Plaice, and dabs and flounder

Big fish and little fish

Talking of big fish, the Westminster talking-shop boys, while the rest of the public sector get 1%, have got an 11% payrise, as awarded by a body put together by...er...well, by themselves. They're dead keen on performance-related pay. Presumably that means there's some evidence supporting the suggestion that they're doing a really good job.

One of their favourite areas of interference is fishing. How would you rate their performance? Only 4% of the fish landed is by small boats.

The 96% produces little or no joy. Frozen, or made into factory produced fish-like products, and shipped (ooops, sorry) to soulless, grim supermarkets. Where busy mums throw (and I mean throw – I don't get it, pick up food you intend to pay for, and chuck it around like it's already going to waste) them into convenience rubbish packed trolleys, before standing in grim queues, waiting for the privilege of paying. Then throw it into the family hatchback, then throw it into the freezer, then throw it into the microwave, then throw it onto the joyless, soulless plate. No doubt they then throw the plate at their husbands or kids.

The 4%, conversely, gets sold at proper fish stalls and markets, or from those beach huts selling whatever came in the nets that morning. They get properly cooked, with effort and respect, and taste of something.

Compare and contrast, industrial fish fingers in bright orange-coloured grit¹, and those barbecued sardines on the beach in Portugal, straight off the boat. The sardines don't need those red-tinted glasses to be a good memory.

The last thing the Iceland mum needs, I suppose, is the reality of guts and scales, of bones and heads and fins and tails, preferring the lab-processed generic fish oblongs her little cherubs might deign to eat, if they're smothered in enough ketchup to float an armada.

We had some haggis flavour crisps...

...they were vegetarian, so didn't contain any traces of haggis. I thought they were pretty good, if a bit heavy on the salt.

That was too wine-taster pretentious for MM, who described them as “bangin'”.

Another great day's Ashes cricket

The thing where I don't use capitals for conservative party, prime minister, queen, new labour, chief of police, that sort of thing, but capitalise BLISS, KIZ, MM, DLL, D the Dog, White Dog, Ashes, World Cup, Premier League, Rugby Union, those sort of things; that's deliberate, premeditated, and rather immature. Can't help me'self though.

The first test is one you can't glance away from for an instant, every session has had plenty happening. I think that before getting through, say, three newspaper reports tomorrow, you'll have read the word 'rollercoaster'.

1Try it. Next time the café offers fishfingers, chips and peas, see how the reality lets down the expectation.