An extraordinary music video - Fever Ray's "When I grow up"

One of those degrees of separation links today.

For the last few days I have listening to an album from a couple of year's ago - First Aid Kit's The Big Black and the Blue, a really lovely album. Today, The Times has a review of a new record by them, The Lion's Roar. This review notes the video for the title track which I checked out on youtube later.

Swedish hippy folkies, First Aid Kit

Meanwhile, years ago, Jose Gonzales had a track used in an advert for Sony televisions, his cover version of The Knife's Heartbreak. The Knife are a Swedish brother and sister who were once described by The Wire as deeply disturbed! As a result of this, I have all their records. A couple of years ago, the sister from The Knife released a solo album under the name Fever Ray, which I also have.

On the youtube page for First Aid Kit's The Lion's Roar, there is a link to another video by them, a cover version of Fever Ray's When I grow up, and theirs is an excellent cover version. And from there, it is a short jump to Fever Ray's own video for that song. And what an amazing thing that is - quite horrific. Like one of those scary Japanese horror films with girls with their hair over their eyes and their head lolling to one side. Very, very disturbing. I note it has had over 6 million views so far!

Fever Ray's video for When I grow Up

A good chubbing trip to Duxford

No frost overnight - indeed some rain, not enough to raise the river or colour it, but at least higher temperatures. So a longer trip than normal and down to Duxford at 11:30, planning to stay till 7:00pm. As before, I am continuing the hunt for a large Thames barbel, but I expected today to be more about chub, as the temperature will have only risen a tiny bit, if at all.

The longish walk to the main swims I am currently focusing on left me really hot given the milder weather and my ultra-warm clothes. The three swims close together received their first baitings of hemp and halibut pellets, with hot dog sausage and bacon grill. Then I settled in "swim four", a classic winter chub swim, fishing crust over mashed bread.


Swim Four

I started fishing about half an hour after first baiting and had a bite first cast - as so often the way when conditions are good. But a few seconds into the fight and the fish was weeded in a snag by my feet. Luckily I could just about reach the fish with the landing net and as I lifted it up, the line cames free from the snag. Not a huge fish, 2-15, but a nice start. I rebaited and moved to a "swim five" just downstream whereupon I was bother by a young swan, attracted to my bait (some bits fo bread stayed floating). The swan seemed keen to settle directly in front of me, until I gave it a quick nudge with the landing net handle and it retreated downstream. Like all fisherman, I am rather anti-swan.

A re-bait of swims one to three, then back to swim four. Another take first cast and again the fish ran to the snag below my feet, faster than I could bully it upstream and away. This seemed a better fish, but as I heaved it slowly out of the snag, the hook gave way. Probably ruined this spot for a while, so time for a wander round and another visit to swim five, where I had one bit, which I missed. Back to swim four and a bite second cast. But again the chub made for the same snag. It looked a bigger fish but again the hook pulled loose as I heaved it out.

I will really have to have a think about this swim some more. One solution would be to fish with slightly heavier tackle - maybe the stepped-up Avon rod with 10lb line. Then I could perhaps haul the fish upstream quicker. At the moment, the two lost fish do not bode well should I hook a 5lber or a barbelBut then disaster strikes. I caught my landing net on the ground and the point where the net joins the pole sheered off completely leaving me with no way to re-attach the net to the pole. I did wonder about whether I could really fish on with this, as the chances of landing a fish would not be great. But I thought I would have at least a couple of casts into the prepared swims, starting with Swim two, the most chubby of the three.

Bait now was a hair-rigged piece of hot dog sausage. My plan was to basically cast this and leave it for 30 mins or so. But maybe five minutes later, a good take and what was clearly a chub made for the lower snag. I was able to turn it ok and bring it upstream, but the landing net problem was worse than I thought. In the end, with the chub under my rod tip, I had to lie down flat on the bank and reach down with just the net, scooping the fish up from about the maximum I could reach. Clearly landing a barbel would be impossible.

A rather nice Thames chub, 4-04

I did return briefly to swim four with no further bites, but there seemed little point trying swims one to three again, as I probably couldn't land another fish that way as it got fully dark. So an early finish to the day.

I have ordered a new net and a bag to store it in, and while I was out, a huge order of bait arrived today - mainly barbel pellets and various oil additives. Gearing up for my planned splurge in March when I plan to fish as many days as possible - target is 10 trips in 14 days, with a view to getting some barbel.

Option trading back on the agenda

My search for trading strategies uncorrelated with our current trading continues. And in a flash of "inspiration" (?), I had a look at how Oxeye, a FTSE options trading firm, had been fairing. The answer is that August last year was really bad for them (-18%), but that the period since had been pretty good with returns of +8.18, +5.24, +7.90 and +6.43 for +30.7% for the last four months of the year.

But contrast, we have found August to be great while the the period since August has been increasingly difficult, as volatility has died and we are just not getting the winning trades that we were back in the summer. If you just combined us with Oxeye, August would have been fine, indeed a small gain despite the option losses. Then the option trading would have done well as our trading trailed off. Overall, a good pick up in return relative to risk from the combination of the two strategies.

So my new research plan is to consider an option writing strategy as an overlay for the futures trading. When vol is low, as it remains now, the furtures trading does relateively poorly, while the options are fine. And when vol increases. the options do poorly and the futures does better - or at least that is the theory anyway.

Rough estimates suggest that this is considerably Sharpe ratio enhancing, but the details of how we might do it remain uncertain. Nonetheless, we sold some Feb calls and puts today to start us off.

A short Evenlode chubbing session

There was another frost overnight, the fourth day in row. The question is: would the local chub be used to it now? The weather improved during the morning and I was tempted out just after lunchtime for a short session, choosing a stretch of my local River Evenlode.

My plan was to try to fish in line with a recent Tony Miles chubbing article. I usual fish flake rather than crust here (in part in the hope of accidentally catching one of the large roach in the stretch) but today it would be crust. I baited 5 or 6 swims over a 200 yard stretch and the plan would be to move between each, staying for 30 mins in each

Over the last year, this stretch of the Evenlode has really changed - and not just that it is painfully low at the moment. The main big change is that the huge willow has fallen into the river at my favourite deep bend, creating a river wide raft. This swim would remain my banker swim for the day. I slowly worked my way down the long glide just past where the river rejoins a side stream. In the past this has produced the odd 5lb chub, but nothing today. Then a short stop in the deep bend swim, but nothing in 10 mins and so a rebait and a move down to a new spot round the next bend. This looked perfect but turned out to be much too shallow in the current conditions.

Eventually I persuade a chub to take my crust bait from deep bend - not a huge fish, 3-08. Most fish I have caught from this spot have been over 4lbs. But there is actually ice in the margins of the river, so perhaps conditions are still against me. The forecast is much better for the next few days. Milder weather, no frosts, maybe some rain. So I need to arrange a trip for the next few days to take advantage of this.

Resolutions for 2012 - progress so far

I actually had quite a few resolutions for the new year. But how am I faring so far?

1. To fish "lots"

I have interpreted "lots" as meaning "greater than 50 times in the year". So far I have been 3 times and have walked various stretches I might fish this year. I would like to catch a large barbel from the Thames, several 5 lb chub, a decent river pike and, possibly, a 20lb carp.

2. To reduce significantly my intake of Coca Cola

I would say that in 2011 I drank at least 1 litre of Coke a day. So far in 2012, I have finished the last three 1/2 litre bottles we had at home and have had perhaps one actual coke in addition. I suspect my headaches in the first few days on 2012 were caffeine withdrawal symptoms.

3. To lose 14 lbs and go to the gym "lots"

"Lots" here meant twice a week on average. But over Christmas I had a cold and this has left me with a rather nasty chesty/tickly cough that I seem to be stuck with. So this is my excuse for not going to the gym so far this year at all! Also we had meant to buy a good set of scales before new year but didn't, so I don't know what I weighed then. In theory, not drinking so much coke should cut my calorie intact by 600 per day. I will re-start this resolution next week when I will definitely go to the gym.

4. To read 2 "very short introductions" per month

So far I am half way through The Reformation and intend to read Autism or Photography next. But most of my current reading is actually fishing related.

5. To learn how to use Photoshop Elements 10, take some great pictures and print them on my new A3 printer.

I have started on PS 10 and am making steady progress. I haven't taken any really good photos though.

6. To have a great year trading

Sadly, intra-day volatility has been dropping since mid November and is now about half what it was then. And we are not getting the swings up and down that we got back then either. The systems have adjusted to these current conditions but are not really making much money at the moment. We have to be patient through these tough conditions and wait for vol to pick up again.

Old fishing photos - fishing with daughter

The results of scanning in some old fishing photos from 1995 and 1996, when my daughter liked to come fishing on a Sunday with me. Not very likely to happen at the moment, she being a budding business woman in London in her early 20s. She is 6 or 7 in these pictures!
Daughter's first chub, 3-05 from the Cherwell at Throop.

A bigger chub later that same day, 3-15

Daughter's first barbel, 2-08 from the Windrush at Ducklington

And infront of the swim she caught it from. The river here is less than 12" deep, but just to the left is a slightly deeper hole. The barbel were usually resident under the far side undergrowth.

Daughter's biggest barbel, 6-05 from the Windrush.
Daughter chub fishing the Evenlode at Long Hanborough - a perfect "Crabtree" swim

Another session at Duxford Loop

For the last few days my main reading has been back issues of Course Angling Today magazine, mainly the chub and barbel articles by Tony Miles, Phil Smith and Stef Horaks. When you read loads of articles back to back, there is a slight tendency to become somewhat jaded with the constant big fish they seem to catch. This is especially true of Horaks, whose writing style and humour I really like, but who at times seems to arrive at more or less any stretch of river, bait up with loads of hemp and casters and proceed to catch a long sequence of chub and barbel all of which seem to be specimen sized fish. No doubt much effort has been put into fish location, but that doesn't come across so much in the articles.

My goal at the moment has been to catch a big Thames barbel in January. But the Thames is a huge river and the barbel could be anywhere from here to Oxford, so location is a problem. My initial chose of venue is Duxford Loop, in part because it is so close to home (less than a mile) but also because it has more features that the regular Thames below Shifford lock (where the loop re-attaches). There is another stretch further downstream where I have heard that barbel have been caught in the last year or so, but I have only managed a limited rece of this so far.

My walk last weekend noted a sequence of five or six possible fishibng locations marked by huge snaggy areas combined with steady glides above them. So my plan would be to bait these glides quite heavily just above the snags with something aromatic (in this case, hemp and halibut pellets), then leave these swims to settle, re-bait a couple of hours later, then fish each in rotation a couple of times between dusk at 4:30 and 7:00 or so. If the snags contained barbel, I thought the hemp and halibut would attract them out to feed, and hopefully I would intercept them there as it got dark.

Prior to 4:30, I fished another huge snag using the classic bait of two lobworms. My hope here was to possible get a decent chub or even a perch. Some taps on the rod tip did suggest that something was playing with the bait but when I eventually did strike and hook something it turned out to be a small roach of about 8oz. Still it is good to know that such small fish are still in the Thames, even if 8lb line and a size 6 hook is unusual to catch a roach on.

Eventually I settled back into the first of the baited swim as it got dark. I was very expectant that my first cast onto the bait would give an instant take, but all was very quiet. Re-baited with more hemp, then down to swim two, which produced a chub of about 3lbs and then went quiet. Finally, swim three, the huge raft swim. This produced two chub around 3lb each again. Back to swim one and nothing again, then nothing second time round swim two and three. A slightly longer stay in swim two also produced nothing more.

By this time, the sun had fully set. Owls were hooting, there was the constant rustle of pheasants roosting in the trees opposite, the call of three foxes in the fields opposite, and the gradual appearance of loads of stars. Of course my eyes were fully acclimatised to the low light, so the stars were very visible. But this also suggested that the temperature was dropping sharply. I gave it until just after 7:00 and then managed the long walk back to the car in the dark much better than I did the other night. A hint of frost on the car though.

So what did this achieve? The main issue is the location of barbel. This is very problematic on a river as big as the Thames, and where fish can't be seen. So the bait up approach seems right. After all, any barbel that were active would have probably located at least one of the free bait patches. But I suspect that quite a lot of patience is required with Thames barbel, so I am not unduly bothered by the lack of fish tonight. More problematic is the drop in temperature, which might stop any prospect of catching a barbel even if they were close to me in my chosen spots. So my next fishing trip might well be chub on the Evenlode - a classic crusting day.

Sunset at Duxford - from swim two

Pictures from the "Great Flood of 2005"

More photos have been scanned from my fishing diary, these pictures being "flood" and "non-flood" from the "great" floods of the (fairly) recent past. I think the flood pictures were taken in 2005/06 but I could be wrong about that.

First up is an amazing view of the Thames & Windrush at Newbridge. The Thames is nearly a mile wide in these pictures, extending well past the Maybush pub on the left and into the fields beyond, and flooding to the right so that it joins the Windrush and then further flooding out towards the gravel pits on the right of the picture.


Next, the Windrush at Ducklington near Witney. The first picture is of one of my favourite barbel swims.
Normally three foot deep, in flood it is carrying an extra five foot of water.

Then another barbel swim - normally two foot deep.

In flood, it is 7 foot deep and three times the width. That means there is perhaps 10 times the water in the river if it is flowing at its normal rate, more if the flow is greater.

Finally the bridge at Ducklington. Nowadays I would have been tempted to fish in the floodwater, knowing that barbel could well be very actively feeding. Then I would have had no idea how to go about this and so would definitely not have tried. What a thrill to catch a big barbel in such conditions!

First fishing trips of 2012

So I have been on my first two trips of 2012.

The first was an evening to Duxford loop after chub (and with thoughts of a barbel campaign here as well). The walk down from Duxford itself reveals literally dozens of possible chub swims, mainly various tree rafts. I planned to fish a sequence of four or five swims about 3/4 mile from Duxford Ford. In each case, the swims were baited with bread, hemp and halibut pellets and the intention was to fish with crust or meat. I am not quite up to the technicalities of hair rigging pellets, but will have that sorted out soon.

The swims chosen were decidedly chubby, yet I only managed a couple of bites, which I proceeded to miss. So a slightly disheartening first trip blank. But on the upside, I have started to get a feel for the characteristics of a few swims, ready for next time.

One of the rafts at Duxford

My next trip was a spur of the moment decision to go out the next morning down to the Windrush. For some reason I had got it into my head that I would like to try trotting with my centre pin reel. However I am not very good at this type of fishing and with the bank rather overgrown with various dead plants, I was continually tangling. Once or twice everything went ok, and it was rather fun, but I only stuck it out for an hour or so. Next time I want to go trotting, I will choose a better venue - the Windrush is definitely a ledgering venue.

Walking some fishing spots

Given the rather nice weather, I had trips out on Saturday and Sunday to walk some local fishing spots that I am considering fishing in the next month or two. This also gave me a chance to take some photos - one of this year's resolutions is to produce some "impact images", especially landscapes.

Linear Fisheries, Stanton Harcourt

Linear is a really famous fishing spot and is only about 5 miles from my home, but I am not a big fan of lake fishing and I have also had the prejudice that Linear is dominated by carp anglers (this being based on what I can see from the road next to it when I go to the dump - so not really very good grounds for belief at all). But I walked round Manor lake today and actually most of my prejuduces were confirmed! There are about 20 marked swims of which perhaps 12 were taken. All had bivvies in place, all the kit was matching pairs and trios of rods on those Fox stands, all with matching sets of buzzers, all with a fourth rod with one of those heavy floats that are used to assess depth, and so on. In other words, everyone fishing exactly the same way.

There looked to be less people on St Johns and every fewer on Hardwick and Smiths, so maybe those would be the place to go. Of course, I am not after carp, but instead would like to catch a decent pike. So those other lakes might be fine for that. Smiths used to be well-known for its huge chub as well, so maybe have a go for one of these too - don't know much about stillwater chub fishing though.

The Windrush

I have heard one or two rumours that the Windrush has suffered from a sharp drop in fishing quality over the last few years, mainly as a result of otter predation. I haven't fished there seriously for years, but am tempted to give it a go again. Back in the mid-90s I fished this one stretch over 25 times and would usually catch one or two barbel per trip, sometimes as many as 6 or 7. It would be a shame if that isn't possible anymore.

This swim was quite a productive one. The barbel would be holded up under the bush on the far bank. Feeding hemp just above and outside the bush, the barbel would be tempted out from under the bush to feed. Best fish from here was about 7lbs

This doesn't look much but was the best barbel swim on the river. The left bank is a foot or two deeper than the main river and is heavily undercut. One of the rare swims into which I would lower a bait rather than cast. This was my "banker" swim and rarely disappointed. Indeed I would usually manage at least two from here during an evening / night session. My best Windrush barbel came from here, 8:15 (and it is the swim that daughter photo'd me on for my barbel article from 1996)

A flock of seagulls previously feeding by the river

This swim often had a shoal of large roach in it. My best was 1-05 but there were some 2lbers. Is that a mink trap?

Further downstream than the other swims above, this often holds some excellent fish. Once I saw a shoal of perhaps 15 barbel in the space between the two bushes in the water, biggest was definitely a double. And on one occasion I was showing my wife a large chub (well over 5lbs), when it rose to the surface and ate a passing duckling as we watched! That rather surprised wifey!

A perfect long trotting swim on the Windrush - as you would expect, the far bank is home to large numbers of chub and some roach. A really good evening swim as the sun is blocked by the bank well before dark.

The Thames at Duxford

I haven't fished this stretch for quite a few years as well, despite it being only a mile or so from home. It is a really beautiful stretch, and of a far different character from the regular Thames which is running along seperately a hundred yards or so away. This stretch has some really big barbel, chub, pike and perch in it. But today, as I walked along it, I also came across a guy setting some crayfish traps and he said it was infested with them (as so many rivers are in the UK now) There were also two "Eastern Europeans" fishing for pike. No doubt any fish caught would be for the pot, something which is not allowed in the UK and which is causing some racial tension between anglers and (predominantly) Poles.

One of the many rafts currently in place - how many chub under that one?

Probably even more chub under this raft. I am very tempted to have an evening fishing this week. Maybe a good swim in which to feed chopped worm and maggots and then ledger a lobworm under the raft?

Specialist Angler - the one with my first article in it

I have now reached Specialist Angler in my fishing magazine sort out and the memorable issue number 27 from Spring / Summer 1996 which includes my first fishing article, Small River, Summer Barbel. So it was with some delight that I was able to re-read my learned thoughts on this important, but sadly neglected subject.

My angling activities peaked in 1995 as 1996 was the year of the Hanson demerger and I was stuck working 15 hour days for that year, being too tired to even contemplate fishing at the weekends. Indeed 1997 and 1998 were not much better and it was not until the 1999 / 2000 season that I started to have enough time to do a few trips. My article recounts a summer barbelling on the Windrush at Ducklington, a river I haven't fished for years now, but which I am thinking about for this summer. Rumour has it that the river has been desimated by the re-introduction of otters. But I will give it a go I think.

The memorable issue for Spring / Summer 1996.

There I am in the company of Peter Stone (who I once went fishing with on the Windrush after meeting him at a Newlands AGM), Mark Vial (who died while fishing I believe), Stewart Allum (famous chub angler) . . .

What words of wisdom! And a photo of me fishing taken by daughter one Saturday morning when she was six.

Page 2, and an illustration using a 7lb barbel. Note the Seer Rod in the photo - my "specialist rover" built by Andy and Jill Orme.

And this is a good excuse for another Jill Orme picture - this time she seems be be Jill Butterworth. That is an amazing pike she's caught. My best is about half that size.

32lbs from Loch Lomond - brilliant

Bow Wow Wow are playing in Oxford!

Another name from the distant past - Bow Wow Wow - has appeared in an advert for live shows, one of which is at the O2 in Oxford. I was a big fan of BWW in the very early 1980s. I loved the "Burundi beat" drumming and Annabella was a great singer. Of course the band were swampeed in controversy from the world go, due to the rather racy lyrics and their first album cover based on Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, all when Annabella was only 14/15.

This rather detracted from the fact that she was actually a really good singer.

I have no idea what she has been up to since BWW split, but had hoped at one time that she would develop into a singer like Neneh Cherry. And I'm not convinced that I would like to see a live show now. I did see them once in London in about 1982 and they were very good. Annabella had two dancers with her and they were very impressive together. But it would be pretty odd to see BWW now, when Annabella is in her 40s, particularly since most of their best songs did rather play on her under-age status. For instance, a song like Louis Quatorze would be very odd.

Still, she did have a great voice, so I would like to think that her shows would go well.


Annabella and dancers - a 1982 live show in the USA

The controversial cover (as Annabella is 14) - BWW's Dejeuner sur L'herbe (Manet's Lunch on the grass - below)

Very much the look I remember from the live show I saw

Fishing Magazines - Practical Course Fishing - the issue with me in it

My sorting out of fishing magazines has reached Practical Course Fishing, one of my all-time favourite fishing magazines, but one that only made it through about a dozen issues, from October 1993 to November 1994, before being "merged" (was subsumed) with the nowhere-near-as-good Improve Your Course Fishing (which, ironically, is still going strong)

The June 1994 issue was the highlight as it is the one that features me fishing with Tony Miles on the Hale Park Syndicate water on the Hampshire Avon. I had joined this syndicate after an advert appeared in Waterlog, but only fished it half a dozen times. It was a tough venue, but with a very large average size of fish. My personal best chub at the time, of 5-07 was caught there.

So it is early one Sunday morning in March 1994. I had travelled down from London on the Saturday evening and was parked at Hale bridge. As I emerged pre dawn, it turned out that Tony was in the van next to me. We had first met back in the late 1970s when I was chub fishing on one of my local rivers, the Leam. And I'd bumped into him again a year or two later, on either the Warwickshire Avon or the Upper Ouse. But we were not particularly friends or anything.

But we had a good chat first thing that morning. Tony effectively quzzing me on all I knew about the stretch (not much). Then we set off in different directions, passing one another at various times through the day. For me it was a tough day, one bite, no fish. Tony apparently had a couple later on that night after I had set off home.

At one point, towards the end of the article, he asks me to get in touch as I had left some tackle behind. This was untrue - he just wanted to get in touch more generally. We corresponded for the next year or so, and arranged a couple of fishing trips together, but my work commitments stopped these happening. After the 1995 season, when I fished more than I have ever done since, 1996 was the year of huge work changes and I hardly fished at all. In fact, it was not for a few years that I managed a season with more than a dozen trips - so we lost touch.

Maybe I will drop him a line - my magazine sort out has revealed a load of his very early articles that I remember well from Angling magazine.

Tony's article, with a background shot of me fishing the right bank below Hale Bridge on the Hampshire Avon - trotting bread flake using a centre pin.

The paragraphs that I feature in are in the right hand column

I remember Tony saying when we first started fishing that day that if I caught something decent, could I retain it for a photo for the article. Sadly I didn't!

My main fishing club has an arrangement with Hale Park that we can fish down there, so I have a tentative plan to have a two day trip in March this year, 18 years after the trip that immortalised me in the angling press!

Fishing Magazines - Waterlog

My hunting through the boxes of fishing magazines has caused me to stumble upon a stack of copies of Waterlog, the Chris Yates magazine. This really is a quite extraordinary fishing magazine when compared to the typical technique-based regular fishing magazine. I have sorted through perhaps 30 copies, selecting three or four articles from each. I was particularly pleased to note the focus on Bernard Venables up to his death.

In one instance, a letter writer noted that he found the magazine to be founded on mis-information, and a total disregard for sound fishing practices. As a result, he would of course be renewing his subscription.

A hunt on the internet reveals that Waterlog is still published but on a subscription only basis - I am seriously considering subscribing.

Whatever happened to Jill Orme?

Somewhere, I once read that fishing magazines are more than 99% bought by men - and the other tiny percent is when women are buying copies for men! And it has to be said that very few women feature in Course fishing magazines - when they do it is usually in an advert. Indeed, having been reading many fishing magazines from as long ago as 1976, I have to say that much of the advertising is very sexist, though I did like one advert that features a scantily clad wife greating her husband home. He has his hands behind his back like he is holding a present for her, but he is actually holding a bottle of bait flavour. The caption reads - "and all because the lady loves squid and octopus"

One way that females that fish do feature in fishing magazines is when their husband is writing an article and decides to illustrate his catches with pictures of his wife. This started as long ago as the late 70s with John Bailey's wife Sharon, but reached its peak in the early 1990s with a number of articles by Andy Orme featuring his rather gorgeous wife, Jill. In part this was probably to help advertise their rod making business, Seer rods

I met Jill and Andy at some sort of angling show (one of the specimen hunter shows) and bought one of their rods - the specialist rover. This is an absolutely superb rod and is the one that I use for almost all my fishing on the Windrush and Evenlode. I even had an evening on the stretch of the River Teme that they managed (Haven fishery near Bromyard), catching a rather nice 7lb barbel on rolled cheese paste.

My sorting out of fishing magazines has reached Course Fishing Today, where most of Andy Orme's articles appeared. And there is Jill, looking totally gorgeous with various fish. Indeed, the pictures below feature Jill with my favourite fish - barbel, chub and pike. At times I have wondered what it must be like to share one's life with a real soul mate - someone you can talk to about bolt rigs for small river barbel, pre-baiting strategies for boilies, strategies for low and clear rivers in the summer - the things that really matter. I can't help thinking that Jill would have had many interesting views on such subjects.

Seer Rods appears to be no more. A post on an angling website said that Jill and Andy split up and that Andy runs a big game fishing boat in Kenya. I was pondering the other day on buying a new fishing rod - perhaps an 11 - 12ft, 1.5lb test curve rod for big barbel to medium carp. Sadly it will not be a Seer Rod it would seem.

Jill and I are the same age but she is (was?) a much better angler than me!

Jill Orme with barbel - perhaps my favourite Jill picture.

Cover girl Jill with another barbel.

Mighty meat indeed - Jill with chub

An early, possibly pre-Andy picture. Jill with pike. Has there ever been a more attractive wearer of waders?

First amazing music track of 2012 - Varttina's Miss'on Miun Armahin

Another random find on a download entitled "Finnish folk music" - the band Varttina. They started as a trad folk band in the late 1970s releasing several albums of finnish music. I have worked my way through the first few so far and the track Miss'on Miun Armahin ("Wherre is my beloved?") is stupendously good I reckon.

Sadly, they seem to have become something of a "euro-pop" band in the 1980s and are still going strong in that guise it would seem. Not my cup of tea at all. Still, one stupendous track is well worth it. You don't get that from everyone

Freakzone downloads

For many years I have wondered where obscure and unusual music might appear on the radio, following the death of John Peel (still sadly missed by me). There are the shows on the internet associated with The Wire Magazine, but now I have located a possible, post-Peel show, Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone (and another of his shows, Freakier Zone).

Some recordings of these have appeared on a download site I use and seem to offer an excellent mix of stuff. The first I've listened to had a great track by John Renbourn (of Pentangle) from his album The Nine Maidens followed by Mellow Candle's Reverend Sisters from the classic Swaddling Songs album. Other downloads include tracks by Ash Ra Tempel, Nico, The Nice, Spirit, Chris and Cosey, even Stuart Dempster (whose trombone pieces recorded in a huge, concrete, underground bunker remains a firm favourite of mine)

So maybe that if something to dip into, even though I have just 16 examples of the show.

Or there is Ondaru Radio, a strange internet radio station that may be based in Russia, and mainly plays modern classical stuff.

Boxes of Old Fishing Magazines

A quick look through the garage here and at my mum's has produced 6 large boxes of fishing magazines. While I do the trading for the next few days I am planning to work my was through these, keeping a selection of articles and organising them in some way. For the moment there are a number of huge piles of magazines in the study.

The first fishing magazines I bought were Course fisherman and Angling, starting around 1975. The latter only lasted a few more years, while CF staggered on until just a few years ago I think. In CF, I really loved the articles by Brian Morland, but he seemed to stop writing by around 1980. Am I right in thinking that he was involved in some sort of scandal related to the chapter of a large barbel that may have been during the close season? CF also had the rather bizarre Chris Binyon, pike angler and overall reprobate. Angling had the first articles I ever read by Tony Miles - two articles on summer and winter chub fishing.

One article that I had forgotten about in CF was an interview with Ray Webb. He had co-authored one of my first fishing books, Fishing for Big Pike, which my parents bought me for Christmas in 1975 or 76. He had famously quit work to fish full time, but had then been afflicted by a series of mental problems, resulting in his hospitalisation, which is where the interview took place. Harrowing stuff.

Other piles include the eccentric Waterlog, lots of different fly fishing magazines, early issues of Improve your Course Fishing, my current favourite, Course Angling Today (going back to 2005) and the excellent Practical Course Fishing, perhaps my all time favourite, as one issue featured me fishing the Hampshire Avon with Tony Miles. And then there are loads of magazines that seemed to only survive a short time, like Course Fishing Monthly. But I do have about twenty issues of Specialist Angler - whatever happened to the National Association of Specialist Anglers (or NASA as it was confusingly called)? I even seem to have some copies of Barbel Fisher - are they still going?

Post Christmas Calm

So Christmas has come and gone again and a calm descends on the house. Things started to warm up a week before Christmas when Linda's parents arrived. Luckily I was on trading duty full time as Jerome had his kids before Christmas this year, so I had an excuse to avoid too much interaction with them. By Thursday even Linda was beginning to get a bit fed up with the "inane banter"

By Thursday I had finished work and Linda and I were deep in food buying. I went to Tescos at 6:00am to buy bulk stuff, then we both went to Oxford to collect our turkey and duck, plus a huge amount of other things. As usual, the breakfast at Brothers was a calm half hour in the chaos.

Daughter came home on Friday afternoon, rather the worse for wear after a night out on Thursday. She soon settled in for some serious lying around, napping and watching Frozen Planet on TV. I picked up my mum on the Saturday. She seems to get on ok with Linda's parents, but even she thought they were whining rather a lot about things.

Christmas day cooking was a triumph for Linda as always. Duck for the first time - and very nice too. No board games this year for some reason. Present opening continued into the late afternoon. My chief presents were an A3 photo printer and the latest version of Photoshop, plus a couple of excellent books (Westman's The Copernican Question, Heilbron's biography of Galileo, a book on writing history and the Houellebecq / Levy philosophical argument, Public Enemies).

Boxing Day was spent at Linda's brother's. Lots more food, some football watching, and so on. Linda's parents set off the same time as us and arrived two hours after us. At one point we thought they might have gone home instead.

My mum returned home the next day and seems to have had a nice time. last year she didn't see many people in January and so this year I ought to try and make sure I see her a bit more regularly when she doesn't have her friends coming round.

And so the calm eventually descends. Just the three of us for a couple of days before Daughter returns to London on Friday. Lots of reading, tv watching, more nice meals . . . .

Continuing reading about WWII

I have continued my recent phase of reading histories of World War 2. I am actually quite shocked about how much of it has been new to me. My most recent reading is Max Hastings' Armaggeddon, focused on the last 12 months of the war in Europe. I am surprised by how critical he is of the British and American soldiers in comparison with either the Germans or the Russians. he feels they weren't sufficiently motivated for war as the others were. Also, he feels sure that the Allied commanders would not have accepted the casualty levels that the others would.

Before that I read Rees' Auschwitz, which accompanies his TV series from a couple of years ago, which we have on DVD but which I haven't brought myself to watch yet. I remember years ago seeing the World at War episode about this and haven't watched anything like it since. One of the people featured by Rees cared for her younger sister at the camp, but was seperated just after the liberation when her sister was taken to a hospital. She never saw her again and only found out years later that the sister had died a few days later at the hospital.

What I have been watching is a joint German/Russian documentary series on Stalingrad, which really does emphasise the hardships faced in this battle. After the war, the Russians retained many Germans as prisoners for a number of years. Most were released in the 1950s and there was some film of Germans waiting at stations for the trains to arrive that might have their relatives on them. Of course for everyone who located a relative, there were dozens that went away devasted with disappointment after all that time.

First fishing trip for ages

I am currently having a big throw out of old magazines and this week's theme has been fishing magazines - mainly fairly recent issues of Course Fishing Today (I haven't managed to find the boxes of older magazines which must be lurking in the garage somewhere). The weather forecast is quite poor for the next few days and I was inspired to try and sneak in a trip before the weather got much worse.

The chosen venue was a local stretch of the Evenlode. No time to make bait, so I am forced into buying some at the fishing tackle shop in Witney. As I parked near the farm, I was approached by a guy who I thought might be going to ask me to leave, but it turned out that he was just curious who I was, having not seen many members of the club on this stretch in the two years he has lived there.

The river looked really bad - I have never seen it so low. I would guess it was two foot below the lowest level I have ever seen it before. This could be a problem as some of the spots I planned to fish were now effectively shallows. I decide on a relatively static approach, baiting up a longish, reasonably deep run where I have had a few nice fish in the past. But it is not a great afternoon and I manage just one fish, a chub of about 2lbs.

Maybe the rain we are due will perk it up a bit and I can have another trip over Christmas.

Hawkwind show in London

Off to London to see Hawkwind's traditional Christmas show (they were not playing Oxford this year). We are supposed to have met Daughter late afternoon for an early supper, but it was her work's Christmas party last night and she was still rather hungover!

So we dine alone in Covent Garden and then arrive at the O2 (as it is now called) in Shepherd's Bush just as Hawkwind are coming on stage. It is absolutely jam packed and we eventually settle in a spot about two-thirds back and over to the left. Linda has a tall, bald guy in his fifties in front of her who proves to be an enthusiatic dancer.

I had sort of expected a show very similar to last year, but it is actually quite a different set. They are still playing Prometheus from last year's CD, but tonight also played a stupendous version of (I think) Hassan I Sahba and (much to our surprise) Silver Machine!

And they have two new dancers, doing roughly the same routines as last year, but with less stilts involved.

We drive home listening to disc one of Space Ritual and already plan to see their next shows, set for the spring. Excellent stuff