Trends we've all copied

The wader

Don’t get me wrong: the old rubber hosen certainly has its place in angling, but scuffing around on the wood-chipped banks of your favourite carp pond? Probably not frankly, best left in the car just in case (you need to do a returner). It seems like the old Trawlermans’ has done that brilliant ‘didn’t know you needed it’ trick of slotting in like it was always there, but viewing it objectively, it’s not really a fashion item is it gir… bioys?

While the chesty clearly defeats the thigh wader in the practicality stakes, insomuch that you’re waterproof from the chest down, surely having your meagre little pips sitting squashed either side of a heat-welded seam with just the points of your shoulders peeping out above the crinkled rim of your tight-braced ‘proofs as you creak and fart around the local Spar, hunting for your Almond Slices, with half a pound of olive rubber wedged up your tea towel holder (again) isn’t that flattering?

Have you considered the Adam Ant/Johnny Depp, pirate-like swagger of a low-slung thigh wader? And why not combine it with an Alistair Nicholson baggy polo neck, complete with ’Arry Monk… sorry, collected bream mucus? You haven’t got a clue who I’m talking about have you?! He was a fashion icon who had great influence in the Queensford area in the late 80s. Indeed, it has been documented by carp angling’s own Nicholas Parsons, the much maligned Mr. Hamidi, that to truly fit into the Northern Meres in the 90s, you simply had to wear a thigh wader. We’ll just cough, look nervously around and brush that one under the carpet as a Northern thing should we?

And having mentioned ‘wee’, one slight pinprick and you’ve got a map of the South Americas on your strides. Ricky!
But, as you backcomb your Edwardian while the wind whistles through your stretched gammon and you see that yellow flash over your shoulder, ask yourself why you’re wearing rubber?

RidgeMonkey Sandwich Toaster

Historically, we should have expected it. The toasted snack makes an appearance every ten years in all walks of life, remember the Breville? Darrell Peck’s recommending omelette recipes, Laney’s waxing lyrical about the beasts through a flurry of shatter and crumbs… Suddenly they’re the biggest bankside statement since waders (see above), but did anyone see that coming? The Ridge’s succeeded where others have failed, notably the ‘Diabalo’.

If you’ve used a Diabalo (I know Fat Jay’s looking at his trainers humming now) to any extent, shame on you. The off-cut bread alone, over the course of a year, would solve the Third World food crisis and the heat retained in the teabag-sized food parcel you gingerly grabbed prior to meltdown (or burn-down) was, in fact, hotter than the sun. Indeed, it was the first snack to force the Colonel Sanders’ (the proprietor and figurehead of KFC and the local KKK) Hot Apple Pie into second place in the tongue blistering league, having been top and champion for the past 18 years; leading junk food fatties everywhere into hours of ‘O’ shaped mouths, briskly sucking in cold air, gutted as they’d necked the cold, full fat Coke with their large fries long since.

And now I’m started on oral heat (sounds like a ‘specialist’ magazine’), you could take over the world with baked beans and a sandwich toaster couldn’t you? The two combined generate more heat than the entire Solar System in Kelly Brook’s gusset (when she carried a little puppy fat); narrowly beating the tomato, but that’s another scar I’ll keep to myself and the counsellor.

And it’s started carp anglers sharing recipes for the good lord’s sake! Imagine the glitteratti of carp angling’s history exchanging spice blends, egg-based recipes and cooking times (see what I did there?).

One slim needle short of a ****ing knitting club, that’s what carp angling’s become. Now, where’s me chicken, salad cream and curry powder (I kid you not)… And now I want a Deep Pan as I’m weakening my hinges trying to get an entire fridge-full into my ‘Standard’. Pffft!

For the record, I have no connection with Ridge Monkey, KFC or the KKK.