Flies for Scotland - spring salmon fishing

Did I say I was going to Scotland? Here's a prediction: I will fish all week and catch nothing. The Upper Scone beat of the Tay is pretty reliable in that respect at this time of the year. It doesn't hold many fish. They're all speeding upstream. You can see the catches here. Not a big total so far on the Tay. But that's how it's been on a river these past few years where the riparian owners moved too slowly to introduce conservation measures. It was the ghillies who instigated the hatchery, not the owners.

If a fish is caught in the week it will most probably come from the boat or from a spinner. I expect I will be the only one thrashing away with the fly. Mostly I'll just work on my casting but I think I'll work quite a bit with a sunk line rather than a floating line with a sink tip.

I had wanted to tie up some tungsten flies but the tungsten heads hadn't arrived before leaving. If I have time I might try to make a drowned mouse. This is a fly invented by the late Francis T Grant who wrote an excellent book called Salmon Flyfishing, The Dynamics Approach. Key to the fly is a red tail, not because of its colour, but because it helps the fly sit horizontally in the stream while imparting movement. It is not so very different in style from a cascade tube or a Willie Gunn tube apart from the tail.

Here's a list of flies I'm taking to the Tay and then to the Dee two weeks later:

Cascade Tube (good colours)
Pot belly pig (good for movement in the bristles)
Black and red frances (Icelandic mainstays, for origins read this)
Snaelda (ugly weighted black thing used in Iceland)
Various tubes (Willie Gunn etc)

All of these are weighted. Unless the water warms up dramatically I'm going to try fishing quite deep, at least the first week. That is the method that paid off most often when I used to fish a "broon and gold" devon spinner. The Tay is a big river. It's not possible to wade far out in the spring and it's impossible to cover the water that is covered by a harled Kynoch lure that's in the water constantly. I'm getting my excuses in early.

I'm sticking a 20lb leader on as well. There have been a few big fish recently. My only concession to spinning will be to try out some of John Gray's Spinheads with the fly rod. He assures me that they do not twist the line to any degree.

I shall also, now and again, sit in the boat with the ghillie and chew the fat and if my rod bends I'll play the fish and enjoy it. The Tay has a first fish back voluntary code. I'll go along with that if it happens, although it's a long time since I took a fish so, if I'm lucky enough to get two, the second one might get knocked on the head, unless it's a beast in which case I'll put it back to make more beasts. There I go - two fish in mind already and one of 'ems a monster. Dream on. This is the lower Tay in April. It's not going to happen.

A bit worrying this morning when I took my salmon rod out of the bag where it spent the winter. It's looking pretty beat up, a bit like its owner. I hope it lasts.

Forum phobia, fishing Macnab no MacBook

I have a ton of work to do before heading for Scotland and the fishing, so what do I do? I sit down and write a blog. I may blog from Scotland if I can find wireless access but a break from blogging might be worthwhile.

I have just bought a new laptop. I really, really wanted a MacBook but bought a Dell instead. Why? I don't know; scared of Macs I suppose. It has the new Vista system installed which I didn't find exciting. In fact I hate the way Dell sticks lots of "free trial, buy in 60 days software" on its computers.

Getting a new computer used to be an event and a bit of a challenge to wire up everything. Now it's like getting a TV: plug in, switch on and start. Irritatingly it doesn't have Word for Windows. All new computers using the Microsoft operating system should have Microsoft Word.

Forum addiction

But it wasn't the computer that prompted this note. It was forum phobia. I'm worried about the addictive nature of forums (fora? I think forums is OK). I was drawn on to a fly fishing forum the other week after finding out that there had been a debate there on something I'd written.

I'd written a very tongue in cheek piece for the FT and there were these fishing geeks poring over the details and, frankly, taking it all far too seriously. Yes you get geeks in fishing too and geeks visit forums. But I visit forums too (Deesider on the flyforums.co.uk). Does that make me a geek? Perhaps, but I would like to consider myself as a general all-round regular Joe. Anyway you get just enough solid types with a sense of humour to make it worth the visit.

You can get really good advice too. One chap was telling me about a good spot on a river where I'll be fishing in two week's time. In the past you had to be standing on the river to get that kind of detailed advice.

But there is a lot of unpleasantness in forums too. There's a lot of intolerance that I mentioned here in my latest FT fishing column (out today in all major newsagents etc!). One chap who had written loads of stuff about sea trout fishing in the sea, removed the entire content after falling out with people over some nasty remarks. There must have been something about his approach to the site that attracted those comments. You need to be really careful how you write things.

Ruffled feathers

For example, I wrote one thing yesterday, based on my knowledge of fishing salmon beats, only to be told in the next post that I was "completely wrong". Now that ruffles feathers. The poster could have said I was "possibly mistaken" but no, he had to wade in with a two-footed tackle. So when I say in a later post "you may be right" you can imagine what I'm thinking.

People are less restrained on forums - particularly when hidden behind a nickname - than they are when you meet them face-to-face. It's not quite like car-based behaviour where all too frequently normally mild mannered people resort to showing their middle finger in response to some minor irritation. But there is a need to take care all the same.

Anyway, in for a penny, as they say. I have just posted a note mentioning a Macnab-style fishing challenge I established some time ago. I'll see what happens.

A love of films

One thing shared with all of my family is a love of good films. Even my wife's parents, now in their 80s, still like to get along to the cinema, sitting among the pop-corn eating hoards, eyes glued to the screen, feet glued to the carpet. Our eldest son, John, is seeking to establish a career in films and for most of the past year has been studying for an MSc in management and the film industry at CASS Business School.

In the meantime he still gets along to the cinema and has just started a new blog on the cinema industry that will include news, views and reviews with this note on 300, seen at the IMAX. The lad's got talent. But don't take my word for it. Take a look. I'm told this is a stylish but very gory film. So why is it rated 15? What does it take to push the "gruesometer" past 18?

Escalator skiing

Come on, admit it, even if you've never done it you've always wanted to run up a down escalator or vice versa. How about escalator skiing? The London Underground disapproved, but it beats commuting.

Incidentally there's a song about the London Underground that my 14-year-old, George, sings constantly only with bleeps for the expletives. He tells me everyone else at his school sings it too. There are a lot of bleeps. Who would have imagined that the London Underground would one day get its own anthem?

A plague on all our fish

Spring salmon runs appear to be improving again this year on the East Coast of Scotland. It's always difficult to link cause and effect but I don't think there is any coincidence that this improvement has arisen after concerted efforts by the North Atlantic Salmon Fund to buy off netting interests in Greenland, The Faroe Islands, Norway and the North East coast of England.

These efforts led by NASF chairman Orri Vigfusson and backed by generous donations often from wealthy individuals who simply love fishing, have used the commercial system in support of rod and line angling.

Buying netting interests in the marketplace might seem a simple, if expensive, solution to overfishing. But alone it does not provide a sustainable alternative to support the livelihoods of those who sell out. This is why a second strand of Vigfusson's work - ensuring that fishermen have viable alternatives to earn their income - is so important.

In 2006 some £340,000 was spent in Greenland and the Faroes, helping commercial fishermen buy the equipment and expertise they need to switch either to other forms of fishing or other types of work.

End to fishing

I believe that within 50 years most commercial fishing, at least as we know it now, will have been either severely curtailed or ended completely. Drag netting the ocean bed has to stop. Factory fishing our oceans is simply unsustainable. Where it may continue is in specific fishing-designated areas of ocean among stocks that can be sustained through seeding - a kind of farming without cages.

Elsewhere fish farming practices need to improve dramatically if the industry is to rid itself of a poor reputation in fish husbandry. Fish farms should be removed from areas where there is too little current to wash away fish waste and repositioned either in sites where good flows are maintained or in the open-sea where fish lice cannot invade migratory stocks. At the same time farms need to be made more secure to stop escapes. More than a million salmon escaped from Scottish fish farms in 2005. We can only guess at the impact that is creating on the diverse genetic strains that have developed in different river systems.

In the meantime anglers cannot afford to be complacent about their sport. Too often I hear fishermen moaning about various predators. Seals, cormorants and red breasted mergansers are high on the Scottish hate lists. For the trout streams some (not me) would include pike, even the graceful grayling which is sometimes perceived as a competitor for the the cossetted trout.

Killing grayling

Only a year ago I was invited to fish a stretch of chalk stream where I was asked to remove any grayling I had caught. I put back those I caught but it was a sad sight to see rotting fish left on the bank side by other anglers. I thought this practiceof treating Grayling as vermin had stopped but it still goes on. Sure, Grayling will eat trout fry, just as trout will eat Grayling fry. They eat pike fry too.

I know river keepers who will remove a big pike from a chalk stream, yet this same fish might have been praying on other small pike as well as weak and diseased game fish. Predation is necessary to ensure a balanced and thriving ecosystem.

If we're really concerned about predators in English rivers why not make it open season for the American signal crayfish? They're a pest in our rivers and they make good eating so there's a double bonus in catching them. The Environment Agency has been cautious about giving blanket approval for trapping but its timidity is misplaced. As long as people can tell the difference between native and signal crayfish I can't see the problem.

On a stretch of the Lambourne I visited last year I saw a lot of traps set by the river keeper. The traps were unloaded daily in to a cage placed in the river near the fishing hut, enabling anglers to load up with crayfish. I took a bag home and boiled them in salty water. They made for good eating with water cress and mayonaise.

Longest stock pond

Trout worship, on the other hand, can go too far. I have heard the river Test described as "England's longest stock pond". Chalk streams have been managed expertly for generations but management must be inclusive and not confined to a single species. Anglers like to style themselves as custodians of rivers but they cannot keep them to themselves. Pressure for better access by walkers and canoeists is growing and fishing is going to have to find ways of accommodating these other interests.

One way of doing so is to improve all round education so that all river users can get a better understanding of our waterways.

Nowhere is this more important than in spreading awareness of Gyrodactylus salaris. Just now this salmon parasite does not exist in British or Irish waters. It has destroyed salmon strains in rivers on the continent, wiping out stocks in more than 40 Norwegian rivers. Once in a system it is extremely difficult to eradicate.

This is why Iceland, that is also free of the parasite, has introduced a tackle disinfecting policy at the airport for all visiting anglers who cannot produce a certificate of disinfection from their home country. In Norway tackle is disinfected at the side of the river. Treating your kit with chemicals is a real pain, particularly when you know you haven't been near a potentially infected river for some time. I'm not convinced that this policy is going to work. If the parasite gets in, it will do so through ignorance.

Originally Gyrodactylus - which occurs naturally in the Baltic rivers of Sweden, Finland and Russia where fish stocks have built up some natural resistance - was transferred to Norway in farmed fish from Sweden and found its way in to the wild population. As far as I can see the spread of the parasite in most if not all cases been blamed on stocking from infected hatcheries.

Scottish fears

This has been devastating for Norway. But imagine the catastrophe if it got in to the Scottish river system where the reach of tributaries is far more extensive than that of the relatively short Norwegian rivers. Most of the advice I have heard warns of the danger of transfer on fishing gear but the parasite, in theory at least, could be transferred also on the damp neoprene of a canoeist's or wind surfer's wet suit.

Scientists, however, have admitted that such transfers are highly unlikely, probably on a par with the risk of catching venereal disease from a toilet seat. These are parasites that cannot live out of water and cannot survive very long without a host. The biggest danger of transfer is in the movement of fish and that must be policed rigorously.

For peace of mind all round it's sensible to ensure your equipment has been dry for a couple of days after fishing anywhere near an infected area. Alternatively sticking your gear in a deep freeze for a day will do the job. Disinfecting chemicals include: Aquatic, Wescodyne, sodium chloride and sodium hydroxide.

Should Scottish rivers introduce a disinfecting policy? I think that detailed education is preferable. Of course that does not prevent laziness among those who can't be bothered to take precautions and that's where peer pressure has a role.

The real ignorance is not in angling but elsewhere. When I rang my local vet about a disinfecting service ahead of a trip to Iceland last year they had no idea what I was talking about. Even at Reykjavik airport the service was pretty rudimentary. They dipped my rods and took my word for it that my other kit was OK. So why bother dipping the rods?

This morning in a package of tackle, bought mail order from Sportfish, I received an information leaflet on Gyrodactylus salaris issued by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD). Here is the DEFRA version. All tackle suppliers should be doing the same. It's such an easy way to educate people. Every angler loves to dream about fishing and I do as much as anyone. But sometimes we have to think too about the nightmare. Gyrodactylus in Scotland - that's my nightmare.

NB. I noticed that the leaflet described Iceland as a "country with unknown status" in regard to Gyrodactylus salaris. That will be news to the Icelanders who operate far more stringent controls than the Scots and who, financially, have more to lose. Take away salmon fishing from Iceland and what have you got? A lot of hot air and the Blue Lagoon.

Interesting nugget: The majority of Icelanders believe in elves.

Synchronised goldfish

One thing that bugs me about the internet (yet it's something I like in equal measure) is that I can spend days researching an article on fish behaviour - the sort of thing I do for a living - and then in a click of a button I can come across something like this film of synchronised fish that says more than I can write in 2,000 words, or does it? If it's some kind of Photoshop stunt then it's very good. If it's the genuine article it confirms what I've always suspected: there is a direct link between fish behaviour and Strictly Come Dancing. Then again, fish do this in their natural environment all the time.

Top trees

I like trees. Doesn't everyone? Here is a great collection of trees that should draw gasps from tree-lovers everywhere. I particularly like the circus trees. There are some sad stories here too, like that of the Promethius tree and the lonely tree of Tenere - the world's most isolated tree, 250 miles from any other. There was nothing around it but desert. Not that it stopped a drunken truck driver from crashing into the tree and killing it.

A good lunch

There was fishing to organise so it called for a lunch. I do like a good lunch. For years it was the institution of business - a time and a place to gossip, learn stuff and make deals. Some of my best journalism commissions have come out of a lunchtime conversation.

But lunch has to be with people you like or people you find that you like over lunch, and the best lunches tend to involve a drink or two. In the past few years I have had the occasional lunch that just involves water. In fact today, as often as not, abstemiousness is assumed. These puritanical American-style "meetings with food" start promptly and end quickly because they're shoe horned in to a schedule.

It's worse still if the venue is one of those fashionable glass and steel echo chambers designed to create "instant atmosphere". I can't hear what's being said. I've noticed that women often pick these places.

I've always enjoyed the company of women but, just as some choose badly in love, they do so at lunch. They pick fancy places to eat, typically somewhere "that I've never been to but I've heard it's good". A few scraps of vegetable and maybe a sliver of meat are piled on some mush in the middle of the plate with something dark drizzled on top. After the main course - which can be consumed in 30 seconds - the woman is desperately wanting some pudding but she denies herself and sips water throughout with one eye on the watch.

At this week's fishing lunch in the Boot & Flogger, one of our group was an hour late but it didn't seem to matter. True, this particular lunch went a little bit beyond what would strictly qualify as lunch and ended in some singing, but that's not necessary for a good lunch. A good lunch develops; it happens; it can't say "good lunch" in your diary although sometimes you have an inkling about the possibilities.

Everyone ordered rib-eye steak with chips. There was nothing drizzled and no white space on the plate. Real food, real people and real conversation in a real wine bar where it would be impolite to drink too much water.

In the 1980s when I first joined the Financial Times, every department head was given access to the private dining room three or four times a year. The idea was that you hosted a nice lunch for a few guests or "contacts". Mostly, however, it was an excuse for a department blow out. The dining room was in the bowels of Bracken House where nothing could be disturbed. There were several courses of top nosh with a great selection of wines. It helped that Pearson, the parent company, owned Chateau Latour at the time. Then there was brandy or port (or both) and cigars. And some of us still managed to get a story written before heading home.

Over the years successive economies, a move to a smoked glass box at Southwark Bridge, and a focus on the bottom line, changed everything. The vineyard was flogged off, in-house dining curtailed, drinking discouraged and the whole working environment was effectively "delunched" through this creeping sobriety so that the snack in front of the computer terminal has become the norm.

Having sampled both the old regime and the new puritanism, I know where my preferences lie. Today we have instant news, instant everything. But the best news is slow cooked and the best writing, well seasoned, if no longer slightly pickled.

Telly people from Tellyland where strange is good

Why was Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, standing on Waterloo Station this afternoon alongside a woman holding an artichoke in one hand and an arm from a tailor's dummy in the other?

In Tellyland everything strange is good.

I know an old joke where the punchline is: Artichokes two for a pound at Tesco's. You need to work backwards from there.

Coming out - a passion for Scotland

Somewhere at some deep subliminal level, emotionally suppressed perhaps, I'm wondering if for much of my life I have harboured a secret and undefined urge to be Scottish.

It's not something I have felt comfortable talking about until now. But it's difficult and not altogether healthy to deny your urges. For many years I have wanted a kilt. I suppose I would adopt the clan Duncan which is the nearest approximation I can find to my name. I just like the idea of baring my knees in the heather, not to mention the freedom from restriction afforded to other parts. The "right to dangle" in the fresh air is enshrined in the wearing of the kilt.

I am too old to adopt the Scottish burr but for many years I have enjoyed celebrating Burns night with haggis, tatties, neaps and whisky. In fact I will be having haggis on my birthday as I did last year in a fishing hut by the side of the Dee.

There are parallels to be drawn between the Scots and Yorkshire people. Both are careful with their money although Yorkshire people are perhaps a little less dour. As P G Woodhouse once wrote: "It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine."

Had I stayed in my native Yorkshire I'm sure the ties of allegiance would have been too great by now. But, having made the break from Yorkshire nearly 20 years ago, I am still struggling to find a sense of belonging in Surrey. I want to live somewhere where people talk in bus queues. In Surrey they don't have bus queues because they don't have many buses and, where they do, everyone keeps their own council.

Weighing up the pros and cons of Scotland I realise that I don't like everything about the place. I have a problem with the embedded Presbyterianism on the Isle of Lewis, for example. Anywhere that locks up its playgrounds on a Sunday has to be viewed with suspicion.

I've made three lists covering Scottishness: 1. People and things I like, 2. People and things I dislike, and 3. People and things about which I am ambivalent:

1. Likes (Scotland)

Kilts, hunting tartans, ospreys, salmon fishing, Deeside, ghillies, The Beano, People's Friend Magazine, The Forth Rail Bridge, St Kilda, Munroes, Dunkeld, Caledonian Macbrayne ferries, John Buchan, Melrose, Donald Dewar, Bill McLaren, Archie Gemmell, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, haggis, malt whisky, the beech hedge at Meikleour, Highland cattle, Iona, Tobermory, Kirsty Wark, Muriel Grey, The Cullins, grouse, Malloch's, Caledonian Canal, Claymores, raspberries, Western Isles, Jackie Stewart, Robert Burns, bothies, Skara Brae, brocks, RAF Leuchars, Neist Point Lighthouse, Robert Louis Stephenson, Mrs MacDonald's cheese shop in Blairgowrie (the best cheese shop in Scotland), Stanley Baxter ("Izat a marra on yer barra, Clara?"), Dr Finlay's Casebook, Oor Wullie, golden eagles, Dougie MacLean, West Highland White terriers, Henderson's of Edinburgh, Harris Tweed.


2. Dislikes

The Loch Ness Monster, accordion music, battered Mars bars, Tennants 80 shilling ale, Stornaway, the Glasgow accent, Curling, seals, Mel Gibson, pebble dashing, The Forth Road Bridge, bridies, tartan trousers, The Scottish Wool Shop, jokey bad weather postcards, Scottish dancing, the Isle of Skye Bridge, Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh Military tattoo , John O'Groats, Mary Queen of Scots, The Dandy, Fort William, Muckle Flugga, preserves, The House of Bruar catalogue, The White Heather Club, the Krankies, miserable ghillies, west coast midges, Mull of Kintyre (the dirge), Bonnie Prince Charlie, Monarch of the Glen, short bread, Caithness glass paperweights.


3. Ambivalent

Bagpipes, Billy Connolly, Sean Connery, Uig sands, tossing the caber, Edinburgh, Robert the Bruce, Sauchiehall Street, dour ghillies, Scotch eggs, Macbeth, Ben Nevis, David Steel, the Scottish Nationalist Party, The Bay City Rollers, Sir Alex Ferguson, Stirling Castle, thistles, Gretna, Scotch Broth, Jack Vettriano, Aberdeen Angus, Flora MacDonald, capercaillies.

Mel Gibson isn't Scottish you might say. Well someone ought to tell him and put us all out of our misery. The more observant will notice that ghillies appear in each list - well you get all sorts but I should say that I like most of those I have met. I should also say that I have never been to John O'Groats but I know I won't like it. I hate places where there is a white signpost pointing in various directions, saying how far it is to the North Pole or Disneyland. Also crazy cyclists gather there and that's a worry.

A few years ago we did try to buy a house in Melrose but were outbid. I saw another one on Harris but Gill drew the line at that one. I do worry about the midges and the dark winters but I like contrasts and I like windswept places. I worry about Scottish separatism. I think that seceding from the union would be a mistake and I'm not sure I want to be independently Scottish. Nor do I care for "English bashing" wherever I find it. Countries like Scotland and Wales need to grow up a little and get rid of their historic animosity towards England, just as the Irish have done. If separatism is the future, then I hope they will follow the Irish model where an English passport is not required and where even English dogs are welcome.

House prices and the "vampire trade"

I've just been listening to Evan Davis presenting his series on house prices. I had hoped to provide a link to listen again but BBC Radio 4 doesn't seem to have extended this service to his programme. A pity, although the latest programme is repeated tonight if you are reading this in what Americans call "real time" and we call "now" (i.e. on the day this blog appears).

There is a shortage of housing in the UK caused partly by social changes (more couples living apart, people living longer, higher immigration) and partly by a house-building programme that is not meeting demand. Another issue is the 250,000 second homes in the UK that could end the shortage overnight were they released on to the market.

George Monbiot has described second home owners as "among the most selfish people in Britain". He calls it a "vampire trade".That's a bit harsh in my view, but there is no doubt that second-home buying has created ghost villages in the Cotswolds and other so-called rural retreats while depriving the locals who live and work there of the opportunity to own an affordable home for themselves.

There was a spate of fire bombing by Welsh Nationalists when English second home buyers moved heavily in to Wales during the 1970s. That's not the solution but it does demonstrate the strength of feeling that can be stirred up in the second home market.

We (that's Gill and me) could afford to enter the second home market and have sometimes thought about buying one, but I wouldn't know what to do with it. I know instinctively that it would become a worry. When we first came to the south we kept our house in the north for three years and rented in Surrey. But the old place was starting to get a bit fusty. It needed to be lived in. Then there was the extra furniture we needed and it was just too far away.

A cottage in the south would be a different kind of worry. Suppose I had a lot of my books there and I suddenly needed to look at one? Or if I needed a favourite coat or hat? I like all those things within reach. No, when I'm good and ready to live in the country I'll go and live there so that I can upset the locals 100 per cent of the time.

I'm wondering whether the government should try to deter second home ownership by taxing it. It already does so in the capital gains tax that is attached to the sale of any second home that has risen in value (so just about all of them). Stamp tax is another deterrent but not enough and it also applies to the houses we live in. Perhaps there should be a tax attached only to the purchase of a second home or a tax related to the days that a house stands empty. Of course this would be unpopular with MPs, most of whom also own second homes.

Another stimulant might be to lift capital gains tax on second home sales, although this would make them even more attractive as an investment. Perhaps the government should try social engineering instead, adjusting taxation so that it makes marriage, financially, a much more desirable prospect than living apart. At the same time it could make it more desirable than what used to be called "living over the brush".

It's about time that we did something to restore the concept of "commitment" in society. At the same time we should think about another "c" word: community. You don't get that much with second homes.

Spit n'image

A lot of publishers send me books to review. I wish they were history books or adventure stories. Sadly they are all management books. But even management books can be interesting in parts.

Sometimes the publishers send me the galley proofs of the book before they are sent to the printers and sometimes I get the raw unedited copy. That was the case with a forthcoming book - Commoditization and the Strategic Response by Andrew Holmes who sent me his concluding chapter.

I liked his theme on commoditisation (although I can't bring myself top spell it with a "z") which fitted with some of my own thinking so I used it as the basis of my FT column this week. I didn't have room for something he was writing on technology but I thought it was interesting so mention it here.

A company called Navidia has launched the GeForce 8800 chip that took four years to develop. It can deliver ultra-lifelike graphic images. Soon it will be impossible to distinguish the image you see on your screen from the real thing.

Imagine the money that film studios will save on actors, that TV news will save on presenters and the Met Office will save on all those wooden weather presenters. According to Mr Holmes both Intel and IBM have claimed that Hafnium, a metal used in the construction of nuclear reactors, could soon outstrip the limitations of the silicon chip for power and speed. So there is more to come.

Does this mean that one day I will be able to see a representation of Brad Pitt where the virtual image can actually act? I can't wait.

A welcome in the valleys

I know many lovely Welsh people but none of them was sitting nearby on Saturday way up in the Millennium stadium where a few of us were at the receiving end of what has to be the most unwelcoming atmosphere that it is possible to experience at a rugby union match.

There is nothing the Welsh seem to like more than grinding English faces in the dirt. It went quiet for a little while when England drew level. But as the Welsh knocked over a drop goal and a couple of penalties to seal the match the home support worked itself up into the kind of gloating frenzy that does it no credit. A chap behind me apologised. "I'm sorry about this but it hasn't happened much for us this season," he said. Another told us in no uncertain terms where we could stick our chariot.

I was reminded briefly of the time I went with a Surrey rugby club junior squad on tour in Wales. There was a ridiculous sense of deference among the tourist dads. We sang some Welsh hymns but when I began singing an English song I was told to hush lest we upset our hosts. In my experience this kind of English deference is rarely reciprocated elsewhere and never in Wales.

I was glad that our strategy of staying the night in Bristol allowed us to scuttle away from Cardiff before the last train. We ended up in a pub called the Reckless Engineer in tribute, I suppose, to Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was actually born in Portsmouth but who had strong connections with Bristol where he was responsible for designing the Clifton Suspension Bridge and where SS Great Britain, another of his designs, has been restored as a visitor attraction.

It was "glam rock" night in the pub. A band, fronted by a chap who looked a little bit like Eddie Izzard and wore hooped pop socks, tights, a black mini skirt and a gold lame top, played old songs by The Sweet and T.Rex. People of all ages, shapes and sizes, including a woman who looked remarkably like Ann Widdecombe, were having a great time on the dance floor.

This reminded me of a time on yet another junior rugby tour where we spent an evening listening to Brian Poole and the Tremeloes at Butlins in Bognor Regis. I get to see all the class acts on my travels. I like this sort of thing because it's authentic England, more so, in many ways than chocolate box Cotswold villages where second homers spend the weekend polishing their Agas, chopping wood and arranging dried flowers.

I won't be going back to Cardiff for the rugby in a hurry. But I might go back to the Reckless Engineer.

The lost colony

I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibition of watercolours of Algonquin Indians painted by John White in Roanoke in 1585. This was the first attempt by the English to establish a colony in North America.

The exhibition that runs at the British Museum until June 17 is a rare opportunity to see these pictures of a thriving native American community that sustained itself successfully before Europeans introduced new diseases and conflict, disrupting a way of life that had evolved steadily for centuries.

That first colony did not succeed and was evacuated. A second colony had arrive in 1587 but that too was struggling and White returned to England for help. But his return voyage was delayed by war with Spain and when he finally came back in 1590 every member of the 117-strong colony had disappeared with just one or two carved letters left behind as clues to their whereabouts. The fate of what became known as the "lost colony" has never been explained.

I wrote about it in this chapter of my children's book, Prospero's Gold, as I was intrigued by later stories of fair haired Indians in the area. I think it highly likely that at least some of the colony was absorbed in to a local tribe. I chose an Algonquin Indian as the mother of one of the book's central characters. The story of the colony is featured here. A recent archaeological dig has tried to find fresh evidence but I'm not aware that it came up with anything to shed any new light on the mystery.

Virtual talent

I’ve created an imaginary “talent basket” for people with imaginary talent. To be internet trendy I might call it “virtual talent”. The idea is to have a balloon debate, chucking out those with the least talent, leaving anyone who has real talent in the basket.

Here are a few candidates: Jade Goody, Heather Mills, Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, Piers Morgan, Pete Doherty, Liz Hurley, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. Who should go and who should be saved?

Jade Goody and Tracey Emin, as far as I can see, have no talent whatsoever. Of these two, I think I would chuck out Emin first simply because - although I can’t find any evidence of her ever having said so - she believes she may have some talent. Jade Goody, on the other hand, I’m sure, has never given it much thought.

Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards had guts, no doubt about that, but there wasn’t any talent, not even any showmanship. He simply launched himself down a ramp with a pair of skis, bounced over the edge and fell over. So he has to go.

Heather Mills has a famous ex-husband-to-be but not much discernible talent as far as I can see. Out she goes. Liz Hurley? Like Mills she has good looks. Specifically she has a big chest that was shown off in a Versace dress with gold safety pins which she wore when accompanying her then boyfriend, Hugh Grant, to a film premier in 1994. Thus she became famous. But does she have talent? Well not as an actress, her chosen profession. For superior acting talent pick any one of the Woodentops. Goodbye Liz.

So what about Piers Morgan, former daily Mirror editor? I would contest that Morgan does have some talent. Not much; certainly nowhere near enough to edit a national newspaper. He has plenty of chutzpah which you could say of most of these people. In fact they are brimming over with chutzpah. But talent has to be more than that. Sorry Mr Morgan, I just don’t think that “a little bit more talent than Jade Goody” is quite enough to secure your place in this balloon basket. Out you go.

That leaves Pete Doherty and Damien Hirst. My eldest son tells me that Pete Doherty has some talent because “he writes good lyrics”. Some say he’s a poet because he steals lines from people like Emily Dickinson.

This is a bit from a song called Stix and Stones:

“They said that I was as good as dead
And there was hope, but not for us together
My friend, oh my friend, oh my true friend, my phony friend
Oh well you know that that's the end, that's the end,
so far away down, down.”

Great lyrics? Poetry? Whoops, he’s out of the basket. And that leaves Damien Hirst. I do think that Hirst has some talent. His spot paintings were original and nicely arranged, as were Jackson Pollock’s paintings. Even the dead animals Hirst suspended in formaldehyde had some originality in the arrangement. So what about his pill boxes on pharmacy shelves? No. They were just pill boxes on pharmacy shelves.

Comparing greatness in art is the hardest thing. How do you compare Michelangelo with Monet, or Vermeer with Rothko? Impossible. But all were talented. Against all my expectations when I started this blog, I’m going to leave Hirst in the talent basket for his spot paintings alone. I might be wrong here, confusing fame with talent as many do. But there you go.

If I can think of any other potential talent basket rejects I will list them here in the weeks to come. Or list some yourself. But the idea is that they have some fame. I’m looking for people whose fame and earnings (on the back of their imaginary talent) have surpassed their real talent by some margin.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson would be a difficult candidate since she does have real talent as a classical pianist but she is famous for being famous, not as a pianist. I would argue that there is some honesty in that. She is not pretending to be an artist or a poet and that thought has led me to another candidate: Yoko Ono. There must be many more.

Achieving affluence the Kalahari way

A taxi driver told me this week that global warming was "all a con by the government to tax the motorist". But listening to Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, at an Earthwatch lecture in Oxford on Wednesday I was wondering if the taxi driver might be mistaken.

Prof. Rapley is as certain as anyone can be that global warming is happening. Moreover, he doesn't hedge his bets by talking only about climate change that could be explained as a cyclical thing. He says that we're to blame. Us. People. That's you, me, the taxi driver and Prof Rapley. It's our mums and dads, neighbours and relatives and Karl Benz.

I wouldn't include the Kalahari bushmen, the aborigines or the pygmies in this list. Little children, too, might escape blame, although they will not escape the legacy of a 20th century that will probably be remembered - if the human race lives long enough to enjoy a memory - as the age of the internal combustion engine or maybe the oil age.

Prof Rapley showed us graphs where the line over time is a gentle, almost imperceptible upward slope - population, atmospheric carbon levels and mean global temperature. Then suddenly when the historic clock reaches the late 19th century the graph curves steeply as if it's met a big wall.

He showed us pictures of breaking ice sheets, the melting arctic and polar bears swimming (although there was a story this week of polar bear populations rising. How come?). "This stuff isn't rocket science," he said, "And I should know. I am a rocket scientist."

Saying something like that on a platform must be every rocket scientist's dream. You'd make sure you practiced that line in front of the mirror. Anyway it got a laugh.

But global warming itself is no longer a laughing matter. Neither is it a matter only for Al Gore or the next Earth summit. We all have to do our bit. I'm doing bugger all whenever I can since doing bugger all is very helpful at combating global warming.

Original affluent society

Anthropologists have noted the way that the Hadza bush tribes spend much of their time sitting around throwing dice because they don't need to hunt much to survive. "Hadza men seem more concerned with games of chance rather than chances of game," wrote Marshall Sahlins who described them as the "original affluent society".

The Kalahari bush people have life taped. They walk around as hunter gathers have always done, living off the land. They can carry all they use for the hunt and for living. Yes, they need everything they have, but they have everything they need. Now their life is endangered since diamond mining interests are shifting them off the land they have walked for thousands of years.

An ancient and successful way of life is being destroyed because diamonds are a girl's best friend. It's the price of bling.

While the rest of us are busy measuring our carbon footprints, its worth recalling that the Hadza leave scarcely a footprint. Not even Ray Mears could manage that.

If you're dubious about my doing-bugger-all approach and want to get serious about carbon offsetting, visit this site and read all about it

A sign of the Times - Lords reform

"The cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it," Walter Bagehot (1826-77)

My first visit to the House of Lords was in the early 1980s as a guest of Lord Kagan, the man whose factory made and supplied the famous Gannex raincoat to Harold Wilson when prime minister.

It was during this visit that I realised that the House was doubling as a magnificent Gentlemen’s club for a privileged few, including Kagan who, like Lord Archer at a later date, could not be stripped of his peerage for something as trivial as a stretch in prison. Kagan had served a jail term for stealing some batches of indigo dye.

Sharing a glass of port with Kagan and some of his cronies, I met Lord Saint Oswald, the fourth baron ( the family seat is Nostell Priory in Wakefield), who told me how he had been singled out to face a firing squad during the Spanish Civil War only to be reprieved at the last moment.

Another of Kagan’s pals, a Lord Morris (there are several and I’m not sure which one he was) showed me around the rest of the place. He pointed to some bound copies of the Times and asked my date of birth so he could look up the birth notice. It was inconceivable for this blue blood that my parents might have neglected this social convention in favour of a line in their local newspaper.

I know this is silly but I never forgot that episode and, when our first son was born, one of the first things I did was place a notice in the Times. If it was good enough for Lord Morris it was good enough for my lad.

All of this might explain why I greeted the vote in favour of a wholly elected second chamber with a sense of joy. The patronage and ostentatation is an anachronism that should have been done away with years ago.

The Lords are to discuss the proposal next week. I expect they'll be against it. The huffing and puffing and not "not done yet", "constitutional catastrophe", "end of our great democracy" rhetoric has already begun. I just hope the Government now has the stomach to go with the will of Parliament. There should be no reprieve this time.

Granny takes the Leary biscuit

You can't blame the police for arresting Patricia Tabram, the grandmother convicted for growing cannabis which she uses in cooking recipes for pain relief. Faced with visiting the home of an articulate 68-year-old granny or the alternative of raiding a Yardie den on some run down sink estate, what would you do?

I have a tip for Mrs Tabram. If she wants to escape the full force of the law in future she should join the Babyshambles and start dating Pete Doherty. Then she would be free to snort, drink, inject or smoke a whole panoply of illicit substances in the assurance that any subsequent court appearance would result in a mild ticking off and a gentle reminder not to do it again.

Animal eugenics

Selective breeding has been going on for years: horses, cattle, sheep, pigs. All have been bred by people either for the table, transport, clothing or sport. We breed our pets too, sometimes in to the strangest shapes and sizes. As the world's biggest dog show, Crufts, convenes in Birmingham, some are questioning the ethics of breeding animals for the accumulation of rosettes.

We have a West Highland white terrier. He's a lovely dog - big on "aaaw" factor - but he does have skin problems associated with his breed. Having lived without a dog and living with one now, I couldn't imagine life without one again. I sometimes think, however, that pedigree dogs are bred to keep the vets in business. I do think that dog breeding and dog showing - nothing less than animal eugenics, after all - needs to be reformed. Beverley Cuddy, editor of Dogs Today magazine, has outlined a powerful argument here.

I wonder what the Kennel Club would make of the Queens dogs? She calls them "dorgies" because they are half corgi and half dachshund. As the link points out, they're catching on in some places as a recognised cross breed.

Socio economics, American style

Who says that the US has no class system? Here is a view - several views in fact - of a single identifiable strand of the US social strata: redneck innovation.

Something similar in Russia.

The way things have changed

Readers of the BBC website magazine have suggested various way that Britain has changed in the past 10 years. Among the 3o suggestions featured here my favourite is the one that says: "people go to hospital to become ill."

I have ten others:

1. A single man can no longer enjoy watching children playing in the park.

2. You no longer have to breath cigarette smoke in railway carriages.

3. Fun has been abolished for fear of personal accident injury claims.

4. Everyone has grown allergic to the inside lane of the motorway.

5. The weekend newspapers have outgrown most dustbins (which now have wheels).

6. Two people read the TV news.

7. Schools have discovered lettuce.

8. Asian teenage boys can't carry duffel bags.

9. Art galleries have turned in to fun parks (a caveat: see point 3).

10. You have to dress like an Eskimo to survive a supermarket shop.

Does anyone have any more?

Closing the stable door

There is something of the drip, drip, drip of the Watergate revelations about the cash-for-honours story in the UK. At least that’s what the press would like us to believe. It’s a power thing. There are few stories that journalists like more than those they believe have the potential to “bring down the government/prime minister/president/monarchy”. Circle your favourite institution as applicable.

When I was engaged in this kind of digging at the FT in the late 1980s, part of our work was focused on Margaret Thatcher as British Prime Minister. While investigating the various export operations that later became lumped in to the catch-all “arms-to-Iraq affair,” we were told about a circle of businessmen who met regularly at the Savoy Grill.

It is not a betrayal of confidences – he has written a book about it all – to say that our original source for this information was Gerald James, the former Chairman of Astra Holdings, a company that was well known among children as a fireworks manufacturer but which subsequently became a substantial exporter of explosive propellants. One of its customers was Gerald Bull, the Canadian ballistics expert who created a large gun