It’s sad, I know, watching Midsomer Murders on a Friday night in summer. But given this English summer and its pesky wind and rain, you’ll understand why I wasn’t out flicking a dry fly on a local chalkstream. But, perhaps, in a way, it was good I was there, glass of wine in hand, glazed stupefaction all over my face. A man is walking through a wood with a gun. A pheasant calls and rises. The man aims, fires and strolls over to pickup the bird. Except it wasn’t a pheasant. I couldn’t quite grasp what it was in the instant but it was more like a guinea fowl! Still, who cares, I’m sure the director thought. In editing nobody would have picked it up. Even if they had, they would have assumed the audience wouldn’t know one bird from another. Just like teenage girls when asked, don’t know that supermarket meat actually comes from living creatures.

John Bailey questions how we are perceived as anglers by the great British public?