Ken L

If I'm not too shattered after working tomorrow, I'll have a short session on the stour.

Another loss. Condolences to John's family, friends and fishing buddies.

Cotter pin? Edit: No, what I was thinking of is known as a spring pin, or a roll pin.

They are healthy, clean looking fish that have recovered well from spawning.

Generally, your beef will be with the retailer, but this may help. https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-complain-if-you-ve-been-misled-by-a-sale-or-special-offer-aeFvc2q6yi4X

Weird how the old aristocracy always seems to float to the top, like cream - and turds. All is not well in Euroland, the Poles are getting a referendum on whether to abide by the EU's insistence on accommodating Merkel's "new Europeans", but the people are demanding a referendum on leaving the block altogether. Meanwhile, in Finland, the government is getting bolshy about EU laws and demands for more contributions. With Germany in Recession, things are not looking good. Scrub that, things are looking great!.

Barbel and chub was the plan - but of late, I'm turning into a bit of an eel whisperer. I just can't seem to help but catch those supposedly endangered fish. Fortunately, yesterday, saw both pinned neatly through the bottom jaw, so they were easy releases.

To be fair, with my mobility restricted at the moment, it was just nice to be out. At some point. I will be heading back to the behaviour that I trout fished to target the bream. I think I've worked out how to fish the deep water with a bait that slowly falls the last six feet.

Just got back from an afternoon session on the Severn at Arley. Arrived to see the river coloured after last night's rain, and it rose 6cm while we were there. I fished two rods, both with pellets in the feeder, and meat on the hook, but the setup on the downstream rod was lighter, with a smaller hook and bait. I had one classic "three foot twitch" on the big rod, but failed to connect, and just two bites on the lighter rod that produced eels. We had planned to fish into dusk but packed up after a bunch of bell-ends in inflatables ruined what little chance we had of fish moving in.

You got a pre-2016 source for this supposed "brexit promise LESS RED TAPE when trading with our biggest trading partner the European Union"?

I can actually feel myself getting dumber, while trying to read that.

Well, you managed one fact before going back to the questions. Yes, year ending May 23 inflation in the US was 4% - but it's only 4%, because there has been an 11.7% drop in energy prices. Food price inflation in the same period, was 6.7%. The cost of food in European Union increased 15.04% in the same period. ONS data shows that the annual rate of UK food and non-alcoholic beverage prices inflation increased to 19.1% in the 12 months to March 2023. Within Europe, food prices rose by 20.5% in Germany, 49.6% in Hungary, 21.2% in Poland, 29% in Slovakia, 33.5% in Lithuania, 29.4% in Latvia, and 30.8% in Estonia. So why would you imagine that being part of the EU is protective against high inflation?

Those are questions, not facts. Perhaps this will help: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fact

No facts, just assertions.

Thunderstorms washing sewage and organic matter into the water, followed by a bacterial bloom that uses up all the oxygen. It must have been a major sewage inflow in this case because it happened well up the river, the water up there moves quite fast, has heaps of plant life and regular weirs.

Big on the BS, light on facts - as usual.

I'm seeing reports of a major fish kill on the Warwickshire Avon. If anybody is planning on fishing it over the opening weekend, you might want to do a bit of digging around to find more news.

If Brexit is anti-business, why do we now export more goods and services to the EU than before Brexit? As for small private businesses, there are 80% more in the UK now than there were in 2010, and while they took about a 6.6% drop since 2020, almost all of that can be put down to Covid, and we see similar business failures around the world.

No I didn't. It's out there on the right of the graph. Their electricity is much cheaper than the rest of Western Europe, because 70% of it is derived from nuclear - something that we should have done years ago. As for food prices, go look at the graphics kindly provided by Ant.

The actual average UK cost of electricity per kWh is 52p per kWh, but with the new Energy Price Guarantee, it will average 34p per kWh. Let's see how that compares with the EU: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy_prices/enprices.html?geos=&product=6000&consumer=HOUSEHOLD&consoms=4161903&unit=KWH&taxs=I_TAX,X_TAX,X_VAT&nrg_prc=NETC,NRG_SUP,OTH,TAX_CAP,TAX_ENV,TAX_NUC,TAX_RNW,VAT&currency=EUR&language=EN&detail=0&component=0&order=DESC&dataset=nrg_pc_204&time=2022-S2&modalOption=0&chartOption=0&precision=1&modalOpen=0&modal=0&modalLineOption=0 So, it seems we're cheaper than Ireland Greece, Denmark and Czechia... Failed again.

Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas.

It's only there to keep the rubbish out but if you need one, all sorts can be found on Ali-Express for a couple of quid and you should find one to fit.

Just for fun:

He'll be doing the stereotypical Brit abroad thing. Shouting slowly at foreigners in English, swilling cheap beers, complaining about how greasy the local food is and lamenting the bygone days when Britain had a say in the lives of the natives - as part of the EU of course......

Same here. I signed up in 2012, and locked the account 6 months later - Far too intrusive.