of the Lords crowd.

It is one of our favourite days out, and this year was no exception as the result hung in the balance for much of our stay throughout the fourth day.

Graduation day for Child A last week and a proud day for Madam and myself as Child A picked up her first class gong with honours. Sandy Toksvig head honcho of the establishment wore a hat and gave a brilliant speech. We returned home, pausing only for excessive consumption of Italian food and wine at one of Winchester’s finest Trattatatoria, The final pieces of the postgraduate study jigsaw are falling into place and will commence once a four week tour of Europe is completed.

Not on an open top bus,

but with a friend on an inter rail ticket, beginning in Bulgaria and ending on the beach in Croatia.

Chris and Glenn, Diamond Nights and Pulling Muscles

On the Dever conditions remain good with gin clear water and reasonable hatches of fly. This time last year blanket weed was blooming, weed was losing condition, and fishing was becoming increasingly difficult; this year fish continue to be caught although many are becoming increasingly fickle. Today a seriously senior fish that sat under the trunk of a large willow opposite the bench on the bottom bends for several years, was hooked and lost at the net. What caused its error of judgement in the middle of the afternoon on a bright June day we can only surmise, in cricketing terms the fish was in and seeing it like a football having grown large after accurately picking the googlies and flippers that man had flicked past his nose. The fish has returned to its lair and weighs between six and seven pounds with a commitment to stick to sub surface feeding and may offer another chance later in the season when nymphs are permitted, but I’d put money on it’s appearance at the same venue on the opening day of next season,

Otters permitting.

Parts of this river are currently being hammered by hungry Otters.

I could go on, but will refrain for fear of offending, but fish populations are seen as little more than fodder in some short sighted quarters.

The short stretch of the Itchen that I intermittently fall in and out of, does not seem to be faring as well. Flows remain good and weed growth is ok but hatches of fly and rising fish are not what they have been during the previous two seasons.

Back on the Dever we have quite a few Pike and adult eels with a mind to spawning are beginning to make their way downstream. The European eel population has been described as suffering a collapse during the last thirty years, numbers of adult eels in this river are certainly down and fewer eels are now caught commercially from this river compared to thirty years ago. Over exploitation in freshwater is not the cause of their decline, both this river and the neighbouring Itchen supported a commercial eel fishery using methods that had not changed for hundreds of years. The decline is evident across Europe and as with the Atlantic Salmon, another animal that splits its time between freshwater and the sea and encounter the travails of international waters, Anguilla Anguilla is an incredibly complex creature that may require a little help at an international level, although reports of increasing runs of glass eels in the Severn system offer some encouragement.

Anyone visiting Romsey in the coming weeks may care to tool down to the public park and river bank where, as part of the Romsey Festival, a group of locals and an environmental artist are aiming to raise awareness of the chalkstream environment, which many in the town may have fallen out with during the winter months as their front rooms became part of the chalkstream environment.

After visiting Romsey it is well worth sneaking the back way into the New Forest. Madam and myself needed to be out of the house for a day so we headed down the west side of Southampton water, taking in Eling Tide Mill, before entering Hythe for a coffee on the waterfront and a quick deco at the train on the Victorian pier that serves the Hythe to Southampton passenger ferry. Lepe next, a bit out of the way, but a great place for a picnic on an interesting beach with country park that still entertains the idea of dogs, which pleased Otis immensely. Ignoring Exbury Gardens where Child B once mistook large lily pads for stepping stones and discovered that he could not walk on water, and is now ridiculously overpriced, to peer briefly at Beaulieu before our last stop of the day at Lymington, a place that we have visited many times over the years and whose “chi chi” factor rises with each visit but still does great chips that were eaten by the harbour. A welcome recharge and a holiday in a day, the temptation is often to drive somewhere for a few hours in order to have a day out but it is very easy to forget what is to be had closer to home.

Last week we received our annual summer inspection by village elders. A difficult crowd who I have had dealings with on several occasions, they massed on the lawn to take in a fantastic falconry display before clearing a table bearing an enormous tea. Alan, the falconry man, always puts on a good show and brought many birds, including some really interesting owls and a Falkland Isle Caracara, a funny falcon that followed Alan around like a dog at heel making a right racket.

The man whose voice I have fallen asleep to on many occasion has now retired. Tributes flooded in, most concentrated on his no nonsense interviewing style and intolerance of flim flam, particularly when presented with an oily politico. Few mentioned his passion for fly fishing or his support for angling causes. I once shared a petri dish with the bloke on a Riverfly Partnership aquatic invertebrate day a few years ago. He wouldn't remember me, but across a four inch plastic dish with a pipet and tweezers Jeremy Paxman came across as a top bloke, very bright with a complete absence of airs and graces.

Football, well punditry mainly, as two weeks of middle aged males in shirts with big collars sitting smugly with their legs open inanely opining on games that they are paid to watch are starting to give me the pip,

I shall attend to Phil Neville presently

Groovy Lineker and Forrest Shearer et al’s contribution to the BBC’s coverage offer little value to the licence payer, but well done to Rio Ferdinand for using a nine letter word following the Brazil v Chile game (delicious)

On the other side the description of the match provides a field for an interminable battle of the tenses with Glen Hoddle and Sally Gunnel’s twin Andy Townsend in the thick of the action. Fabio Cannavaro remains stuck in a Dolce & Cabbana advert ( the label on the tight black undercrackers that I purchased on the market at 3 for £5 confirms that this spelling is correct) and Martin O’Neil has been summoned from the subs bench to string some sentences together.

TV sport’s fixation with using past players as pundits and commentators is contributing to a dumbing down of sport presentation, I have not seen him present on TV, but I have heard it said that following the curtailment of his football career it was revealed that Michael Owen is crafted entirely of wood and was first plucked from Gepetto’s bottom drawer, marked “requires more attention”



Chrissy Waddle is an exception and it is now clear who was the mental powerhouse behind the Chris and Glenn eighties combo who came up with the smash hits, Diamond Lights, Cool for Cats, Pulling Muscles and Up the Junction.

Quick thinking, bold and confident in his opinion he is a diamond amongst the Coles (Andy, Andrew, Ashley, Joe, Carlton, Old King, etc ete)

And then came Phil Neville,

Embarking on his punditry odyssey during the keenly anticipated competition opener for Old Albion against the Eye-ties (there speaks one raised on “Warlord” and “Battle & Action”) Phil was keen to gain gravitas and demonstrate that he could work a syllable or two.

From this day forward he would be known as Phillip.

His delivery, in the style of a man in a mac on a late night train, leaning in to a vulnerable lady with filth foremost on his mind, drew mixed reviews.

Why make his punditry debut in this game?

Mark Lawrenson is a safe pair of hands who has operated considerably above the bar set in recent weeks, why not stick with him and give Phillip nee Phil, a few Ryman league Two games to get his eye in,

Why?

Because Phillip nee Phil, is an ex footballer whose name is Neville and has a brother that has received much attention for his football punditry on another channel, although this has primarily been built on the back of a multitude of technological bells and whistles. Never mind Phillip’s inability to carry out the task presented, lack of intonation or knowledge of how to speak into a microphone, he had the right name and that was good enough for middle management decision makers at the BBC who must now grapple with the decision of which Neville next?



Odds are shortening on Tracey Neville for the quarter finals, Aaron Neville is a “shoe in” for the semis and brief interjections of Ivor Novello’s dittys at specific points during the final should provide some high points.

You heard it here first.

On the radio, the BBC can lay claim to England’s “stand out” performer of this world cup. Tim Vickery is the BBC’s South American football correspondent and has lived and breathed South American football for over twenty years. Where Forrest Shearer remarks “that fella in the white shirt with the number ten on the back kicked it with his right foot towards the goal” (for which Forrest is rewarded with a six figure plus salary). Vickery will proffer information on the striker’s performance for his club over the last few seasons, his first choice of easy listening music and his grandmother’s favoured nightcap. He mines a deep seam of southern hemisphere football knowledge and adds colour to the piece where TV punditry offers drab and stark negative.
Vickery is not an ex player, but a great communicator with a wide knowledge of his subject. Retired professional sportsmen do not always meet this remit, no matter how good they look in a sharp shirt, tight jeans, fresh out of the gym. Vickery should be at the centre of the BBC’s world cup coverage, for the first fortnight he has been consigned to late night work on the radio, which suggests he does not possess a sharp shirt and tight trousers, has not played the game professionally or his legs did not part to the width required while uttering a few words on a game that we have all just watched. Never mind the insight that he may have been able to provide, not only on the nub of the situation but the little bits around the edge.

BT Sports foresaw the dearth of personality in the mainstream channel's coverage and pitched the Baker & Kelly show between the first two games of each day. A supreme communicator with a spectacular grasp of english language, Baker does not have a past playing career, attend a gym or don high collared shirts, although he did shift some Daz. He may drink a little wine and ruffle a few feathers now and again, but he is a prime example of skilful broadcasting. His Saturday morning show on Radio 5 is the only show to which I will gather the family around the wireless in a 1950’s kind of way to smoke pipes and feast on powdered egg for two hours,

If we are in 2014 mode and are busy, we may catch the podcast later in the week. He has won countless Sony radio awards, his absence from the daily BBC radio schedule is beyond me.

Switching sports, cricket just about gets away with the ex player thing. Jon Agnew had a career in local radio prior to his elevation to TMS and Ed Smith, comes across as a bright light who will get better and better, but Simon Mann’s skill behind the microphone shines through, vindicating his career choice of professional broadcaster over gun running following his release from an Equatorial Guinea Gaol.

Tennis on the radio is poorer for John Inverdale’s absence. Bumbling about Crystal Palace on a family day out a few years ago we took in Kelly Holmes completing endless circuits of the athletics training track as a warm up to an important race at the Crystal Palace athletics meeting. Inverdale walked by and the lady who sleeps on my left remarked that “he was no looker” to which I replied “maybe, but he is very tall.”

Height now seems to preclude professional broadcasters from presenting tennis on the radio.

Inverdale’s place this year has been taken by Marion Bartoli, height 5 ft 7in.

The testosterone level of Radio 5 live’s afternoon radio has been turned down as atonement for Inverdale’s brief burst of louche vernacular last year and long periods now pass in the manner of Loose Women.

Adjusting the balance button on my radio does not rectify this,

Is it me?

Hermit’s Beard – Check
Loin Cloth – Check
Fist suitably clenched to wave at the outside world – Check

To the cave!