Bivvy 101: Technology, food and people

Category: Technology

1. Skyping
I trembled with fear when a client would say, “I’ll Skype you in 10”. While I’m not a child of t’interweb and assorted other social medias, my fear isn’t tablet-based (that was the paranoia and schizophrenia).

You see, the problem is that when you’ve got a nose the size of mine, you realise the effects of a wide-angle lens up close on your bugle. Like a million dog postcards, you know the ones… And what appears to be several yards behind, lies my four eyes, perched precariously on the bridge of my nose, which is swinging around like a stray Zeppelin on-screen. Plus, there’s the invariable cow’s-lick of hair. I work from home you see and sometimes dive straight into the office early if there’s anything to sort. Thankfully, I’ve never been in my pants for a ‘Skyping’, but let’s just say I’ve not had the powder team in.

Indeed, a while back I was ‘Skyping’ when the missus walked in. I spied her over the screen and, forgetting myself, mouthed ‘F*** OFF’ to her (in jest, if I’d meant it I’d have thrown a punch*). Sadly, the client could lip read. He asked if I was alright, just as a cup of tea and two biscuits entered from my right. Good gal!

But I’ve no longer to worry. No-one has ever asked my to Skype since I learnt a lesson from ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’. While that’s invariably the statement of the most inane, ‘toe-the-liner’ in the entire office, when it’s written in their own shit across their desk, or yours, it’s time to take them seriously.

So, written on the office wall above my head, in ketchup, are the simple words, ‘I will kill again’. Sorted it right out.
*Don’t take me seriously.

Category: Food

2. Pot noodles
It’s perhaps the greatest conviviality on the bank; a decent bit of grub, washed down with some man pop, tea, ginger beer or – but I’d rather drink my own piss – water. The smell of pig frying across a lake is a gift from the carp Gods. Anticipating a bit of sensible tucker can make an otherwise blank trip. So why-oh-why take a Pot-bastard-Noodle?

Putrefied, dried sick dust with the nutritional benefits of industrial primer. Sorry, I don’t think industrial primer gives you the squits does it? But I still see people with them for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t the human race learn? We can send a man to the moon, invent the web, cure typhoid but we still eat Pot Noodles (what the astronauts ate?). Take my mate Dean, in our Graveyard days (it’s a lake, we’re not necrophiliacs; unconscious doesn’t count), who summed up the ‘Noodle perfectly.

One gorgeous summer’s day, while basting in the sun on the sunny side of the lake, enjoying a luke-warm beer, Mr. Hunter announced that he’d ‘worked peckish’. Foraging in his rucksack he produced a somewhat dusty Pot Noodle. As the kettle boiled he read the label as someone would survey a fine claret. Peeling the lid back he surveyed the dust inside with a quizzical look and added the water, then frantically stirred it for a minute. Checking his watch he let the bubbling mess stand for two minutes. Following flicking his wrist upwards to check his watch several times, he once again returned to the steaming cauldron of Beef and Tomato (the really shit one!) and again, frantically stirred its contents, making sure he got the hard stuff in the corners. The pot was again rested for a further two minutes. The anticipation was electric (not much ever happened at the Graveyard). Dean returned to his timepiece, five… four… three… two… ONE! He then proceeded to pick up the Pot and in one swift motion, threw the contents deep into the bushes. “WATHAFAYOUDOIN?’ I asked.

“Cutting out the middle man, John. Cutting out the middleman,” Dean replied as he swaggered to another pint of lager.

Category: People

3. 'At all costas' or 'diegos'
Don’t worry, it nowt to do with a certain, apparently injured, free scoring centre forward of the blue variety. While, as a Man Utd fan, I’d like to see him in Bivvy 101, sadly, I’ve not come across him behind a set of carbons eating a Pot Noodle (see point 3) yet. So Diego my friend, you’re in the clear. It’s the wannabees at the cost of basic respect that get my goat.

Our Diego will hear about a water by eves-dropping, Facebook or exchanging bullshit. They’ll fish it for an age, throwing in bait like they didn’t pay for it and catch a couple. Then they’ll find it too hard or they’re met with such dislike they daren’t go back. Then they boast in the media (or generally their Facebook page) about their ‘results’, naming the water with no respect for the water or the guys actually fishing it, many who’ve put time and effort into finding, forming and feeding the water; the long-timers who will only fish a night a week at best but don’t grumble. Diego will list sponsorship from companies who gave them a bivvy once to shut ‘em up, they claim knowledge that they’ve cribbed from magazines, others and recycled it to appear their own. They’ll write articles on the back of f***-all, with processed knowledge from the very same bloody pages they’re speaking from.

It’s a carp mag, not the bloody bible (okay Joe, I’ll argue that one with you later). Can we get a sense of perspective on this? Why sacrifice respect for your 15 minutes?

Anyway, it’s time for me to don my flat cap and mac, pick up my lunch box and leave these pages like Eric Morecambe left the show. I can’t tell anymore stories (I’m down to a Pot Noodle), they’re either illegal, incriminating or too rude. Just remember it doesn’t all have to get slung in Bivvy 101. I’m off to enjoy learning, the unknown, history reviving, people catching, kids, sunrise, night time, daytime, pike, a pint, roach, tench, birds, talking about birds, a nudge of advice, respect, mistakes; and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Toodaloo.