the compleat Angler is 'a boring load of tosh'... apparently...

[Santiago]

And we still don't understand exactly what gravity is!!! All we know is that it's some type of force exerted where one mass attracts another!!

[Olly]

That could be called - love?

[John Aston]

The Compleat Angler is like the bible- widely venerated even if many of those doing the veneration haven't actually read it but are adept at quoting from bits of it . I certainly found it near unreadable as an angling book .

Golden Scale Club- I bow to nobody in my enjoyment of Chris Yates' writing and my respect for the man as an angler. But I did find the whole GSC thing both contrived and deeply irritating . It's fine to have a quirky bunch of mates but not so fine repeatedly to tell the rest of us just how wackily eccentric you crazy guys all are with your daft clothes and schoolboy nicknames- bet you mere civilians wish you could join us eh ? Actually - no ....

[RBTraditional]

But I did find the whole GSC thing both contrived and deeply irritating . It's fine to have a quirky bunch of mates but not so fine repeatedly to tell the rest of us just how wackily eccentric you crazy guys all are with your daft clothes and schoolboy nicknames- bet you mere civilians wish you could join us eh ? Actually - no ....

Heresy I say, damned heresy!
I think it was only ever intended to be a bit of fun an not to be taken seriously.....just like life!

[John Aston]

Fine- so why was it featured so much in the magazines? Look , proles, here's a club you cannot join...-but they never featured the Houghton Club though did they ? . It got this chippy Yorkshireman deeply annoyed - even kicked t'whippet I did, I were that cross wi' Featherstonelehaugh this and Fotheringay that ...Or were they a folk rock band..?

[Marc]

There's an old bloke in Ferryhill, where I'm from, who is always either dressed as a pirate or Roman centurion; 90% of the time it's a Roman centurion. He goes shopping dressed like that and is regularly seen stood at the entrance to the village (on duty) waving at cars. Nuts? Probably, but harmless.

I really think that's how, if you even bother, you should look at the GSC. I really can't understand why anyone would feel personally aggrieved by it. Whitby goth festival is another example. I wouldn't go to this wonderful little town and dress in steam punk gear (my mother does), it's just English eccentricity being played out.

[Reedling]

Each to their own, live and let live I say. I think it is great there are such diverse peoples around and eccentrics often think they are quite normal, that's nice. People think I have a screw loose because my house is full of bits and bobs and when they see all my empties (Victorian etc beer, codd and stoneware bottles they just don't understand it. I think what I do is quite normal as does my wife, others think otherwise and the kids think we have a hoarding problem. If we were all the same wouldn't it be a boring place to live, I love characters and personalities long may they live and enrich our lives.

[Nobby]

Well, obviously the whole article is meant to be humorous.

Zern's death notice from 1994:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/27/sport ... onist.html

A little more on Zern...middle column near the bottom:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YyG ... er&f=false

And more: ..though note the author says 'Walton' was now a supporter of Cromwell....

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=g6i ... er&f=false

I think Keith Elliot is just repeating what he read earlier....

[Nobby]

That could be called - love?

[Kev Parr]

Some mighty fine detective work, Nobby....

I have read The Compleat Angler from cover to cover. But never in one go. As others have alluded, it is something to dip into occasionally as much to appreciate the rhythm of the text rather than the narrative itself. Shakespeare's work is a good comparison, certainly to my mind.

When we were presented with Shakespeare at school I felt overwhelmed. Even the York Notes were confusing, and they were supposed to be watered down for 14 year old minds. Then we got taken to a live performance of Midsummer Night's Dream and people were periodically laughing while I sat feeling utterly lost. I decided I was watching an Emperor putting on his new clothes, and that everyone else was too scared to admit the same - and I had the exact same feeling when I first tackled The Compleat Angler. I wasn't even sure where the publisher's notes ended and Walton's words began.

Then I started to realise that it is okay to not know things and that just because I didn't have the depth of understanding of some of my friends/classmates, didn't mean that I couldn't take my own sense of pleasure from something. I still wouldn't rush to see a Shakespeare play, reach eagerly for a copy of The Compleat Angler, or get excited because Citizen Kane was showing at the local cinema. But still, when I am in the right frame of mind, I will gain pleasure from each of those things even if I will never enjoy the profundity of perception that others have for them.


As for the GSC - well, they're just a bunch of bigots who still use gaffs and superglue sandpaper to their unhooking mats. Last I heard, not content with rigging the recent referendum and Britain's Got Talent, their Eastern Bloc membership have been acting gillies for Vladimir - and standing on the corner of net while weighing his pike......