yorkio

I'm pretty sure Brian's right and that it's a syndicate which controls fishing at Kepier Farm. It's been a few years since I've been a member, but so far as I recall, Durham's water ended in town, somewhere round Framwellgate Bridge, and didn't go anything like as far downriver as Kepier. However, John would undoubtedly be the best person to speak to regarding chub fishing on the Wear. If Brian can't find a number for him, you could PM him at Fishing Magic, where he's an active member. It might also be worth looking at a coarse fishing ticket from Felling Flyfishers. They have two and half miles of fishing from the city down to Frankland Prison and if memory serves, a coarse ticket is very cheap (about £25, I think?). From the sound of it though, their water might be on the other side of the river to your in-laws!

Got it – www.deltaflash.co.uk/FDAC.html From the looks of it, the unofficial one is still there, although now abandoned.

Have they still got one? I know they did, but I seem to remember it disappearing a while back.

Thanks, but this one's probably not for me. I'd be happy to post the pics for you though if you'd like me to.

Hi Lyn, what's it made of? Glass? Cane? Graphite? etc And what sort of length? Can you make anything out from the label to see what sort of line weight it might be? Ta

Why do they have to be thin?

A few more exclamation marks wouldn't have gone amiss either!!! They always give a post a bit of gravitas!!!!

Is the BNP website your source for this one? That's the only place I could see that's claiming that overseas aid spending is seven times anything. They're claiming that it's seven times the NHS deficit though, not the NHS budget.

And this American has been posting it all over the internet for years, including on Snopes.

I remember absolute swarms of them coming in off the sea on the Essex coast in about 1975 or 1976 or thereabouts. And they certainly did have a nip on them if they landed on you. I wonder how many there were? I've still got a very strong memory of white caravans turning dark with the sheer numbers of them!

If you do live in England though, I don't think you can just join Fish Legal. It's the Angling Trust or nothing, so far as I can tell. From the website: "In England, individuals wanting to support Fish Legal should join Angling Trust. In Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, individual supporter members can join Fish Legal direct for just £22 a year."

It sounds like perfect fly water!

So, they're playing OK on your mp3 player? But it won't work when you connect it up to your car stereo? How are you doing that? I know there are a fair few iPod-compatible car stereos these days, but all the others I've come across have just had an aux in you connected to your mp3 player's headphone output, in which case it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference what format the files are in provided the mp3 player could play them. .oma is a proprietary Sony format, I believe, so gawd knows what option he checked in whatever software he was using to load your mp3 player to get them like that. What format were the files originally in? Presumably something nice and plain like mp3? If so, then it might well be easiest just to get him to do it again without doing anything silly this time!

How odd. According to the FAQ, "Getting invites is one of the benefits of being a Premium subscriber in one of the countries where Spotify Free is available. You receive two new invitations each time your Premium account is renewed (yearly or monthly, depending on your payment method)." In the Share Spotify bit of my profile, it says I've got no more invitations. (I didn't know I even had any but then again, they've only recently gone back to being invite-only so I've never thought to look before.) Use those invitations wisely!

It's just premium members.

Mrs Yorkio programmes the Durham Book Festival and I talked her into putting on this event so I'm now doing my bit in trying to promote it! It originally started off with Charles R-W and grew from there. If it works, there's a possibility we might be able to expand it into something bigger next year – if we can just find an audience this time to get the ball rolling. So if you're anywhere near Durham, please stop by for an afternoon of riparian revelry and piscatorial pleasures etc… Caught By the River: The Afternoon Fishing Party The most fun you can have without getting your feet wet Sunday 1 November The Debating Chamber, Palace Green, Durham, 1pm Event will last approximately 1 hour 45 mins (though we may still invite some more people!) Tickets: £8/£6 (Concessions) Featuring Charles Rangeley-Wilson will be reading from his work and talking about the films that he has made, such as Fish! A Japanese Obsession for BBC4. There will also be a screening of short film Rivers on the Edge, which he made for the WWF's project of the same name. Charles is the author of The Accidental Angler, a classic collection of writing about rivers, angling and travel, which is so good that it made the Sunday Telegraph reviewer 'writhe with envy'. Kathryn Williams reads The Ouse Burn, a magical piece of writing about what happens when rivers flood into your life. Kathryn is a Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter. Chris Watson presents a unique 55-minute soundscape and spoken word presentation of The River Coquet. Recorded on site and featuring the sounds of the river, this 'nature disco' will surprise and delight. Chris is the UK's leading sound recordist specialising in wildlife. In a previous life, he was a founder member of seminal electronica combo Cabaret Voltaire. We will also be commissioning a playbill for the day featuring the work of Matt Sewell, who creates the popular 'Bird of the Week' images at www.caughtbytheriver.net. The event is curated by Caught by the River, a collection of river enthusiasts responsible for the eponymous culture and angling website www.caughtbytheriver.net. They have recently published Caught by the River: A Collection of Words on Water, which features essays by leading musicians and writers. From the River Thames to the Coquet, the essays offer an exceptional new take on nature writing. Jeff Barrett, one of the site and book's editors, will be on hand on the day. This event is part of the Durham Book Festival, which is bringing more than 60 writers to Durham from 23 October-1 November to take part in a whole host of interesting and entertaining events. A full programme and more information are available at www.bookfestival.org.uk. SPECIAL OFFER Quote 'TROUT' when you're booking your tickets and get two tickets for the price of one! Book your tickets on 0191 332 4041 or in person from the box office at the Gala Theatre, Durham. (Apologies if there's too much fishing content in this post for a forum devoted to Non-Fishing Chat. And thanks to Elton for giving me the opportunity to splash this one about the forum!)

Event now cancelled. Apologies to anyone who was planning to go.

And a location a little bit more specific than just Finnish Lappland might help too!

Incidentally, what's the deal with otters killing fish 'for fun', as JB describes? I've heard that said countless times now, and only occasionally challenged, usually by someone who claims that it's actually mink who kill for fun. Is it entirely incorrect, or one of those anthropomorphic things that 'Tarka' does that look a bit like human behaviour, so we attribute human motives to them?

Ah, yes, as advertised in John Bailey's Kingfisher Wildlife Diaries ('Watch this space for further details on our Tarka Tours!') on 3 September… Bell-end.

Was that pun intentional? Either way it was a good one…

What on earth has this got to do with 'PC'? Surely not everything we disapprove has to get called PC? Some things are just stupid ideas in their own right.

Ha! Don't know how I managed to miss that bit…

Loch Frisa is quite a way inland, isn't it? So are they implying that it was otters that were the predators responsible for making these large holes?

Edit: It really doesn't matter