http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8183080.stm
Benson (his name) was found dead in the Bluebell Lakes of Peterborough. Being caught some 63 times he was approximately 20-25 years old.
Why do I write about fish? Well I could begin a whole environmental spool about what we should be doing to make the world and indeed our country a much healthier place. But I will talk about environmental challenges in many other places at another time.
I particularly wanted to pick out the problems with society on the whole. Where we fail in environmentally friendly ways we also similarly still have the age old demon of crime. And here begins today's story, ripped from the headlines.
The voice of Clive
Radio Presenter: ...Now it's time for todays look into the minds of local villagers in this weeks Voice of Clive, presented by Clive Jamieson.David sat listening intently to this very strange conversation taking place. It seemed to him he needed to Kill a what? Kill a lamp post? Kill her hour? No that didn't make sense. Ha, he laughed at his own little joke, Killer nat, killer wat. They mean Kilo Watt hour. Oh dear.
Anne lives in Mortimer, Berkshire. In this recluse of a village, their are no street lights. Recent council applications have lead to a small offence by the locals. Why does a quiet countryside village need lights? Being one of the last places to get the metal polls of light which burn Kilowatts per hour...why should the place be affected, NIMBY springs to mind. Is it environmental health or health and safety gone mad? Do street lights need to be everywhere? In this weeks voice we want to find about local village life.
Anne says:
"It's a very pleasant experience, this is an area that many people would wish to live in southern England. We are by no means completely rural, but are cut off esufficently to believe we are."
Clive: How would you describe the atmosphere?
Anne: Relaxing on the whole, except for when you hear your car being broken into. Amazingly the police attended in quick time, I'd say under ten minutes...apparently a white van and two 4x4s have been canvassing the area, thus the police were particularly interested.
Clive: Anne, would you say local village life was friendly?
Anne: Absolutely, in everyway. I am a central member to our thick community as it was suggested yesterday. Mortimer has two different parts to it, the thin people live in the council housing the thick ones live in the ex-council houses. They're are recent expansion builds. There are no street lights, but no one round here would really want them.
Clive: Do you all group together?
Anne: Yes, always.
Clive: Do, do you set up camapigns as such?
Anne: We enjoy making sure we get what we want from our village. I would say we would like to keep it the way it always was, we don't want anymore people moving in. The locals are not becoming locals, the 'thick' community is disintegrating.
David realised that amongst all this just one problem stuck out further into his mind. His religious feelings had been diminished further. This Anne woman was talking of a hide and seek group sometimes referred to as electronic Caching, where four or five people hide at night in villages. Then their friends drive across the countryside park up and track in on them. This quiet sector of Christian games, was this a form of finding faith or having faith by searching people out in the dead of night.
The point was these people who Anne was referring too, were not thieves at all. Apparently mistaken for looking like they were about to break into a car, wearing balaclava's they made the police believe they were a group of 'well to do teenagers' going around playing a christian form of hide and seek. David was not impressed by this latest of ideals if it were true, neither was impressed by the way the police were lied too, or the way religion was used as a get out clause, faith was breaking his world not helping it on the whole. No one's faith would do, he would find his own way forward.
If he were to escape his daily grind of white padded cell questioning without god, then he would find another way to survive.
Dinner was being served tonight, fish pie was on the list. He chose fish because he still had to fight his environmental ills, he needed fish- he loved fish. However, as he started eating he heard the news about Benson the Carp. David was so distraught with the way Benson had died he threw his dinner on its paper plate across the 20ft square room, it made a thud against the door and fell to the floor. He went hungry until the morning. David spent the night thinking about a picture he had seen and the questions that came with it:
How long is the fish?
