The Illustrious Client (with apologies to Dr John Watson, MD)

Your correspondent leads a wearisome and difficult life. You, no doubt, think that life in the City is all four course lunches and champagne, but the modest enjoyment of the basic pleasures of life is oft sullied by the demands and thrusts of vulgar commerce.

Which is why your correspondent was on the crest of a steep hillside in finest North Yorkshire one recent frosty morning.  The keeper was in attendance in his best estate tweed, the beaters and pickers-up had donned new plastic sacks as leggings, holes in flat caps had been roughly stitched up, and even a few of the retrievers had been lightly brushed.

Standing slightly apart were eight fine chaps in eight fine caps. Not adorned in the discounted products of the local agricultural merchant these grand fellows, but all kitted out by visits to Messr’s F and Messr’s P and Messr’s B (correctly, it has been pointed out to me, Signori’s B), and, let us not forget, Messr’s H&H.  Today they too looked especially well scrubbed, polished and brushed; and even a casual observer would soon have spotted the reason for all this sartorial elegance in, behind, and in front of the line.  For there, smoking a small breakfast cigar and regaling his fellow guns with a few amusing words, was Mr Great.

You might not have recognised him; indeed very few people would, but to a certain select crowd of City bankers, he is a very well known face indeed. And to your humble correspondent B and his modest financial institution it is a face which strikes both fear and hope. Fear, in case he takes his huge portfolio of transactions away, and hope, that he might not, and the bonuses will grow ever more straight and strong.

So it is worth keeping Mr Great happy and smiling. Each year he gracefully accepts our proffered invitations to a lunch and a dinner, a visit to a private box at Ascot, and a shooting invitation.  Competition growing ever more intense for Mr Great’s business, this year it was decided that the boat should be well and truly pushed out and that no expense should be spared.  One of the grandest shoots in the far North Riding was booked, as was a dinner and appropriately salubrious accommodations the night before. 

And thus far, so good; though I was rather glad that I had thought to bring along a couple of colleagues to split the expenses submission with, the contents of the hotel cellar being unexpectedly good and Mr Great’s thirst remarkable.

Here we were, a fine morning, a modest wind, and all looking good with the world. Except that into my mind had come sudden doubt. Which was occasioned by my looking down into the deep valley and seeing far far; indeed far, below us tiny yellow tickets on sticks. The pegs for the first drive.  At least, I reckoned, one hundred and twenty feet down from the valley crest where Mr Great was waving his cigar.

Now, Mr Great likes his shooting, and he likes a suitable pile of pheasants at his peg at the end of the drive so he can show us amateurs how it is done.  But no doubt the cares of intensive money making mean he does not get as much time as he might like to get the practice in.  And doing most of your shooting in the Home Counties does not really allow you to get used to the amount of lead and swing and fancy footwork that some might think ideal for the 40 yard bird.  I have seen him hit high birds. Sometimes.  Once or twice. When given proper notice.  Not in a deep Yorkshire valley with a lifting wind. Low birds are, let us be honest, more his thing.

I began to contemplate next year’s bonus.

Twenty minutes later the eight chaps were at the bottom of the valley, the beaters were behind the ridge, and the whistle had been blown.  And ten minutes later I was wondering how Mrs B might feel about giving up three August weeks on the Amalfi coast for a sweet self-catering cottage in the Lake District. 

Our best shot was, I reckoned, maybe hitting one pheasant for every ten cartridges. And the rest of the line was looking like a ratio of  20 to 1. Except for two of us, your correspondent who had lowered his gun to contemplate the occupant of the adjacent peg, his bank’s most important client, whose ratio, I conservatively estimated, was in the region of Infinity to 0.

Hugely high curling birds approached, in sparse and perfectly presented drifts. And practically all of them disappeared over the other side of the valley in unsullied form.  Hours passed. Or at least five minutes. 

Self preservation and the bank’ best interests finally overcame paralysis.  As soon as the final whistle blew I moved from my peg toward Mr Great. Too slow. He turned proudly and called to the pretty girl who was picker-up on the hillside above us: “How many?”

The world suddenly slowed, my feet stuck to the ground, Mr Great smiled with confident modestly, the picker-up opened her pretty mouth. “Lie, lie, lie” I silently transmitted across the bracken to her.

But your Yorkshirewoman is of honest and straightforward stuff.

“NUN” she bellowed.

Mr Great looked around him, perplexed at this sudden religious fervour: “What?”

“None; all missed”.

Sometimes chance and fortune run together. In my coat pocket was the £50 note for the keepers tip at the end of the day. Mr Great was staring up the hillside. The £50 note was in my hand and I waved merrily at the picker-up.

Bright girl that one. Very quick on the uptake. She has great potential for a career in the City I suspect.

“NONE FOR MR B. We are still collecting yours Mr Great. Ten, mebbe a dozen”

“Ah, B, bit high for you, old man, those little birdies. Bit more practice with the clays on the high tower is my advice”

Bagged

Any sportsman will tell you that one of the great joys and sorrows of any sport - indeed of any recreation, I am sure, is the endless opportunities for buying more and more equipment. Capitalistic vultures lie in wait to take advantage of the unwary and when it comes to shooting and fishing types there is an especially close attention to catching the prey. Messrs F, and Messrs P, and Messrs B, and indeed Messrs H&H, are just a few of those entrepreneurial types - or great grandchildren of such - who set up their traps for the unwary in the rabbit runs of the West End.

Your naive sporting gent goes off for an innocent lunch with a few chums, a little business conversation to ensure that the bill can be passed through expenses, and a lot of chat and gossip. Then after both bottles are empty and the light is failing, out of Scotts or Wiltons or the Connaught he staggers in a friendly and avuncular manner, and blow me, before he knows what is going on, Messrs F or P or B, or indeed H&H, have got him in their carefully bated trap and into the cage he is lured.

And then there is all that blasted business trying to smuggle some piece of kit into the matrimonial dwelling and into the bottom drawer or back of the wardrobe, and just when you think the domestic authorities have not noticed and you are in the arm chair with the G&T, the trick question:

"Do you really need three pairs of boots?"

"I am sure I got you one of those cleaning rod thingies for Christmas last year"

"Just how many pairs of breeks can you wear at once, darling?"

But when this is got over and the credit card bill winced at, and the car loaded with all this stuff that seemed so vital at 3.30pm one Thursday afternoon and may be not quite so useful now, when all this is dealt with, it does mean that one can proudly go out and stand in a wet muddy field in great style, glorying in the knowledge that one really does look the part, the envy of one's fellow shootists, and would have done credit to any of those great Edwardian top shots.

At least you can do this glorying if you actually put the kit in the car before you set off to the most remote parts of North Yorkshire. And not realise at breakfast at some small hotel in some tiny market town consisting of a bus-stop and fourteen pubs and a Co-op, when otherwise perfectly and immaculately dressed for the forthcoming day, that you do not seem to have any one of the four cartridge bags that ornament the shooting cupboard. And at that precise moment, presumably still do, because not one of them has accompanied you to Yorkshire.

But I am been churlishly rude about the amenities of this small town, because on peering out of the dining room window, there, right opposite, was a sporting goods shop. Jno. Woodall, whoever he was, or had been, had learnt at the feet of the F's and P's and all the rest of them, and situated his premises where no visiting sportsman could possibly overlook it.

And what is more Jno. Woodall, or his grandson, had already opened the doors and put the lights on. Your correspondent abandoned his toast and leapt across the road and into this heaven sent boudoir of pleasure.  Mr Woodall was behind his counter.

"Good Morning! I am so glad you are open".

"Well, I wouldn't sell much if I wasn't".

"No, indeed! Well, I left a bit of kit at home yesterday and I am hoping you might have a cheap cartridge bag to sell me this morning!"

Mr Woodall looked me closely up and down, with the keen and discerning eye of a Yorkshireman, from brand new and highly polished DuBarrys, up the tailored plus fours with pink socks and gaiters, the new seasons waistcoat (fresh from Messrs P themselves), the matching tailored jacket, to the Hermes silk tie, and not forgetting that rather snazzy silver tie pin.

"A cheap...", he lingered, "... a cheap cartridge bag?"

"Mmm, yes please".

"No. NO. Sold the last one yesterday.  But we have this nice calf leather one by H&H, silk lined"

I didn't have the heart to ask for a discount; I don't carry that much cash.

Rabbiting On

An enthusiastic and loyal reader - Stuffer, you guessed - with whom I was sharing a modest glass in The King's Wotsit off the Kings Road, has suggested that this column is a little too devoted to the pleasures of the countryside as seen with benefit of gun. He welcomed the recent brief excursion into the strange and dubious pleasures of fishing, but urged exploration of the yet wider shores of men hunting supper.

This threw me a bit, I  must admit - the old gun cabinet contains a modest range of shooting implements suitable for pheasant, rabbits, pigeons, geese, and even grouse - not much used that one. But what else did he have in mind?

"Bow and arrow, mate, bow and arrow".

This threw me no end. I mean, when was the last  time you saw a woodland edge with eight or nine chaps lined up in plus fours and flat caps with great bows and a quiver full of Hull Cartridge Company arrows? Though I suppose at least it would be a lot easier to resolve those disputed birds if each bow had his own coloured arrows.

I asked what had brought this on.

"Ah well, old son, it was actually a Welsh Rabbit the missus produced the other night for supper"

"Welsh Rarebit you mean" I responded rather primly (one likes to keep standards up).

"No no, Welsh Rabbit, that's what made me think of it. Welsh Rarebit is just your posh English name."

"Well, whether it's a rare rabbit or whatever it is, I don't see what it has to do with bows and arrows"

And he explained thus:

"Most people think that it was the English yeoman that developed the skill at the longbow that defeated the Frenchies at Agincourt, but actually it all began in the Welsh valleys. Lots of yew to make good strong flexible bows, and not much else to do in the valleys except target practice, let's face it. So, the Welsh got pretty good at it.  Then the English barons got wind of all this and started sending their fit young soldiers to improve their skills. They had always shot arrows for food in the fields and warrens but they weren't used to the much bigger yew bows of the Welsh.

This all went very well and soon the English had strengthened their right arms (well, except the left handed ones of course) and they suggested that it was time to practice under battlefield conditions. How about, the English suggested, an element of a sporting contest to sharpen the wits. And a sporting contest to fill the larder would be even better.

So a rabbit hunt was organised, two teams, Welsh and English. Along the valley and onto the hills. The English of course were used to rabbit hunting so they soon had a pretty impressive bag.  But the poor old Welsh were only used to standing targets and by the end of the day they had only a couple of bunnies between them.

So when that evening the soldiers strolled into the medieval thatched olde welshe village, naturally the English soldiers were hunks of the month and got the rabbit stew  with onions and...er...onions, whilst the Welsh with nul bunnies just got the usual cheese on toast.  As the English soldiers passed by on their way to stuff themselves with rabbit with all the extras they saw the poor valley boys miserably eating cheese on toast, and to cheer them up in that jolly English way, shouted sneeringly, "Call that Welsh Rabbit?!?!"   Absolutely true."

I looked at Stuffer and his empty glass.

"Do you seriously think I am going to put junk like that in my blog?"

He waved his glass at the barman and pointed meaningfully at the beer pump.

"Yes".

And The Rains Came

Maybe the rains never left. Anybody who recalls reading "Somerset: An Apology" may still feel the rain trickling down their backs and into their very damp socks amongst the wet Welsh hills last January.

And sitting in a well known public house in a well known village the night before shooting on a well known estate in a well known county - enough of this coyness, it was Wiltshire - a couple of Sundays ago, nothing much had changed. The village street seemed to have retasked as a stream, the car park was in a new use as the village pond, and the gutters overflowed their gurgling load onto any careless passer-by.

Eight fine gents were gathered in the bar, dealing in the best way with it being very wet outside - by getting very wet inside. (And a special commendations for Wiltshire's beers, which assist this process very nicely.)

We went into dinner; and the water could be heard gurgling down the downpipes and dripping off the porch outside.

And when we had got to that glorious point where all is consumed; and the wreckage of the means of happiness lies strewn across the table; and one steps outside to look at the stars illuminated by a modest cigar; well, I was jolly lucky the cigar was not immediately extinguished, and not a hope of trying to work out which was the Plough and which Mars. No doubt in the Amazon basin this sort of thing is regarded as normal and good for the fish, but come on, this is partridge time in Wiltshire.

There was only one thing for it.  Any port in a storm, they say, but our ever generous host insisted not just on any port, but on the finest to be procured from the cellar. It didn't stop the rain; but we did sort of forget about it. So it came as a bit of a shock to draw the curtains the next morning, wincing at the grey light, to find that the deluge continued.

Jokes about building arks were banded about over the bacon and eggs (and, as we could see this was not going to be an early start) also the sausage, the grilled tomato, the fried bread, the beans, the hash browns, and yes, let us confess ALL our sins, the black pudding.  The sporting agent arrived; and the estate manager shortly after, and both were invited by our gracious host to partake in the feast. When they did so, we knew  that things were not looking good for stubble skimming Frenchmen. (Partridges, to any politically correct types who have strayed into this column.)

More coffee arrived; and more toast; and more marmalade.  Our host was seen standing in the porch of this fine old inn, reading his pluvious insurance documents.

Another pile of newspapers was produced, with some rather delicate jockeying to get hold of the only copy of the Sun. (Hah; singularly highly inappropriately named rag!)

Time stretched. Then a magnificent and large presence was suddenly amongst us, dripping amongst us on the flag stones and dampening the Farrow and Ball; clad in very muddy wellies, a very damp flat cap, and a wet Barbour of ancient vintage. The head keeper, no less.

"11am, gentlemen!" He looked around at our hopeful tweedy faces.  "I've got four rods in the Land Rover; who wants a days fishing?"

And so ended the first day of the 2012 season. A slow drive back to town, with much loosening of the belt. A few irritable phone calls on the Blackberry. Through the wet narrow Chelsea streets to home, and stowing all the kit back from whence it had been dug out 48 hours before. Careful filling in of the game book with the names of my fellow guns, and in the columns of birds and drives, the mournful entry:

"Rain Stopped Play"

Flat Caps, Fat Wallets

Sometimes I manage to slip a mention of these scribblings into a conversation, in the hope it might attract new readers. But like the joke about the General who signalled "Send reinforcements, we're going to advance" causing consternation at HQ who descrambled it as "Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance", sometimes the message gets a bit confused. Certainly, one new reader was a bit disappointed to find that this column is not stories about whippet racing in Barnsley, having mistaken the nature of the flat caps deployed herein. But hopefully the account of the following event will cheer at least him up.

For yes, this is a story of Yorkshire folk, and, as anybody who is acquainted with that proud race will recognise, it shows them operating at their finest.

"You can take the boy out of Yorkshire, but you can't take Yorkshire out of the boy." This old saw is very true, and much appreciated by half a dozen of us, approaching, shall we say, early middle age, whose proud origin is in that fair land and who have additionally in common an addiction to gun and rod. And to further keep the blood thick, each summer we all lunch together on beer and pies.

The time was approaching this May when Freddie, a lawyer formerly of Leeds, called to suggest that this summer we could push the boat out a bit and he could organise a dinner instead, at a well known smart West End (London that is, not Leeds) restaurant. The other five of us thought this was a touching and generous idea and the evening was duly booked.

The Yorkshireman likes his night out and we were all there on time - indeed four were early and made good progress at the bar before we even got to table. But we were seated soon enough and the orders given; and we can pass over the scoffing and quaffing simply by saying that a blxxdy good time was 'ad by all, ba gum.

So you join us again in a more or less empty restaurant, dregs of fine wines in the glasses, plates scraped clean, and the whisky glasses being regarded thoughtfully. The shooting stories had worn out a bit, the business environment was agreed to be appalling, the merits of Range Rover and the new Mercedes 4x4 compared, summer yacht charter costs complained of, and several juicy bits of gossip analysed and thoroughly wrung out. We were in fact feeling that it was time for the bill; and eventually the estate agent present (there's always one) turned to Freddie and said "Great idea this, Fred, we've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks very much old lad."

Freddie suddenly looked as though a violent bout of indigestion had overcome him, but not so much he did not manage to splutter "Nay, nay, I was just organising, I thought Tom might pick up the bill this year, accountants are doing very well; so he's just said".

The food poisoning seemed now to have spread to Tom as well, who went slightly puce and said chokingly "I paid for the pies year before last, it must be Kevin's turn; or is it B---'s?"

With that instinct with which they are born, the maitre d' had suddenly materialised close by, looking a little anxious. We all looked, one to each other, trying to avoid the maitre's increasingly steely look; and then, as if possessed by the same idea at the same time, we all turned to Frank. Frank is a our group billionnaire, his fortune made in construction and clever land buying, going public at the top of the market (twice), leaving his main care, as he had told us earlier, being which bank to keep the stache in. We all smiled gently at Frank; but Frank did not get where he is today....  "Na then, lads; share and share alike, that would be reet. What's damage, Freddie, lad?"

£900 was the damage.

With a groan that could not be heard, but could certainly be felt, six hands pulled out six wallets; cash was clawed unwilling from the dusty recesses and counted, and recounted. The maitre relaxed and the cash was piled up on the bill in the centre of the table. Or at least, £750 was. At that point a rugged hand reached out, grabbed the cash, and put down the company credit card. The cash disappeared into some mysterious inner pocket of Frank's jacket.

£750 cash, tax free. And a bill payable by the shareholders. Truly a Yorkshireman amongst Yorkshiremen.

  

No Fish

The son and heir reads little other than Facebook and various twitters (and this, I fear, will be clearly demonstrated when he gets his "A" level results this summer). But he does find it expedient at times (such as when the Golf has been scratched yet again, or when he might need a lift back from a party at 2am) to pretend to take an interest in the old man's mad electronic scribbling. Last Saturday he was making some witty remarks concerning his dad's ability to shoot and scribble, but then made a very perceptive remark: "Dad; you never write anything about fishing. When you are staring out of the window don't you ever daydream of salmon and trout?" 

That is very true, (writing about fishing I mean,  naturally not the guff about staring out of the window) and as I explained, the reason for that is because I never go fishing. And the reasons for that are the usual ones of time and money.  "But, my boy, when you are earning zillions on an arbitrage desk in Canary Wharf then I shall at last and at least have the money to pop off to Hardy's and commission a rod, and the time to find some new friends with nice riverside walks", I thought.  But did not say - not least because the zillions thing may be a long time off  in the future at present rates of progress.

Occasionally though I have found myself by the river bank with a couple of mates in very long wellies, in my case flask in hand rather than rod.  I will admit that on a warm summer afternoon there is nothing wrong with allowing one's mind to wander around the wilder shores of derivative products in a sylvan setting, inspiration being kindled by the sparkle of sunlight on water, and new complex structures driven by the tantalising pattern of willows on quiet pools. And then waking up to enjoy a decent Romeo y Julietta, and the thought of trout for supper.

Indeed I have a hospitable northern mate, Bill, who has managed to devote his life to doing almost nothing but still somehow made a reasonable pot of money, which enables him to rent a couple of bits of well stocked river in north Lancashire. 

A few years ago he asked me up for a weekend in June, and having not much to do and the thought of a jolly country inn with feather bed and proper cooked breakfast appealing a lot, I headed north. On my arrival at the designated spot I was brutally reminded that Bill is a proper northern lad and did not get where he is today by thoughtless extravagance. Oh no. My dream of the agreeable village pub turned out to be the reality of an ageing very modest caravan parked close enough to the river that he could sit on the steps and fish. The feather bed was a plywood shelf with some waterproof type of bed "sheets" probably recycled from supermarket carrier bags. And somehow, I knew that breakfast would be Kellogg's by way of Morrison.

But your scribe can rough it if required; on being told that the pub in the village did a selection of decent beers things seemed a little brighter, and I was happy enough to go along with the suggestion that on the way there we strolled along the river to see if the fish were jumping or biting or dancing or whatever it is they do.

Rounding a bend in the  river we came across another northern type standing up to his hocks in the middle of the current and with that sort of dreamy gormless look that anglers seem to take on when near water. The two great sportsmen regarded each other in silence until finally Bill launched into what in the north of England is regarded as sparkling repartee:

Bill: "Aye"

Man in Middle of River (brightly): "Aye"

Long pause whilst these two philosophers absorbed their exchange.

Bill: "Owt?"

MiMoR (after extended thought): "Nowt!"

Further long pause for due consideration.

Bill: "Aye"

MiMoR: "Aye"

And, conversation over for the day, Bill and I walked on.

MiMoR may well have been right. Probably there was nowt. But what there was, was first class beer in the village pub, and do you know, after a couple of pints (or maybe six) of it I have no memory whatsoever of sleeping in that caravan. It must have been the soporific effect of sleeping next to the sound of the river. Or maybe fishing really is good for you.

Season's Greetings

The Season is over. Now is the Holidays, which will last, unless I find a very kind friend with an overstocked grouse moor, until late September, and the thrill of partridge across dry stubble. So, you may ask, why no summary of the winters activities, no valedictory comment on the thrills and spills of the 2011 to 2012 chase?  Has old B retreated into some cave close to the rearing pen to live off poached pheasant (no, madam, that does not mean simmered in white wine and a herb garni) for the summer?  Or even gone off with Stuffer to the African plains in search of the wonderfully exotic?

No, there is a worse reason. B is having to work. One of the problems with the fun of the chase is that it does not come free. No Sir. If Mrs B knew what was spent on the simple pursuit of the odd pheasant for the pot there would be trouble. The sort of trouble which starts in Dolce and Gabbana, proceeds to Armani, has a quick lunch at C, and then finishes the afternoon in Ferragamo. 

B is not into supporting the Italian economy, not that part of it on that scale. But Mrs B was a country girl before Chelsea beckoned and she has some idea of what a day walking about in the rain can cost, or a pair of yellow woollen socks, or some (quickly muddied) boots. Her knowledge of the cost of a 250 bird day is a little out of date (nor, I think, does she compute the cost of fifteen of them) but she knows this hobby comes in a bit more expensive than, say, moderate stamp collecting. so, no words are spoken, B does not ask the price of that frock or those shoes, and Mrs B does not enquire how much 4000 cartridges might be, or whether it is necessary for the tailor to run off another pair of plus fours. (Why, incidentally, should trousers cost MORE when there is a foot of material missing from each leg?)  But there is a long established understanding and the bank account has to be primed ready for the onslaught from town and country.

But all this takes a certain amount of that folding stuff - or on this scale - that electronically transferred stuff...

So, from February onwards B rolls off to the office and works very hard (no, really) on his esoteric structures and incomprehensible products. He attends the training seminars, laughs at the boss's jokes, mingles at the evening receptions and away days, and is agreeable to rising stars and cautiously dismissive of falling ones, (not too much so, you never know when they will pop up again). Clients are breakfasted lunched and dined, proposals are drafted, rivals rubbished, and the mandates and instructions roll in.

In the quiet moments B looks out of the window and sees not streets, red buses, and towering office blocks, but autumn woods, brown and purple hills, and high hedges. He hears not raised voices negotiating hard, but the squawk of a nervous pheasant and steady tapping of sticks on trees. Anxious spaniels whimper instead of analysts muttering whilst rerunning Monte Carlo simulations. When he looks back at the mountains of paper on his desk he knows that if shuffled correctly and dealt out in the right order it will be mysteriously transformed into a day here, and two days there, into howling winds and curving pheasants, into partridges breaking in covies, fine reds in good company, a very muddy Rangie with a couple of the best mates lolling in the leather seats.

So in the office B gets his head down and looks ne'er to left or right. And Mrs B strolls thoughtfully up and down Bond Street, wondering why the man at Beretta is watching the street so hopefully.

Somerset: An Apology

Those of you, if any, who read "Cow Boys" may be labouring under the impression that Somerset is a little wet. I now wish to withdraw any insinuation or suggestion that it is in any shape or form wet, slightly damp, or even moist. I am now closer informed; further and better particulars (as mi' learned friends would say) have been furnished by courtesy of an end of season shooting visit to mid-Wales.

Approaching the Welsh borders in late afternoon in the dark it occurred to me that the drizzle that had been making itself gradually known was building up some force. The windscreen wipers were doing the final chorus of the can-can, and there was an awful lot of puddles lurking about, hurling themselves with a desperate despair across the bonnet whenever I least expected it.

"Just a heavy shower" I thought and drove on. An hour later, as the heavy shower continued in even greater torrents, I turned into an extraordinarily twisting climbing and plummeting lane. After ten minutes, I began to wonder if I had accidentally turned into a mountain stream system, the way old ladies turn onto railway lines at level crossings. No lights, no houses, just water falling from all angles, too much to proceed at more than about 15 miles per hour (which is not the speed the old girl likes to be driven at). If the Rangy had been a Riva motorboat I would have been immensely proud of the waves cresting from her prow and down either flank, but I was not so sure the having the V6 underwater for the bulk of the journey was going to prove terribly good for it.

I was considering stopping to get into my waterproofs when below me appeared a light. This either had to be the village of Pontyaffonflantccwmbach or the Eddystone lighthouse, so I sailed cautiously on and within minutes life was suddenly made good again by the remarkable vision of a long white building, lights at all windows, and the hugely welcome words "The Jones Arms" emblazoned across the front.

We will pass briefly over the complete soaking of self and kit as it was transferred from car to chintzy bedroom, the ruination of a fine pair of brogues by repeated immersion in puddles that elsewhere would have fenced off as dangerous flooded mineshafts, a car that within seconds of the hatch been opened was as wet inside as out.  Let us move to the sinking of the first pint of a fine local brew, and the prompt arrival of its twin. Which was made even more enjoyable by the arrival in the bar of various other drowned rats vaguely resembling my shooting syndicate mates.

Let us also pass over the pleasures of pump and table, but do let us pause several times during the night to listen to rain beating against the tiny window and pounding on the low roof, water violently gurgling down some nearby drain pipe, and then let us meet again to the welcome sound of knife and fork tackling bacon, sausage, and egg. And to the door opening to admit a small dark dripping figure, clad in damp tweed and a big grin. "Good morning gentlemen! On your pegs in twenty minutes!"

Now, apart from sailing and diving, most normal people do not pursue their leisure and pleasure interests underwater. But shootists are not normal people and we had paid a lot of money for this day. So at 9.15 we were standing in what appeared to be a shallow lake with a wet wood in front of us and a wet wood behind. Wet spaniels, wet labs, wet pickers up, somewhere in that wet wood very wet beaters.

"They'll never fly in this" called Peter from my left.

"How will we know - we can't possibly see them if they do" responded David from my right. I kept my mouth shut; I had enough rain going down my shirt without letting it into my interior.

But do you know? Those damned Welsh pheasants, they must be specially bred for the conditions, little wiper units on their eyes,  tails that create an airstream to lift the raindrops away, waterproofed feathers so that all waterlogging is avoided. Out they came and high and fast they flew, lifting clean across the valley, curving as they went.

And do you know another thing about those Welsh waterproofed feathers? They are lead proof too. Nothing came down - except great cascades of raindrops from my hat. Maybe my cartridges were wet, maybe the force of that falling rain of the land of the red dragons bore my lead shot straight to earth, maybe the specific density of gunpowder is weaker in wet conditions.  Maybe when mounting the gun I didn't allow enough for soaked vest, shirt , tie, and waistcoat.  Somehow, these blasted pheasants just flew on. And over.  And across. And on several occasions around. But nothing came down.

Still the water ran down in great streams into my clothing. The only function of waterproof clothing seemed to be to keep the water in, so that everything squished and squelched as I swung. My boots were becoming heavier and colder by the minute and this was, I knew, because they were filling up from the water that was permeating down my plus fours.

Each drive merged into the next, as we peered into the black sky, blinded by searing wetness lashing across our pink faces. The faces of the pickers-up wore that expression that the failing shootist knows so well: "Soft bloody amateurs!"

Peter shouted down the line "And we do this for pleasure!"
"Try owning a football club!" shouted back the richest syndicate member.   Soggy silence fell again.

Finally, we came to the last drive. We lined up, creakingly soggy at the bottom of a steeply sloping grass field. Above us a old wood, dark twisted shapes of wind blown trees. The wind driven rain lashed across into our faces. We stood, water running off sodden clothing, the only solace the thought that next would come a warming lunch and a decent red. We had much time to contemplate the possibilties of pork or beef or wet Welsh lamb as the beaters seemed to take an hour to get into position. Well, maybe it was ten minutes.  The birds flew hard and fast. The lead went up behind and below them. My boots slopped and slurped.

Then at last it was over, the spaniels and labs gambolled about pretending to look for birds that they knew were now falling about laughing in Powys. We sheathed our soaking guns in damp sleeves. Then one of us, the richest member I think, turned to the west, and silently pointed. We followed his stretching finger and looked west. The last of the rain was drifting past, the sunlight was breaking on the distant ridge and behind it the sky was blue.

Gentlemen of the Somerset Sahara; my apologies. You don't know the meaning of the word "wet". But I do.

The Day of the Spaniel

Communist versus Fascist; Russia against America; the Labour/Tory divide; Gladstone and Disraeli; Manchester City vieing with Manchester United. These are nothing compared with that age-old endless debate: Spaniels or Labs?

Like living north or south of the Thames, every shooter, beater, and picker up is born either a spaniel supporter or a labrador lover. Only in matrimony may positions be compromised, where the household has to hold two or three of both. (Children are of course discouraged in such relationships, they are difficult in their eating habits, won't sleep in sheds, and cannot be thrown in lakes to retrieve the badly dropped pheasant.)  Out in the field the proud owner will stand back from the line, at his or her heels the chosen black or yellow (whatever happened to chocolate?) short or rough coats, sitting quietly and calmly, and looking snootily at the nervously shivering multi-coloured yipping piebald shaggy eared creatures who have dared to invade the field of dreams.  And as the day goes on, so does the endless argument, the bramble penetrating qualities of the spaniel ventilated against the gate scaling abilities of the lab, the anarchistic independence of the spaniel compared with the adoring loyalty of the labrador.

Your correspondent does himself have a firm preference, which he will not reveal for fear of death threats and sneering remarks (but he has a deep admiration for long floppy ears).

So last week, finding a Fellow Gun who had been allocated the family Golf so Mrs FG could take the Range Rover on a difficult and demanding trip to J Sainsbury, I naturally offered him a lift and was only a little taken aback when he opened the Golf front passenger door and a black and grey spaniel got out.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course, not, wonderful dogs. Charming chap, what is his name?"

"SHE is Bonny. Twelve years old. I'm afraid she doesn't like sitting in the back, I'll keep her under my feet, if that's alright"

"Of course. What a lovely girl"

She was indeed a lovely girl and in spite of her advanced years sat neatly through each drive and dashed about in a very professional manner when instructed to find and fetch.  After each burst of activity she hopped into the front footwell and looked at me with those adoring spaniel eyes.  By the end of the third drive, and after the third sloe gin, I was wondering if I could get a dog basket in my tiny kitchen and what the boss would say to the odd yelp from under my office desk.

The final drive was on the very muddy bank of a winding stream and Bonny's owner was delighted to receive a pheasant from the reeds. He was not so delighted to find that his black and grey girlfriend now was mostly brown, including those big floppy ears. "Well," he said, "she's going to have to sit in the back now" and I slipped quickly out of the drivers seat and went round to the back door to clear a space and break out a cartridge carton for her to reside on.

"Oh Christ, out, out, Bonny" came from the front and I looked through just in time to see a whirlwind, an Amazonian storm, of hairy legs, heaving body, and flailing ears surrounded by a spray of wide splattering mud.

It is astonishing, the mud carrying capacity of spaniel hair. A liberal coating was applied to my beautiful leather seats, to the dashboard, to the windscreen, my multi-function steering wheel, the door panel, the audio unit. The valet company are taking the car in for the third time next week and this time hope to get the deep residue out ("Next time, try not to let it dry in, sir") . Not that I knew what post spaniel valeting would cost as I watched the Golf drive away, those loving spaniel eyes adoring me out of the back window.

 .

Exotic Bird

A slight divergence. Permit me to introduce a very exotic bird indeed. Christopher Allsop, or Allsop of the Nile, as he is known in northern Africa and various west London bars. Mr Allsop is one of the last great explorers, currently back in London, whilst equipping himself with cleft sticks and pith helmets for his next great trek into unknown parts, and then on from Heathrow Terminal 3 to central Africa.

He and I share a common problem. Well, several, but the one we should like to share with you relates to our visibilty, or, a psychologist might explain, our self esteem.

Which boils down to this. Are we alone? Or, are there others out there?  Or, to put it another way, is anybody else reading our stuff? Now, Allsop of the Nile's stuff is really worth reading, even given an over emphasis on perfect English grammar, as he is a visitor to the most extraordinary places, a wanderer amongst fascinating people, and an acute observer of all around. Find him at his best at www.whingeingbanker.blogspot.com (which, be warned, is coloured by, but not about, modern banking).

I know people are reading his lyrical account of travels in northern Africa, as various persons have come up to me, in a field in East Anglia, in a large house in Worcestershire, in a pub in Sussex, a restaurant in the City, and in several bars, (some of which Mrs B.... would not be happy about), to say how wonderful his oeuvre is. But he, and I, both of us, have received several complaints that it is impossible to make comments on our sites, and tricky to become a follower.

On the comments thing, this might be for the best, but both of us are prepared to risk the brickbats and rotten eggs of the public. I have employed a 14 year old technologist of the utmost skill and even he can't get his comments posted, and that is after offering him a rolo if he succeeded and the rest of the packet if he made a nice comment.

Any ideas, anybody out there? If there is anybody out there......

Cow Boys

Late last October I found myself standing on a peg in a Somerset wood. It's different down there. Wetter, for a start. My boots do leak, I suspected this last year but now I had clear and damp confirmation. Damn. The grass is - er - well, greener. And longer. And wetter. Much much wetter. In fact, I have a suspicion that Somerset may be a detached part of the Saragossa Sea, grass floating on water. A significant quantity of which was now inside my boot.

And another thing. The cows. Serious cow country this. There's an awful lot of cows in Somerset, leering over gates at you, greasing the lanes as they pass from wet field to milking parlour, idling slowly along narrow roads flicking those curious tails, steaming heavily in open yards, their silage clamps reminding your olfactory organs of their dominant role in the local economy.

But cows are not what this is about. Birds are what it is, obscurely, about. And that is why I was standing in a line of farmers in a damp field.

I had a very nasty shock on the second drive. I was standing down by a stream, wondering if it was a bit early to have a small cigar. It was in fact 11.25am; this is a Somerset farmers shoot, a group of neighours who pool (pool! hah!) their land (or bog) and ask along a few mates. One of whom was the local auctioneer, who I happened to have been at school with and who thought it would be amusing to leaven the cow talk with a City perspective.  Prompt starts and tight timetabling do not seem to be the Somerset cow farmers' way.

So there I was, all lined up in a glade by the stream, a sloping meadow in front up to a high hedge; left to grow high, thick, and toppy for the benefit of the shooting. The hedge had grown out at the bottom, leaving a large number of bare branches and trunks. I stood, watching and listening for any sign of life, fiddling with my little cigar lighter, knowing the minute I got one alight the birds would start flopping over the hedge.  Then I noticed the hedge was busy walking off to the right.

I had been warned that Somerset scrumpy could do very odd things to the brain, but I had had only the one before dinner last night, and stuck to the beer after that. Maybe the combination could bring early onset Alzheimers? Not only was the hedge walking out on us, it seemed to be on fire as well. I vowed never to touch zoider again.

I was just about to draw my neighbours attention to this unusual activity when a cow's head appeared at a gap in the hedge, followed by forty or fifty more, and the Confused of the City moment passed. The hedge remained in place but the cows legs ambled along and carried them into the next field, or more likely, onto the lane with a large amount of Somerset mud, ready for the next cyclist.

Lawks, this drive was taking a long time to start. I lit the small cigar. I became aware of a distant shouting, getting ever nearer. My neighbouring gun started walking toward me, and then, out of the undergrowth like a Japanese survivor of the Second World War, appeared a farming type from our jolly group.

"Bill's blown it again" he said, in broadest scrumpy. "Some bugger's lost in the wood; he never pegs it properly"

I now worked out the shouting: "Number foive; where the bleeding hell is number foive?"  My neighbour raised an eyebrow at me.

"Come on, yee can't 'ave forgotten yoiur numbers already; who is number foive?"

The shouting now joined us in the clearing, sweating and red in the face, gun under arm, various pieces of card and paper gripped in hand, followed by two more of our sporting number.

"Got a problem Bill?" one of them asked.

"Why can't you lot ever recall your pegs?" Bill replied "Number foive, any of you gents?"  We shook our heads.

Another Bill bellow, honed by years of directing cows, no doubt: "Number foive, where the fxxx are you?  Who is foive?  Who is foive?"

My erstwhile neighbour looked thoughtfully at his boot and rubbed his chin.

"Well, Bxxx here is seven, and I am six, so...er...um...I think you are five, Bill"

 We maintained stiff upper lips until Bill vanished into the wood, but the racous laughter after that must have startled the cows several fields away.

Birdie Par Two

You do get to see the world with a shotgun. Britain anyway. Last week I was not far from home, but in an empty Chiltern valley that I had never visited before. An hour's drive from central London, but as remote as a Northumberland fellside. Except for those big birds going into Heathrow. Rather you than me, I thought, looking up to the distant droning cigar tube, standing on a little cutout on a steep chalk hillside, looking across grass meadows to ancient beechwoods on the other flank of the valley.

Here, of course, you have to be careful of those other big birds as well. Also circling above, but in silence, wheeling around high above you, just catching the corner of your eye so that you flick the gun halfway up, then relax it again. Massive outstretched wings and that characteristic forked tail.

The red kite. A floating wheeling soaring object of great beauty, brought back here by an American billionaire after they became extinct in these hills. They obviously have an affinity with rolling high chalk downlands and beech woods, they are everywhere now. In the last ten years red kites here have multiplied from the rare to the commonplace. They, allegedly, do not interfere with the pheasants, though with those hooked bills and the sheer numbers of them, I would think it must take great forbearance on their part not to nick a pheasant chick or twenty in the spring.

And it does take a little forbearance not to swing the gun around that enticing circle. Just joking, RSPB members.

My host, a man of these parts, told me that one of his syndicate guns, a local farmer, (a proper one, a lot more rare than red kites now that the Chilterns are an easy commute to Marylebone) had a corner of the eye problem, swung a little too quickly, and the trigger finger connected with the deadly accuracy that only a farmer's can.

After a little discussion and without drawing too much attention (they thought) the kite went into the back of the farmers Shogun under a pile of sacks. "Take it home and bury it" was the host's clear instruction. Fortunately for lovers of justice, at least one of the beaters was an upright citizen and bird lover. Next morning the constabulary arrived at the farm gate and our farmer confessed.

He might have been best advised to hire a PR firm before his time in the dock at Aylesbury magistrates court. The sorry saga was frankly related to the glaring and appalled magistrates.

"And Mr Smith, what did you do with the bird once you had removed it from the scene?" one enquired.

"Took it home"

"And then?"

"Skinned it, cut the breasts off, and pan roast them, madam"

Once order had been restored in the court, the questioning was resumed:

"Ate it, my god, Mr Smith, ate it; what was it like?"

"Somewhere between a golden eagle and a buzzard, madam"

He is using a solicitor for the appeal hearing.