FOE HQ, Crabtree Swim, Weirtail Rd, Somewhere in Olde England.
Internal Memo
Date; 27-11-13
To: Paul, Patron of FOE
Just a word in your cauliflower-like, Paul.
Seems to us fish and otters that you Angler chaps are not very happy campers at present. Carving lumps out of each other at the least drop of a 2-ounce pear bomb, worried about something that ain't just rivers and fishing for us lot, worried about huffing and puffing Sword of Truth speeches that don't sound quite right, about people running off to their retirements / directorships / consultancies etc, about being foulhooked by someone, somewhere, about lead-swingers out to get you wherever you go and look.
A deeper malaise we at FOE call it, which is seeing us less well cared for and a lot less fished for in many many places (which is nice, but some of the show-offs among us are missing all the adoring piscatorial exclamations, the looks of love and the thousands of photographs).
Have a word with those in the World of Men, will you, please, Paul? Tell them to get their act together off the bank so that we can do our age-old business as usual in the waters just off and below it. We know that it's a bit of a difficult time for you fellas, one of uncertainty and all that - where's the next pack of boilies coming from, I'd love that new rod and reel and somewhere really nice to fish with them but just can't afford them / justify the expenditure now / couldn't afford that nice place anyway, feeling terribly put-upon by someone somewhere etc - but we also know that unless you chaps get your collective act together very soon we'll all go down the Swannee. Which would do none of us any good. (Even those at the Cormorant Collective are concerned, you know - which is not like them because they, like the cockroaches, could almost certainly survive a nuclear holocaust).
Just a few thoughts from FOE, Paul, some whispers in and from the water. Get those Men to act before it is all too late.
Dainty The Minnow sends her love, by the way. Loved your words about her "balancing on a barbel's nose", which she has already done, very becomingly.
As ever,
Your Friends at FOE