Friday, August the 6th, 2004

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How to … Festoon Yourself With Old Netting

Serial Hooting Yard complainant Ruth Pastry writes : “The trouble with your website, Mr Key, is that, jam-packed as it is with arcane learning, those of us of a more practical bent are left short-changed. Apart from the occasional recipe, I find little here that teaches me how to actually do anything. Sort it out!”

Well then. Here, especially for Ms Pastry, is the first in a series of How To… articles which have been written for us by the Barry Bucknell de nos jours, Fatima Gilliblat.

Here is a surefire way to festoon yourself with old netting. First, buy a train ticket to the seaside, or more precisely to a fishing port, the more Lovecraftian the better. Innsmouth would be ideal, but anywhere faintly sinister and maritime will do. As soon as you arrive, sidle insouciantly down to the quayside, looking out for grizzled old fisherfolk. They may eye you with suspicion, but that is because you are a landlubber unfamiliar with the lore of the sea. Strike up a conversation. Ask questions about their “catch”. At some point, while sucking on his clay pipe or picking the bones of sprats out of his matted hair, your interlocutor will mention his fishing net. This is your chance! Ask to see his net. Squelch across the sands with him when the tide is out, past the algae-smeared buoys and the rotting tugboats, and when you come to the old frayed net, slip the sea dog a fiver. He will trudge off to buy lugworms or maggots with this unexpected booty, and while he is gone, you can wrap yourself up in the net. Be sure to disentangle yourself and head back to the jetty before the tide comes in, or you will meet a watery doom, and miss the train home.