Vision On and The Wheel of Justice

Ladies and Gentleman our house band The Detroit Spinners,

Weren't they great everyone?

Just back from another fun trip to the Carron, where, after three weeks without rain, the heavens opened the river rose eighteen inches overnight and fish ran the river. Unfortunatey the only fish I hooked came off quite quickly and then all too soon it was time to come home.

Oh well, but thanks as ever for the invitation.

I've just been informed (many times) that in the cause of protecting data I am required to offer you the opportunity of looking elsewhere should this guff have been forced upon you. Please be assured that the door is open and anyone can leave at anytime should they so wish.

Back on the Carron, throughout our stay there were men clad in high viz working with no little fever in and around a building by the road bridge on the Amat estate. I made enquiries and it turns out the small cluster of dwellings nine miles up a single track road in one of the more remote corners of these Isles is to receive the gift of super fast full fibre broadband.

Which is great.

So why can't this small cluster of houses less than an hour drive from what some would have as the greatest city on earth have it as well?

We remember fondly the days of our quarter meg dial up connection and my employer who uses the hopeless landline broadband connection, spends most days in a fug of buffering while we are forced to rely on our expensive 3G mobile provider for a speed of not much north of half a megabyte.

Anyway I'll avoid kicking off about Open Reach and BT as it will only make my eyes go all twitchy again.

The mayfly is finally underway and fish are coming out in numbers. Late afternoon through to early evening is currently the best time for peak rise with fish continuing to be a little picky early in the day.

The river is incredibly clear and lush weed growth is causing some bits of bank to become decidedly mushy. We have swifts, swallows and martins and our resident pair of swans have given birth to their perennial sygnet. I have already disturbed several grass snakes and recent intense storms have caused many bankside trees to dip a branch towards the water. It is now all too apparent which ash trees must be attended to next winter and also the following winters. .It seems to take five or six years between this insidious disease progressing from the outer reaches of the crown to the death of the tree.

This one's in the early stages of the disease, the dead shoots in the outermost points of the crown area as brittle as breadsticks

After three years of suffering

Five or six years in

This ash tree shows no sign of the disease.

Nor this pair of trees

because they are oak trees.

Dutch Elm disease gets all the heat when it comes to arboreal genocide but ash die back will push it close.






Oh yes, further bonifides required please Mr Gove. This time on sandwich fillings. Last week, in the resumption of his quest for higher office he implored us all to eat more lamb sandwiches.

I'm not a fan of the lamb sarnie. Chicken, beef and pork, pulled or otherwise are fine as fillings for a sunday evening sandwich in front of Arthur Negus et al but all sensible people (northern folk in particular) agree that the best treatment for leftover lamb is several days of slow cooking in red wine and herbs with some shallots and carrots topped with sliced potatoes and a big dollop of pickled cabbage (or sauerkraut if the EU is upon you) later in the week

The cove Gove seems to have been hewn from the same rock as Mr Mandleson who once famously entered a northern fish and chip shop and requested some of the mashed avocado with his chips

"That'll be mushy peas then" came the reply.

Yes, Bonafides please Mr Gove, Bonafides. Not only with regard to sandwich fillings but also for the post which you currently hold.


While we're on meat. In the name of cutting down on red meat in order to attain a perfect cholesterol level of four point something, we've just devoured a very nice piece of Hampshire Bred top rump. It came to light during this fine repast that with four jars of horseradish and four jars of mustard I had fast become the Imelda Marcos of the condiment world.

It was a shame that the Chairman of the EA's warning last week regarding the need to preserve our water supply in the decades to come was met with such derision in the media. I don't know if Mr Chair visits this house but regular readers/sufferers will know that we have been banging on about this very subject for many years. Editorial comment in several of supposedly more enlightened news papers demonstrated that we have a long way to go in getting the message across that our current method of sourciing water in the South is unsustainable and precious aquatic environments, principally groundwater fed chalk rivers, (85% of planet earth's chalk streams) will be impacted upon.

Later this week I will be charged with spinning the wheel of the justice.

The welcome pack from the Courts of Justice states that I cannot take my clever idiot proof camera into court so with a nod to Tony Hart I've whipped out the pastels and crayons, eschewed the kodachrome.

The next chunk of guff may be a little "Vision On" when it comes to images to serve as a reminder of my time in the wig, tights and cape.

In dog news, Otis has sore feet again.

It happens every year when he is in malt (hair falling out, he's not a whisky drinker) Hair folicles become infected between his toes and he assumes a mincing tread. A course of antibiotics have him podding about again within a week but getting him to swallow the things are a bit of a trial. His Uncle Zebo could famously eat around any peas placed in his dinner and while a knob of cheese with a pill hidden discretely within used to work for Otis, he now rejects any cheap cheese offered, will suffer 36 month old Davidstow, but wolfs down a pill wrapped in half a slice of Prosciutto or Serrano.

He has become quite the gourmand in later life and the cost of the delivery method of each pill may soon exceed the cost of the pill itself!

Names Currently under consideration for impending puppy.

Boots McArther - Came to me in a dream,
Pontebodkin - Bridge based which seems apt
Karius - Noooooooooooo!
Uncle Peter - I may have got stuck on Vic & Bob while undertakimg research for a film earlier in the piece.
Lister - Ditto
Michael Gove - Hmmmm, bonafides for work as a Labrador required.