Dear Chris

As promised, by one who never knowingly broke the cub scout law, here is a reply from the company themselves. Three weeks after receiving my letter, which is understandable as it must have been a difficult letter to write.

They put a lot of thought into this one.

I feel the three weeks of hand wringing in hair shirts is clear in the tone of the piece, contrite, apologetic and with an unwavering commitment to refund any monies paid for a broadband service not received.

Sorry, what I meant to say was

What a completely inadequate response, but then history teaches us to expect little more.




Oh yes,

Caroline Nokes and the team in her office have been brilliant and I have received several phone calls regarding their progress with BT.
The ministry have yet to get in touch after David passed it on to them and not a squawk from Citizen Jez, but I listen to PMQ's with half an ear cocked for "I have received a letter from a citizen Chris"

Gerard Manley Hopkins and a Slingsby Flat Pack

Breaking News:

Spring broken upstream, trickle of water flowing in ditch next to football pitch.

Always a good sign with regard to the precipitation ledger, and during the recent brief cold dry snap the river cleared and maintained a good level instigating a Monty Burns "eeexcellent" moment during early morning skirmishes with Otis as its a sure sign of increasing groundwater flow.

My clever digital weather station that streams live weather information direct to the comfort of our kitchen (a big thing for us, void as we are of the mythical poles and line broadband supply) informs us that we reached a minimum low temperature of minus eight degrees two nights running, which is good to know as we need cold weather at some point during a winter.

Much of my time in 2016 has been spent chainsaw in hand, or with head in a fire. Several of the willows that had a high old time of it in 2015 after I was distracted by Christmas trees last winter, have now been dealt with and fishing on a few of the bends will be quite different this year. I am occasionally joined in my task by Lord Ludgershall, and at this point we'll pause for a commercial break.

BLUE FIRELIGHTERS

As the years progress do you feel the need for a little assistance to light the fire? then blue firelighters are the thing for you.

Guaranteed to set fire to the dampest wood

That's Blue firelighters folks

Contact details for further advertising enquiries - www.adverts-r-us.com


We'll pimp anything to swell the holiday fund, buy bits of broadband and pay the taxman

The willows: we have a few more weeks work and have had to take down some substantial specimens that were once afforded protection by the stand of Christmas trees but stood sentinel throughout last season until a late summer breeze sent two leaf laden trees toppling into the river. It may look a little stark for the first half of this year but there is plenty of cover coming up behind plus a couple of dozen hardwood trees that have gone in.

We are burning most of what is cut, leaving a few select pieces for all the things that like a bit of dead wood. I am a fond friend of fungi as my athlete's feet will attest ,and the scarlet elf cap in particular seems to like a little dead willow laid about.

The order has also gone in for a whole heap of green oak for bridge work. I don't follow the timber index, but green oak cut to order from the sawmill does seem to be incredibly good value. There are a few logistics to be run through with this one as the posts must be piled into water that is only just wadeable, Photos to follow as soon as I have formed my plan of action, meanwhile here's the ads:



GOTA KUBOTA FOR ALL YOUR ORANGE TRACTOR NEEDS,

Couple it with a Slingsby flat pack off road trailer for the complete utility vehicle experience,

Living the off road dream!

Ah Condor

Yes, we'll even promote the taboo if there's coin to be had, age appropriate or otherwise, any time, anywhere that's martini

See above for details on placing your advert in this space.

Owls are on the up, and I see at least one barn owl most mornings, sometimes two, not seen any of the short eared variety on the common for a few months but they will be down there somewhere. The merlin is also playing around in the hedge that borders the road and we have followed him up the road in the car on several occasions this year.

Some while ago I was kindly given a book titled 100 poems on the Underground, a compilation of poems displayed on tube trains to provide succour to the world weary subterranean traveller .

When the darkened room is unavailable and the pan pipe music ineffective it is to this book that I sometimes turn to soothe my middle aged ire at a crackpot world.

I have several favourites and once managed to fit large chunks of Gerard Benson's interpretation of Beowulf into a series of football reports, although a passage about Grendel and his vengeful mother in an U14 match report resulted in a flurry of emails and a query from the FA.

William Blake's "The Sick Rose" in which he agonises over thrips, never fails to sooth, and Charles Causley's "I saw a jolly hunter" continues to serve as a reminder on gun safety. Love the Lear, don't get Chaucer and any Gerard Manley Hopkins takes me back to a comfortable chair in an airless stuffy room in the middle of the afternoon and an anodyne A level English Literature lesson and the genesis of a forty winks habit.

There is one poem that I inevitably revisit if I am in this book, and if anyone can help me out with this one, I'd be most grateful as I am not sure if there is a double meaning, as I'm convinced it is a note left to his wife on the kitchen table as he left to walk the dog,

Who am I to say, and there are some in The Hague who set some store by this verse, but I've chucked up similar pieces at the break of dawn.

This is Just to Say

by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)


I have eaten
the plums
that were
in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


The first verse may be a euphemism, and the title may be prophetic with William confident that his work would be discussed through the ages or
it may be that the long lost last verse:

tuck in
to smoked bacon
in fridge
and eggs also


Was torn from the bottom of the page at somepoint.

I don't know,

but if you do, don't be a stranger.

It's got me thinking (well done for that William) and think on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Only Connect indeed,

That last bit may be wrong and "Only Connect" may be something to do with E.M Forster's 1980's yachting drama Howards' Way

like I said, I slept through a large proportion of my A Level English Literature lessons in the mid 80s

And so to Broadband. The orange light continues to flash, we have no broadband service through our phone line, and our mobile broadband bill for this month with a week or more to go has passed three figures.

I await updates from the Ministry and my MP, but have heard not a dicky from BT not a word. A couple of papers have been alerted and today a friend has suggested other avenues to explore. Today's paper has a letter from one hundred and twenty odd MPs calling the leading/sole provider of telecommunications via poles and lines to these Isles to book for being tardy in their efforts to meet OFCOM's requirement of 10mb supply to 95% of the British Isles.

10mb!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had 0.5mb and that went away.








While we are on the phone to OFCOM, can we please attend to the mobile telecommunications companies and their punitive charges for exceeding monthly internet data allowances,

It's a right old scam.

This guff has been brought to you by an expensive mobile broadband supply. no poles and lines,

Definitely no poles and lines.

Moderately fast broadband indeed.

Dear David et al

Apologies for tardiness regarding posts,

Up to our eyes in it at the moment with the opening skirmishes of the perennial battle with the forces of crack willow in which I have once again been joined by Lord Ludgershall.

Reports despatched from the front line, and will be up on here the moment the pigeon lands, there's no censorship here.

By way of a commercial break, and if anyone out there wants to give me money for logos between posts, I'm happy to pimp most things. Here's a letter we chucked together last week and sent to Flash, Citizen Jez, our own MP and many people at the nation's premier supplier of telecommunications via the medium of poles and lines
We had a nice reply from Flashy's man, and "la Nokes", our active MP, left a very nice voicemail, intimating that she was on the case. Jez is a bit busy with submarines at the moment, and didn't the Beatles try this kind of thing in the sixties and how soon before Jez pipes up at QMT " I have a letter from Chris in Hampshire who wants to know why all our submarines are not painted yellow"

Effective opposition anyone?

Anyway, we await a response from our friends at the telecommunication company, although we have made a point of ignoring any calls flagged up as International.

Why Maureen, Why?

Never can a company have been so undeserving



Stable Cottage
Bransbury
Barton Stacey
Winchester
Hants
SO21 3QJ
01962 760442
chrisdecani@googlemail.com

7th January 2016



Forgive me for writing as I am sure you are very busy, and my problems must be small beer in comparison to the main business of your day, but I am at the end of my wits and am inclined to draw your attention to my own situation regarding broadband service, for which I apologise in advance.

Some years ago, my family and I were pleased to make our first connection to what we were promised was the future of internet connection, a broadband service via poles and lines that allowed us to surf the internet and answer phone calls simultaneously.
For a short period things went well and we walked tall, confident in the knowledge that we were at the forefront of contemporary technology.

And then the wind blew.

Our line went crackly and the internet ran away.

Many hours were spent on the phone, filters were changed and eventually a man came out to fiddle with a connection, and internet returned.

And then it rained, and the internet went away again

Many hours were spent on the phone, filters were changed and eventually a man came out to fiddle with a connection, and internet returned.
My children began their secondary school education, and the internet became essential. There was homework to be completed, research to be undertaken and pieces of work to be submitted

And then a brief zephyr sent the internet away again.

Many hours were spent on the phone, filters were changed and eventually a man came out to fiddle with a connection, and internet returned, but by now my children were accustomed to spending evenings at other peoples' houses or in school to do their school work and my wife and I occasionally huddled together in the garden of a neighbouring garden to blag some internet from a nearby holiday cottage.

This pattern continued for over a year before the leading provider of telecommunications via poles and lines to these Isles agreed that something should be done.

And at this point, I'll let in a little light on our location.

We live forty miles from, what some would have, as the greatest city on earth. Yes it's rural, but we are a minute from a major road network in the south of England betwixt a town and city each five miles away, both of which have a population of over seventy thousand and rising
The ancient telegraphic spur that runs a mile down the lane to feed three houses, including our own home was initially put in to serve the main house of the village and its staff quarters with the first phone line to the area. Some years later the remainder of the village were provided with a phone box from a different telephone exchange before all of the houses were connected up to the supply which currently provides a perfectly use-able broadband supply to the remainder of the village including our next door neighbour.

During the process of deciding on what course of action to take, my exhortations to connect to next door's supply thirty yards away albeit to a different exchange, were met by obfuscation and a dead bat, and the telecommunications company’s planning department decreed that twenty five poles and a mile and a half of line must be replaced in order to preserve this ancient telegraphic spur to these three houses on the very limit of being able to receive a broadband supply ( 7.5 km from the exchange) rather than put one pole in the ground, bury a bit of cable and connect to the other exchange that supplies the property next door from a closer exchange with a reliable broadband supply.

By this time my children had completed their school studies (mostly at other people's homes) and were off to University. Our broadband service via the new twenty five poles and line remained close to unusable and I developed an eye condition usually associated with steroid abuse or stress. It's a tranquil life on the river where I work and the withered husk that remains of my form is testament to a life free of steroids, the condition was attributed entirely to my dealings with BT (sorry name popped out there) over many years. This coincided with a lengthy exchange of emails with the head Office of BT (oops done it again) and I received contrite replies, a small refund, and we both agreed to part company.

Six months later, my eyesight returned to what it was before the BT broadband debacle.

For three years, the lady who sleeps on my left and I got by on 15GB of 3G mobile internet a month for around £20.

Youtube, live streaming and internet TV were but a dream that we occasionally experienced on holiday (nine miles up a single track road in the north of Scotland, an hour off mainland Croatia, fishing on a tributary of the Loire)

But we were content with our daily checking of emails and purchases on eBay.

And then the children returned.

Having wallowed in a surfeit of gigabytes available in the urban environment, our 15GB was done in a night. Monthly charges for extra gigabytes are punitive and for a few months the monthly bill for our mobile internet service approached £200, which to us is a lot of money, as we don't live in the big house. I am the riverkeeper/gamekeeper and my wife works in the local school.

We have been forced to return to the service provided by the ancient telegraphic spur that serves these three houses, and now it doesn't work. It is unable to cope with modern internet life. When it was just about working and filling our home with 0.5 mb of internet it took over twenty four hours to download a copy of a newspaper to which I subscribe,

yesterday’s news today, if you will.

Two months ago our 0.5mb died altogether.

I once again revisited the circus that is BT customer service, my first three attempts to register a broadband fault lasted almost three weeks and resulted in line engineers arriving to fix a telephone fault

Broadband was not their thing, line faults were their bag.

Further attempts to book a broadband engineer began to make my eye twitch and I resolved to try for a couple more weeks before once again washing my hands of the shower that is the leading supplier of telecommunications via poles and lines to these Isles and resigning myself to the crippling cost of providing an internet service for my family via the mobile network.

We have since been visited three times by Broadband engineers, all of whom gave of their best, but could not restore the 0.5mb supply and departed scratching their heads at the decision taken five years ago to replace twenty odd totems and a mile and a bit of line rather than connect to the neighbouring exchange via a pole thirty yards away providing what would pass as a reasonable broadband connection for the countryside.

For the past two months I have paid for a broadband supply but received not one byte. At no point have I been offered a refund or any genuine sympathy been shown to our plight. I have suffered the stress of having to deal with a company that takes obfuscation as its watch word and holds its customers in contempt. I have been informed that BT will be in touch to advise me of their next course of action, but I won’t hold my breath.

I know a couple of planners, and am aware of the fine line that must be trod by in order to progress our Isle as it fills up and the hours that must be put in to achieve that end. I am not convinced that the BT planning/heritage department put in the required research, when they made the decision five years ago to maintain an ancient telegraphic spur a mile or more long with the ropiest of internet connections, rather than connect to a supply a few yards away albeit to a different exchange,

Nuts

To recap: Forty miles from one of the greatest cities on earth - BT broadband supply via Poles and Lines 0 – 0.5mb.

Places that members of our family have experienced a far faster internet connection during the past five years:

Greek Islands (who’d a thought with their economy)
Croatian Islands (keen to join the high rollers of the European Union)
A riverbank an hour north of Inverness, nine miles up a single track road
A riverbank in the Sologne, a long way from anywhere
Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Rheims, Dublin
Most of the Balkans, where Child A was backpacking last October

Internet supply from exchange 7.5km from our home to which we are connected: 0-0.5mb
Internet supply from exchange 2km from our homen to which next door are connected: 8-12mb

Why are we still connected to the former?

Yours in much frustration and a dearth/absence of internet supply


A family of four, on average household wage paying up to £200 per month to receive low quality 3G mobile broadband supply

Superfast broadband indeed





Chris de Cani

on behalf of Rachel, Maisie, William and Otis de Cani


I promise that I will do my best
To do my duty to God and to the Queen (crikey! the commitments we made back in the day,I may need to revisit that one)
To help other people (still holds)
And to keep the cub scout law

a late amendment to the Cub scout law: I promise to post any replies I receive, on internet supply, submarines or otherwise.

This post has been brought to you via the medium of a decidedly shaky mobile broadband supply,

No poles or lines

Definitely no poles and lines

Hovering, Homer and David Beckham

Erm, it seems to be 2016,

not sure how,

but we are where we are, Happy New Year an all that, but let us attend to matters arising in the first world.

First on the agenda - Hover boards with wheels?

I don't think this is quite what Bleep and Booster promised us in the Blue Peter annuals of the seventies, and smacks of corners being cut in the research and development department and a repackaging of old roller skate technology.

In an age of transparency and authenticity, hover boards should at least hover.

If at this point we turn to the Macmillan Dictionary for guidance we find that "to hover" is - to remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air,

While the Urban Dictionary teaches us that "to hover" is- not sitting on the toilet seat during defecation

Whatever your take on "hovering" there is no mention made in either definition of a pair of wheels.

Through the Froth we shall now attend to more serious matters and the flooding which has blighted the north and missed the south.

It's no fun being flooded, and the severity of some of the out of bank experiences are quite alarming but the stoicism of those affected has been nothing short of life affirming.

I have heard many radio programmes and seen several interviews where our man from the media has arrived in a haze of hyperbola trying to whip Joe Public into a frenzied rage. The car salesman in Kendall made light of his soggy situation, the farmer in York who accepted water on fields that were a flood plain and toured them in his boat ( because, yes it had happened before, and he had made preparations) the lady in a village in the lake district who put on her rubber boots and dished out the soup, the man in South West Scotland who informed our newshound that his community were used to flooding, the river flooded most years, but this was quite a high one.

On the radio we had an enlightened cove standing in to present the lunchtime news who suggested Cumbria's travails were a result of groundwater flooding, while another who sought to whip up a frenzy over faulty flood defence, was quietly informed that the flood defence in place had performed in the manner in which it was intended, so back to Bob in the studio. Another was indignant that the river was threatening to burst its banks, despite a visit by the Prince of Wales three days before, and who was this King Canute anyway?

Somebody must be blamed, and that man in the wellies in six inches of water waving his arms around to camera, is calling for the head of the Environment Agency, who has fled, like the merry monarch to foreign fields, but then his is only a part time post, and what can we expect for a six figure salary,

Not that his presence back on these shores would change much (worth every penny, eeeevvery penny)

A token post if ever there was one, did Generalissimo Smith teach us nothing?

There are environmental causes far more worthy of the funds fed to our man in Barbados.

Rivers flood and always will, take it as a space station moment, and a small reminder that mother earth has her own agenda. It is refreshing to hear during these past few weeks that there are many who understand that flooding on many rivers is a natural event that mankind cannot eliminate, despite the exhortations of an at time disconnected media, Call me out as an old fart for repetition, but

If we're not scared, they're not doing their job.

And now can we all agree to meet at the weekend with shovels and some sandwiches, to dig a ditch down the spine of England to move some of that water to the South East, because we still need the rain, or perhaps when HS2 goes in, run a big water pipe underneath the track,

now there's a thought,

because trains don't do hills,

and Ladies and Gentleman, for one who thrives in a grey area and obfuscation, I give you a brief spell of blue sky thinking, (we're having a drier January, not dry, just using wine stoppers more often)

but a conduit with a gentle gradient beneath the Y shaped track bringing moderately paced trains down the spine of our country, could transfer excess water in the north, to a corner of England stumbling slowly towards a water crisis.

Who will be our Brunel?

At which point I am reminded of the musings of Homer,

"Marge, Marge, fetch me a beer..........I'm starting to think"

On the first day of the year. Madam, myself and Otis completed our traditional post breakfast skirmishes on the common. We were the first down there on the day, bar a solitary twitcher, and there was not much about but a bunch of snipe and a few heron, although Otis achieved the fourth level of enlightenment during his crossing of the ford which often serves as a spa for footsore dogs, soothing sore paws that covered many metres during our restorative walk early on New Year's Day.

Next week, the chainsaw comes out and I will begin to attend to the many bank side willows that are beginning to impact upon the river, affecting weed growth and thinning the bank side fringe. There are a few that escaped the saw last winter due to my activities in the wood with a hundred or more fallen Christmas trees. There are a few bends that will look very different at the start of the season and a couple of bridges must also be attended to. This week I tweaked open the hatch on the house for the first time this winter, allowing a small rise in water to escape down the mill stream. There is water on the meadows, and the coming weeks will hopefully see an increase in groundwater flow and the river starting to creep up, but I'm sorry beleaguered flooded folk of the north, I'm all for more rain.

We had ice on the car on the first morning of 2016, but the temperature's risen since and the mower retains the status of "active and in service". I have been issued with a cutting edge digital weather station that relays all manner of interesting information to a monitor on our kitchen wall. It is strangely addictive and more informative than many half hour programmes offered on the box, but the daffodils in the garden, gorse in bloom,birdsong in the wood and six inches of growth on the clematis confirm that it remains a particularly barmy winter.

Oh yes, almost forgot,

David Beckham, a reasonable footballer (with my left foot he would have been complete) whose red shirt was always the wrong shade for me, but after seeing the TV programme last week in which he played a game of football on every continent on the planet, Dave's a superb ambassador for the world game,

Everything that Don Platter, Fingers Platini, and the bad guy from Live and Let Die should have been.

He won me over, well done Dave!

If we're not frightened, they're not doing their job (I'm looking at you Jeremy Vine)

There are daffodils in bloom in a garden a few doors down the road, the nettles in the wood remain green and hot, and during the first week of December I spent two days on the tractor cutting grass before bumbling about with the strimmer.

When will winter start in the south of England?

This is a valid question that many forms of media would do well to ask.

But if we're not frightened they're not doing their job (and I'm looking at you in particular Jeremy Vine) so weather fronts sweeping in from the west attain bogeyman status as they approach the south, rain is the very essence of evil, snow and frost a threat to civilisation itself, and the vat of lost knowledge regarding the four seasons continues to fill.

In this region we need rain, in the north they have obviously had their fill, and hey, how about that national water grid? Our intrepid news hounds who flocked to the floods seeking the "money shot" of an elderly dame afloat in her nightgown, or spread eagled on the bonnet of a landrover are quick to point fingers and attempt to apportion blame. A foot and a half of rain fell in the lake district in twenty four hours. The most intense twenty four hour period of rain ever recorded in the UK, the previous highest being the fourteen inches that fell in 2009 in the same region, the Lynton flood in the 1950's and the Boscastle flood a few years ago were caused by around ten inches in twenty four hours. I like a grey area, and obfuscation is a much favoured modus operandi, but these kind of facts are worth a mention in the media, striking a balance they used to call it, as opposed to seeking a scapegoat.

Madam will confirm that as the years progress I am keen to try new things, so here goes with a few hundred words in support of the Environment Agency.

Within twenty four hours of the Cocker and Eden bursting their banks, questions were being asked about money spent on flood defence. One of the Eagles, Don Henley or possibly Glen Frey, filled in for Wolfie at PMQs and offered the opinion that a few more million should have been spent on flood defence to prevent this kind of event.

Hey Eagles (I think that's Angela on the right) lay off the hydrology and stick to soft rock, did Canute teach us nothing?




Flood defences can reduce the risk of flooding, but will rarely eliminate the risk altogether. A foot and a half of rain falling in twenty four hours on high hills with rapid run off are exceptional circumstances that shouldn't be factored into the costings and design of flood defences, the EA have had their annual budget cut and do not need to be pressurised into increasing the percentage they spend on flood defence, they have more pressing matters to attend to.

Having your house flooded must be a terrible experience, with the impact prolonged, and if it happens again a few years later even more galling, Child A has been in Carlisle for two days helping to clear out the new Sainsburys and little was saved, but when it rains a lot in some parts of the country, rivers will flood,

Always have, always will.

We have just returned from a flying visit to Yorkshire, where there was a lot of flooding. York has extensive flood defences, but the Ouse remains prone to perambulate the city's pavements at some point most winters.

Doesn't make the news, not sure why, nor do spectacular increases in discharge in many Scottish rivers.

I don't mean to stereotype, but during the drive down the country it was all too apparent that the north is currently cold and wet, and the south is warm and dry. We left our billet at Appleton le Moors at midday with echoes of Sheila Ferguson. Glitter was on our noses from a Christmas card and the car thermometer was stuck on three degrees. The rain was on the cusp of turning to sleet but somewhere around Birmingham an urban heat haze developed and ten degrees were added, clothes were removed and we arrived home in short sleeve order.

Preparations for an unlikely flooding event in this valley remain ok, with most culverts able to cope if the groundwater comes up, although some have resumed the modern fad of filling them with branches and brash that they don't know what to do with, which is a little disappointing. Recent rain should work its way down into the aquifers and we may see the river rise a little towards the end of the year, but the springs in the ditches and the pond that feed into this stretch are not running yet.
We have many duck on both the river and the pond, and I have already seen more cormorants flighting this valley than all of last winter. There are quite a few heron about too, who are making the most of the shallow clear water to stab away at any fish they can find. The goldfinches have obviously finished whatever they were feeding on in the wood and we have many plundering our offerings of niger seeds, no siskin yet although we have a nuthatch and marsh tit most days in among the regulars.
There are many brown trout in the river up to around a pound in weight although no sign of any leviathan's that often appear out of the shadows to spawn on the gravel on the shallows. The big hen of around five pound that spent much of the summer parading in front of the fishing hut seems to have moved elsewhere, although she may yet return to her summer haunt. The grayling are in tip top condition and continue to be caught off the top as fly continue to hatch most afternoons in the mild weather.

As I write there is coverage of a door being opened in space to allow this country's first representative to sojourn on the International space station. There seems to be a problem with the key, the doorbell may not be working and this kind of thing never happened on Pigs in Space.
We've paid for Tim's ticket, and I don't recall the government reaching into their pockets when we were required to fork out six hundred zobs a year for Child A and Child B to ride the bus to study A levels, and it is hoped Tim will turn a few tricks in the coming months to justify the expense. Don't get me wrong, I like the International Space Station, its provided a welcome distraction on many a fishless night behind the bite alarms as it makes its way across the night sky, but Sarah Brightman would have paid a lot of money to be in Tim's shoes, and with an austerity on, the money could have been used elsewhere, flood defence perhaps? and an engineering project to put old Albion's rivers into a series of sealed concrete pipes,

Please no, lets just enjoy the space thing

Hey Flash, run that that pre election pledge not to frack under National Parks and areas of outstanding beauty by me one more time.

It didn't apply to this valley, as the Government map for potential licences demonstrates that there are no areas that would concern any fracking operation.
Flash and George's "Race to Frack" mid coalition was frightening and all geared towards the bottom line and a fixation with the long term economic plan.
At least now we have had a period of considered thought, the relevant impact studies will be undertaken and we have men of the calibre of Generalissimo Smith overseeing operations,

Good Grief.

At the first sign of trouble I'm piling what little money I have into desalination companies, because that's where the water will be coming from as, if things go awry, it will be the equivalent of pissing in a fast diminishing well. High stakes stuff indeed in the south of England.

Thanks very much to the kind chap from Berry Bros & Rudd and reader of this guff who dropped by with a box containing wine.

Not the Chateau Cardboard that seems to have become part of our staple diet, but a great big bottle of Chianti in a wooden box, produced not far from where we stayed in Firenze. He recommended laying it down for a few years in order to appreciate it fully, although I fear it won't make the new year.
Thank you again, and at this point could I point you all towards previous posts from Rheims, the Mosel Valley, Loire Valley and Burgundy.

Oh yes, fishing.

P (Product Placement - remember this?)

Rods on this stretch of river come up fairly infrequently, and we are lucky enough to have a short waiting list. If anyone out there is interested in adding their name to the list feel free to drop us a line and I'll happily furnish you with the details.

Thank you for reading the rubbish that I write, have a Happy Christmas.

Felicity Frost, Immolation and Toast

The PC brigade did for Al Jolson and his associated minstrels back in the day.

Their silence ( the PC brigade not Al Jolson, he had plenty to say) on "Black Friday" speaks volumes, and I wear the boot polish on my face today as a symbol of defiance to their meddling ways



Ok, my mistake,

Here goes with some more despondency and doom,

But first, here's Bob with the weather

Why are we now attributing a name to every low pressure system that sweeps across the Atlantic?
Will banks of fog and frosty mornings receive similar treatment and how far are we from Fred Fog and Felicity Frost? The disneyfication of the countryside in recent decades signalled a disconnect from reality, now we have the disneyfication of meteorology and a similar disconnection from reality.

The UK should be subject to wind rain and cold through the winter months, bands of low pressure sweeping across the Atlantic provide welcome succour to much diminshed aquifers and river systems, so could somebody in the media concerned with weather actually come out and say so, and stop spooking Joe public over a few damp days and a gentle zephyr.

The river is in reasonable condition and after twenty four hours without rain runs clearer than it did in July and August. I don't think I can remember a season with so few fish on the spawning gravels, there is a dearth of sexually mature brown trout in the river for which we have implementation of The National Trout and Grayling Strategy and a plethora of otters to thank. There are many small brown trout in the river, it remains to be seen whether this will still be the case in five years time. Grayling fishing has been ok, with the few anglers that have arrived putting reasonable numbers of fish on the bank on both dry flies and nymphs and we still have sedge hatching in the last knockings of the day.

Trotting on Sunday afternoons has yet to produce any roach to my rod, although a few have been caught to just shy of two pounds by others, and I have had pike to four pound on both the fly, and a wobbled sprat. The weather hasn't turned cold enough for any unusual avian visitors to turn up yet, although a few nights of frost served as a full stop to much flora and fauna that last year is over and time now rejuvenate through sleep tin preparation for next year. Otis put up the first snipe of the winter at the weekend while skirting the common before bumbling back down the hill into the village. My eye was caught during descent by multiple ziggurat learing through the verdant fringe of the village.

I'm sure they are very nice, and seven figures for five bedrooms replete with sweeping drive and a view of the field will be value to some, but a cuckoo's egg in the nest of a tit sprang quickly to mind.

Well done to the two local purchasers of the "affordable" option.

Freedom for Tooting! come the revolution..etc etc

The River!

but soft, another "R" word

Racing,

Cheltenham last week and countryside day at the November meeting. It sometimes serves as a bellwether for festival horses a few years hence and can draw quite the crowd. I don't think I've had a duff day at Cheltenham yet. Ok, the ledger is inevitably coloured red at the denouement and sometimes in November it rains (take note TV weathermen and radio presenters) but it is a great atmosphere, and all the more impressive this year for the opening of the new stand and viewing area around the parade ring, which is stunning , user friendly with a top notch sports stadium feel (after Alan Partridge)

The river,

Sorry TV, and the excellent TV series -The Big Fish.

Aired on BBC 2,

and well done BBC for that,

it is hosted by Ben Fogle and Matt Hayes. Anglers were presented with a variety of angling challenges in order to determine all round angling ability. I no longer possess the intensity to fish in that way and am too easily distracted by other things, but well done BBC for putting the show together (on quite a budget judging by the locations) and displaying angling as a positive life skill.

Other TV highlights, in what is always the best time of the year for TV, include The Dancing (a given, and all hail the genius of Winkleman) The Jungle (a given and all hail the genius of Ant & Bee) Catastrophe (a give...no more givens ed) Catastrophe is really good, catch it if you can, and what must be the highest end hour of comedy since Alan Partridge served as warm up for Phoenix Nights (albeit on different channels) just after the turn of the millennium. It takes place on a Tuesday when the final series of The Peep Show is followed by Toast of London ( Bainbridge lite from the Boosh) and the genius that is Mary's lad, Matt Berry (enough geniuses, ed)

Sorry Ed, you can never have enough comedy geniuses, and Matt Berry is one.

The river,

The requirement for a replacement tractor is currently being addressed. The previous implement, whose seat is shaped to my own, and is twenty three years old, is like many a wayward twenty year old, smoking and banging a bit, and is on the cusp of entering agricultural Valhalla. It has done great service and will sit at the right hand of Odin, several seats higher up the salt than Thor. It has served as my own "hammer of the gods" in many situations in the wood and on the bank, and tears will flow when it is cast away burning on to the water to make its way downstream to the Test Valley Valhalla, which with a nod to Hogwarts can only be reached via a magical hatch that leads to an enchanted carrier stream that ends at Asgard, a little known beat on the middle river and its magical hall/fishing hut, where all the river keepers and their equipment that are cast into the river end up.

Reading this bit back, I may have dreamt that last few hundred words, but if there were an Asgard on the middle river it would be full of pole scythes and spectacles, because surveys will confirm that these are the two most popular items that are accidentally flung away into the flow.

There are many trees to attend to on the river bank, and some bends will have quite a different appearance come the spring. A bridge must be attended to and fen must be fired, and then there's the pheasant pen to sort out. We seem to have acquired some more tame ducks, and these must also be housed and then there's the fish, the silt, the bits of bank that are maybe starting to encroach a little, Oh yes and the paperwork, because yes paper crops up increasingly in this line of work, when the chap from CEFAS turns up to inspect records and contingency plans, that for form's sake, must now be written down, because yes, if fish start flashing on the bottom or look a little "gilly" I will resort to reading what I wrote down rather than using my brain to remember what I did the last time such an event occurred. He's a top bloke the CEFAS man, as were the few others who have visited during my time here, and protocol requires that they don't get too chummy during their visits, which is tricky, as bonds are formed over time. They are a beleaguered bunch, who have been subject to significant cuts and do great work in keeping some nasty fish diseases at bay that are rife a few miles away across La Manche.

Last week I had a haircut. It doesn't take long and styles are limited. I used to go to a Turkish chap in Basingstoke who didn't do conversation, but surprised me on my final visit by striking a match without warning and burning off my nasal hair and ear hair. I just sat there in a state of shock, violated,

nay immolated.

I never went back, despite being two stickers away from my free hair cut, the bad dream in which I suffered torture by fire from a mute Ottoman with big scissors proved a clincher.

In recent times I have given myself up to another eccentric (and cheap) coiffeur who likes to open proceeding by swinging his scissors around on his index finger, gunslinger style before asking me how I want my hair (like he can do a range of styles) He's not from this country, and I think I can say with some confidence that I have not had my hair cut by someone from the mother country for some years. Even on the barest of bonces, he is one for a flourish and signs off the briefest period of clipping with a waft. He doesn't do conversation, but sings, in both of my ears, and thankfully my head of hair only gives time for a song and a half of warbling, but as the business of attending to what remains of my fringe approached, he ceased his serenade for conversation, Which began:

"What about this front bit then? there's not a lot there. I don't know what I can do. You know Wayne Rooney had a bit put back in, but that cost thirty five grand, you don't look like no footballer and you ain't got that money no? Ok I'll do what I can for ten pound"

If there is an award for comedy barber, please can I make a nomination

Liberty Equality Brotherhood