Cyanide & Sewage

Another bloody disaster hits an upper section of the River Trent and as the polluted water passes downstream, reports may yet spell out disaster for further sections after the Stoke-on-Trent to Yoxall section currently in the news. While the Environment Agency (EA) try their best to mitigate the effects of the cyanide and raw sewage pollution incident, by pumping hydrogen peroxide, their efforts will not bring back the thousands of fish already dead, or indeed all the other dead and dying creatures that make up a complex ecosystem.

Right now, people such as myself, feel both anger and frustration that the whole fishery is going to be wrecked. Invertebrates, birds, mammals, several generations of fish will all be hit. Nature may bounce back quickly but not I suspect without a great deal of help. The good people at Calverton Fish Farm no doubt will be called upon for restocking depending on the fishery's ability to sustain a new population of fish, while other niches in the system can only be filled by natural migration and new generations.

In the long term our focus will be upon government, both local and national, their actions and those of the various representative bodies that look to protect our natural heritage. The EA, Anglers Trust and Fish Legal will be most prominent in taking necessary actions.

This is just a footnote, but it occurs to me now that my recent hopes of spotting an otter (as they've begun repopulating UK waterways) will probably remain fruitless for a while longer.

One more...

Couldn't help myself... just one more. I saw Holly Golightly at The Social, or was it the Rescue Rooms, a few years ago. She did well to step out from under Billy Childish's shadow and shed her own light on the scene. The YouTube clip above is a bit raw - if you wanna hear a regular recording try this instead... Enjoy!

Bleech

From the present - these folks aren't bad... will they last?

Gunslinger

Here's a blast from the past! Great while they lasted!

Caveman

I was listening to a radio station on LastFM and glanced over at the Mac when a 'cave man' voice caught my attention. The Music Machine's Sean Bonniwell.

Along with the likes of Jim Sohns, Sky Saxon, Roky Erickson and perhaps less obviously the likes of Don Glen Vliet and Dick Dodd, Bonniwell's voice really epitomises the sound of 60s Punk, Garage and Psychedelia...

I got into this stuff after meeting friends with a similar taste for old fashioned Blues and Rock'n'Roll. Sharing music on 'tape' we all got into the diversity of sounds. One or two people even formed their own bands sometimes playing renditions of the old songs. 9 Men was my friend Dave's band in Chesterfield (Art foundation years) and the Grizzeldas was Liam's band in London (Sculpture degree years).

Of course, plenty of new music has come along since, but I still like to listen to the old stuff too.

If you want a taste of the caveman, look out for compilation albums like 'Highs In The Mid Sixties' and the 'Pebbles' albums. In the meantime take a look at YouTube.

The Fly

"Another year, another Mayfly hatch." Easy or no, it's not an occasion to miss!

Action plan: Start by warming up with a few easy fish and then target something more challenging; you know, like the fish rising under the tree on the far bank, or even the impossible and monster fish rising in the back eddy beyond the midstream torrent.

Well, that's how my fishing buddy Simon and I set about it again this year - we had a ball! Settling for more southern streams and in particular the Wandle, where only nesh trout are to be found, friend and colleague, Theo, couldn't make it again - better luck next year mate!

An evening produced countless fish, with several large ones amongst them. Only a few stocked fish showed their [relatively] ugly faces.

Successful flies included the Grey Wulff and the French Partridge Mayfly. Most successful of all however, like in every year we've fished the Mayfly hatch, was the Mayfly Emerger pattern, illustrated above. A version with a fine cream SLF thorax caught the very biggest trout, while the hares ear thorax tying gave very good account of itself.

(You can get the recipe at FFR »)

Submersible

It was once so costly that submersible camera equipment used to be used only by researchers, professional photographers and publishers. Manufacturers have produced various workarounds to make underwater photography affordable for amateurs and enthusiasts. Plastic envelopes from companies like Aquapac and dedicated submersible camera housings from the big camera brands have all helped, but don't really serve well - they're all a bit cumbersome and after a little use soon start to impair camera optics.

Now it seems technology has moved along. Submersible cameras are taking a firm, if slow, hold in the 'compact' market. Canon's new PowerShot D10 at £379 RRP seems like a viable option but what quality of image does it output? Everyone has blogged the brand hype, "Great for surfers and scuba divers", but where's the evidence - Not even DPReview has any shots, does it!?

Old Style

Stanhope Forbes records the Cornish fishing industry in its heyday, a time when large tuna could be caught off the UK coastline. I love the painting but can't help feel it's more or less fit for the lid of a chocolate box in this day and age. With the news reported by the BBC recently I wonder if the public and politicians eally learn anything from past disasters...

Performance?

Following the news yesterday there was little surprise when reports started being posted of eruptions of violence during the G20 protests. Sadly one person died after collapsing. If reports are true, what is also sad is the fact that protesters rained objects down on the police as they tried to help the collapsed man. The only excuse I can see, and it's a very poor one, is that the objects were being propelled by people that couldn't actually see there was a man down. Lobbing bottles at people is of course reprehensible in the first place. As usual the violence involved a very small number of 'protesters'. The majority protested without violence, and it's those I would perhaps have added my voice to once. When Maggie Thatcher's government was at the helm was the last time I took to the street. It's funny, maybe even a little sad, that I can't even remember what I protested about. Was it the Poll Tax?

The Getty photo that illustrated an article in my morning paper, on the G20 disturbances, was interesting in a couple of ways: The photographers outnumber the 'protesters' more than 3 to 1. The scene looks very theatrical.

...Was the attack on RBS protest and/or performance?