Guardian All Ears 31st January

Drawing this brought back memories of 'The Tin Drum' by Günther Grass where the mother, traumatised by a fishing incident involving a horses head & numerous eels, gorges herself on fish for two weeks & dies.
As a bit of a fish-phobic this has always struck me as a distinctly unpleasant mode of death - I'm hoping to be crushed & killed instantly by a falling piano (which I have failed to observe because it's 6 in the morning, I'm 90 years old & emerging from a really stunning party...


(Article by Michael Holden)

I was having breakfast in a café next to a couple of men who were eating together but reading quietly from separate newspapers until one of them begun unprompted to assess the pitfalls of cohabitation.

Man 1 (putting down his paper and looking at his food - a kipper) “You can argue about anything if you’re not careful.”

Man 2 (thinking he’d missed something) “Eh?”

Man 1 “At home, it’s a minefield, right?. The other day I saw a programme about the Elizabethans, it said the used to eat more fish than we do. So I said to the wife about this and she says, “Well I eat plenty of fish,” as though it was sort of an accusation, something she had to defend herself from-eating less fish than an Elzabethan.”

Man 2 “Yeah, well. Women can be like that.”

Man 1 (continuing the aquatic theme) “Yeah but I took that bait though. I’ve started having a go.”

Man 2 (confused) “About what?”

Man 1 “About who eats more fish. I said look I’ll have a kipper, like I am now, or I’ll have a roll mop, we might have fish and chips for tea.”

Man 2 “I don’t like a roll mop.”

Man 1 (ignoring him) “The point is I (+I)definitely(-I) eat more fish than her. No question. But then she says, ‘Oh I have a bit of tuna for lunch sometimes, when you’re out.’ I said ‘when am I out? I’m in all fucking day!’ Which to be fair is part of the problem-but anyway, I said, ‘are you telling me you’re putting away tuna on the sly?’ And she’s taken that the wrong way, so then it’s all about her and her weight!”

Man 2 (looking at his empty plate) “Oh dear.”

Man 1 “So then it was a proper issue, and, this I think is what you might say was ironic, I ended up taking her out for dinner.”

Man 2 “Ridiculous innit?”

Man 1 (Unrepentant) Yeah, well. She started it.