h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I care about keeping my journal up to date. I really do.

Gooday Loony,

Yes, of course you do, we all know that. Take care, cobber.

Walter

Walter, how lovely of you to visit. How's the family?

You can lead kids to water but you can't teach them to fish. They will insist they teach themselves because to a kid, fishing looks easy. "I can do it," they snort petulantly. This statement is second only to that old goodie "I didn't do it" in terms of popular use. Even small humans have pride, and when they arrive at the fishing spot on the wharfside on their first expedition to hook what they hope will be a killer whale, all they see are other kids fishing. It's a case of "if they can do it so can I." And to be fair, it's understandable for a kid NOT to want to he seen letting mum or dad put the bait on, or casting the line. That is simply not cool. They see the whole fishing deal as simplicity with a capital S. (S can also stand for snapper or snag.) So after "requesting" mum and dad buy a fishing line it's a simple case of fixing a bit of liver or gravy beef to the hook, chuck it in then reel in a fish ... then get someone else to take the smelly thing off for you. To a kid it looks easy, but they soon discover it isn't.

Sure, the fish will tantalisingly nibble and tug at the line, but few herrings or spotties appear to find undersea life so unbearable that committing suicide is seen as an easy way out. Rather, they see that slab of meat as an easy meal. That's the thing about fishing: there's a knack to it. It took me (as a kid) several fruitless expeditions to the farthest reaches of Higgens Wharf before I realised that skewering half a fillet of beef to a hook big enough to snare a yellowfin tuna was not the way to pull in some luckless sprat. "Your hooks are too big," one of the bigger kids said as I struggled to carve up what appeared to him as a side of mutton. "If you put too much bait on they'll just nibble at it and gobble it all up." He continued doing his bit to pillage the immediate environs of every species imaginable while I was left to simply fatten up the fish for people like him to haul in the following month.

I noticed his line. Shiny, close to invisible nylon and strung with just two hooks - small and deadly. Mouthful-sized slivers of what appeared to be white meat (I later found out it was squid) hung appealingly off the barbs. I listened, looked and learned. A few weeks later a mate and I wandered through the port gates dodged the battalions of slumbering wharfies [waterside workers] and excessively rouged young ladies (don't know what they were doing there) and headed for our favourite spot, down the little steps to a sort of platform which was half in the water. This time we were well prepared. We'd bought spools of nylon and rigged them with about a dozen hooks. It was called raising the odds. Baited, they looked like strings of red Christmas tree lights as we lowered them into the choppy water. To further increase our chances of killing something for no good reason we sprinkled breadcrumbs on the water. Nothing. A couple of nibbles by those ugly cockabully things and that was it. It seemed the nearest fish to the port that day was probably somewhere off Easter Island. We resorted to scrambling among the piles and bearers until my mate fell in and I lost my line. It wasn't until I eventually saved up and bought a fishing rod, and got a bit more focused about fishing, that I started doing my bit to prompt the introduction of quotas.

And so it eventually came to pass that when my grandson was six I took him fishing. "I can do it," he said of the art of baiting, so I smiled and let him amuse himself by wrapping a ridiculously large slab of meat to the little hook and dropping it into the green waters of the Iron Pot*. As I was explaining somewhat condescendingly that one had to be a "teeny-weeny bit" more judicious in how much bait should he put on the hook he snared a well matured, fat herring. After we got home, and he proudly told his mum he'd got a big fish and granddad got "some dumb little ones" I went to the shed down the back and sullenly stayed there until teatime. Which turned out to be ... fish, so I went to the club and scaled new heights of drunkenness.

*So called because in the 19th Century whalers boiled their blubber there.

Grahame

Hi Loony,

What a charming story. You are so fortunate to have the little one. As I've said before, we are grandchildless, but it is not for want of urging my daughter to .... well, you know. As I grow inexorably older, although not regrettably wiser, it occurs to me that there is a point at which the mental age of a child and the mental age of an old person coincide exactly, i.e. the child's mind is developing while the old person's is regressing. But they think in a very uncluttered way, all the extraneous stuff has either not yet arrived or has been cast off, which might help explain why grandparents and grandchildren seem to have such a wonderful affinity with each other, and life seems so blissfully uncomplicated in their mutual world.

Everyone here is just fine, thanks for asking, and we hope that is how it is with you. Talk with you soon, but in the meantime, as always, take good care, cobber.

Clive