hmm, too much order there, need to break up the pattern so gratuitous landscape format incoming!















Have a great 2009 - looking forward to meeting up with all my old friends, and with any luck maybe make new ones too.

~ malcolm

So the angling world, or at least a good chunk of it, has come together to form a new body to represent our interests. To my mind it can only be a good thing. One lobbying voice to represent the millions of us in the UK who count fishing as a sport/hobby/passtime/addiction/job/marriage - or all of the aforementioned. To put things into perspective, the National Trust has 3.5m members and look how big a voice that organisation carries within the halls of power in the UK.

Anglers and authors considerably more worthy than I have espoused the virtues of a single body far more eloquently than I could ever hope to so I won't go there, if you want to read a bit try looking for Brian Clarke's articles from the Times.

What I will do however, and it may seem a bit odd coming from an Angler, is vent a frustration at anglers - or at least a number of them. I sometimes pop into online forums to catch up with people and read the things people are grumbling about. This time I saw a thread that I won't dignify with a link here from people doing nothing constructive; badmouthing the body before it's even up and running. I get really fed up of people who sit there, in the comfort of the lazeeboy chair and claim that the body won't deliver, that it won't be representative of them. Well for ^%$^&*!!'s sake get off your arse and get involved. Make sure your interests/opinions/thoughts/gripes are considered, shape a force for good instead of doing the easy thing and moaning in your apathetic corner of the universe.

The new body is supposed to be about unity, one voice, one point of contact. You wonder how often people pushing back against this sort of thing is apathy, and how much is a desire to be an individual. To argue against something without really needing to, just because by arguing you go against the grain, you become the outsider - the lone voice, stirring romantic visions of freedom fighters and noble poets. Bollocks, your just the guy who doesn't give the only opportunity angling has of being taken seriously by Government and funding bodies a chance to even get off the ground. Fine sit on your hands (wring them a bit if you'd like) and be the one to tell us all 'I told you so' if it doesn't work, but at least let them go for it without negativity from the outset.

I'm not suggesting that it's wrong to have a different viewpoint, I'm just suggesting that there is one thing we could do without in this world (no I don't mean McDonalds) - I mean negativity. My old boss once told me that he would rather work with someone inept at their job than someone who whinged and bitched the whole time and didn't give things a chance. I guess I fell into the positive but inept category. We're all individuals, we're all different (I'm not! see below) but we could all take a bit of a step towards being more positive. After all, if you want to live in a happier world, try being happy...

In other news, the world is collapsing, the weather has been bloody freezing and the rivers are high and coloured. Happy Christmas!











~ malcolm