The Alternative Angler – Right to Rights?

Never mind smelling the flowers, don’t forget to take time out to see the satirical side of fishing life and grab a laugh along the way as well. So here’s a regular column from Kevin Perkins to remind us that life is for laughing at, or taking the p*** out of, whenever we can.

Right to Rights?

As I think my taxes have paid for enough hairdo’s for Cherie Blair Booth (shouldn’t it be Booth-Blair in these days of equality?) I reckon it is about time she sorted out a travesty of non-compliance regarding a piece of community wide legislation that should be enforced across the European Union. And that is the continued, muddled, generally unloved and by and large un-policed, fishing Closed Season of rivers in England.

As a member of the European Community, I can travel to other member states and fish in their rivers, doing what would be deemed to be an illegal act during certain times in this country. Surely that is an infringement of my personal liberty, and therefore my individual Human Rights are being denied. I look forward to a be-wigged Cherie (no wonder she spends so much on having her hair done with that thing jammed on her head all day!) vigorously defending my claim at the court in Strasbourg, all expenses paid, naturally, and a big fat settlement to ease my years of pain and misery of not being able to fish wouldn’t go amiss either.

Then again, how about looking at the disgraceful lack of rights afforded to long stay anglers. These facility deprived individuals who are forced to live in mobile shelters, not having any of the basics such as drinking water, proper sanitation or electricity, often miles from any form of community facilities such as shops or health centres (although usually never too far from a pub!). They must surely qualify for the assistance a Local Government Liaison Officer in the same way that ‘Travellers’ do?

This £ 35k per annum (plus expenses) official will ensure that no one is evicted from a swim, even though their day ticket may have expired several days ago. If you’ve got nowhere else to go, you can’t be moved on, that’s only fair, isn’t it? Also, if a group of you are camped out together, it will be a distinct advantage if at least one of you is handy with the tarmac for doing driveways, (will Fox bring out a tar-boiler?) or failing that, if someone can turn their hand to doing a bit of hedge trimming, a weed cutting saw on a landing net pole will do nicely, and bring in a bit of additional income.

As an alternative, a hand-tied bundle of bankside weeds can be aggressively palmed off onto passing members of the public as lucky heather, or perhaps you could don a headscarf and do tarot card or palm readings in your bivvy, maybe use your Swiss army knife to whittle down the surrounding hedgerows into pegs. None of these moneymaking activities are subject to income tax, by the way, as they all are cash only transactions. And of course, if you do become a full-time ‘Bivvyer’, you will be aware that you can claim a 100% rebate on road fund licences, just speak to your local Bivvyer Liaison Officer about the full range of benefits you will be entitled to.

In fact, taking a lead from the travellers, should enough of you Bivvyers camp out in one spot often enough (and isn’t that nearly always the case), you will be able to demand the construction of a permanent site, with proper roads and services provided to improve your wellbeing, and ensure that your Human Rights aren’t violated in any way, and that of course includes not trying to charge you Council Tax.

Pikeys, Pikers, the distinctions seem to be getting blurred…

And giving another of today’s hot topics an angling spin, if I read the rules correctly, asylum seekers are people who travel long distances, completely ignoring many suitable places on the way that they could go to, in order to set themselves up in the place of their choice. Once there, although illegally, they cannot be returned or evicted, for fear of a breach of the dreaded HRA.

So as I see it, if you, as a disadvantaged angler, are filled with the burning desire to be able to fish somewhere better, all you have to do is pop along to the syndicate water of your dreams and set yourself up on the banks, claiming asylum. You cannot be returned to where you came from for fear of reprisals (your mates back home are bound to be in a rage that you are fishing at a top spot), so you will just have to stay where you are, paying nothing, but never forgetting to collect your benefits. That all seems much fairer to me

And finally, this weeks points for debate are:

1) If ‘proper’ barbel fishing only happens on rivers, why isn’t the ‘Barbel’ forum not shut down for the closed season…shouldn’t we inform their ‘police’…?

2) If we are going to be caught in the grip of a drought, how soon can we expect it to become compulsory to have to take your own water with you before you can go fishing?