Raving and Drooling – A lion’s tail

So, mum and dad have been away for two days now. Mum complained to me earlier by sms that “A big cat has just anchored right beside us. God some people are dickheads” which made me laugh. I can just imagine them sitting downstairs glaring out the windows asking hypothetically “why did they anchor so close ?”.

I really feel like I’m missing out by not being on this trip, but it’s their holiday and they wouldn’t want me spoiling it for them. Instead I decided to spend the day with Grandma, or at least, her book. I read half the other day and I decided it was time to finish it, so I grabbed a deckchair and a bottle of ginger beer and drove down to the waterfront.

The tide was fully in, so where I’d chosen was just rocks down to the waterline with no beach visible at all. There was a nice cool breeze, so I just sat my deckchair down above the rocks and then did the natural thing – I jumped on IRC to gloat that I was sitting at the beach and everyone else wasn’t. I don’t know why I feel compelled to connect and tell people that I’m chatting to them from unusual places.

After the novelty of talking on IRC wore off, mainly because noone was chatting back I opened up the book I was reading – Across the Timor Sea by Jose Robinson, my grandmother. It’s quite an interesting read and is told in a novel style rather than completely documentary which I was thankful for. At the end I was disappointed it wasn’t longer or that there was a movie version of it ! I’m glad I read it anyway, and hopefully my children can too one day and read about my great grandfather’s efforts during the war.

The wind was getting a bit strong so I packed up and headed home. One thing I’m really enjoying about being by myself is taking care of the garden. I’ve been watering twice a day, which is more than necessary because it’s enjoyable and kills time.

I’ve got the house to myself this week. My parent’s place that is. They’ve gone off on a 10-day long exploration of the straits around the south end of Fraser Island. They’ve been preparing for weeks and I’ve been extremely envious. I just got a message earlier that said that they’ve reached their anchorage for the night and are just putting the fishing lines out to try and catch some dinner.

I’m a bit funny about fishing because I’m of two minds. On one hand I think it is an incredibly cruel way to catch animals and I once heard the phrase in a book I once read (Desmond Morris – The Animal Contract) that “If fish could scream, fishing would be outlawed”. However I often wonder if there is anything more barborous about fishing over for example the slaughter of beef cattle.

The real problem, I think is that fishing is fun, and logically I should not want to find anything cruel and painful for another species to be considered fun to me. But what is hunting and is it wrong for a man to experience a surge of adrenaline and an excitation of the nerves as one brings the spear into a beast ? Is the thrill of conquering another species supposed to excite and please ? Is it wrong to feel it ?

Whatever the outcome, I am sure that fishing purely for pleasure is a terrible sin, but that maybe fishing for food is not such a horrible thing. We must eat, and that means that lower species must die. I would prefer that fishing could offer minimum harm to the victim, but it’s somewhat of an age-old method that has never changed. In some way I think that to hunt a free animal is still better than breeding them in captivity only to reach the same end result.

Once the moral dilemma of fishing has passed, I threw my farm-breed beef onto the BBQ and thought back to the week before last’s southpark when the americans observed the japanese slaughtering cows and chicken and commented “Great. Now they’re normal, like us”. I must admit, I would love to be there hauling in on an excited bream or flat-head and then cooking it up for dinner. At the end of the week we’re supposed to meet up somewhere down the south end of Fraser and I’ll come aboard for a night and relax and maybe do a little fishing. A lion’s gotta eat, after all. :”)