Fishing. It is all a question of faith.

Nice Paul with an armful of sushi. I think he is nice in a Manly sort of way but, c'mon girls, at 63 he is pretty cool

And the other two portions on the ground...

Never mind hating Mondays, I hate Sundays. Weekends, I mean. No bugger wants to work so once again I loafed about my building site kicking a half finished this and prodding an unstarted that. The Church wars are driving me nuts but they are good for business. Today we had pick up loads of sweaty Catholics turn up followed by luxury air conditioned coachloads of pilgrims of the Universal church. The Catholics set themselves up and started to sing. The Uni’s unloaded portable generators and speakers the size of Brinks Mat armoured cars and set them up on the beach. Pretty soon all we could hear for miles around was Angolan rap, a particularly distressing form of white noise the Americans have picked up upon as an aid to reducing hardened terror suspects to dribbling wrecks willing to sign any confession. Unlike the left footers, the Uni’s know that if you want adherents, bugger the gospel, spill the beers and play anything you want so long as it is loud and go for the All Nite Rave. I moved out of the city to get away from that kind of shit and now I had them on the nearest bit of beach that wasn’t mine so I could not nip over there and empty my pistol into their ardent faces.

God, who is Catholic by the way, (I have this on very good authority), works as we all know in mysterious ways and the first thing he did was to tell me to go and visit Nice Paul. Naturally it was not for me to question his Mightiness so I slopped over to Nice Paul’s. He, (Nice Paul, not God), told me he had been given a bottle of Snow Grouse. I had heard of jugged hare but I never realised you could buy bottled snow grouse. It looked and tasted just like whisky and I agree with the instructions on the label, it must be served cold. Single malt it wasn’t but free whisky has a quality and flavour all of its own.

Nice Paul had some clients but not nearly as many as he expected so the barbecue was still groaning with lobster tails and chicken drumsticks so Nice Paul and a guy called Mike tipped Alex the wink and he got stuck in, polishing off a hundred and fifty bucks at Angolan restaurant prices and feeding another three hundred or so to the dogs, except poor old Dinge, who had followed us and were lurking under the decking. I am way too overweight to risk things like grilled lobster and chicken preferring instead marbled beef in a mushroom cream sauce with spaetzle, kidney braised in cognac and more cream with a cucumber dill cream salad, and red cabbage braised with bacon, plum preserve, apples, sugar and vinegar followed by half pears, lots of them, steeped in port wine and brown sugar lathered with fresh cream and all washed down with a passable Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, so for health reasons I continued to race Nice Paul to the bottom of the bottled game bird.

In the background we could hear the heathens prostrating themselves in front of their noisy idols so God, who is a Catholic by the way, told Nice Paul to take me out fishing. Naturally, Nice Paul immediately offered and I, really not wishing to piss the Great Architect off, immediately accepted.

It really does pay to listen to the Really Big Boss because less than an hour later we were rewarded with these three tiddlers. Jack Trevally’s Nice Paul said but I can’t be sure as the snow goose, I mean grouse, had been sucked dry by then. And before anyone gets all upset at the thought of me taking a three year old out on a boat while under the influence, calm down. I left Alex playing in the swimming pool after giving him a strict safety brief to stay out of the deep end.

When we got back, the Uni’s were still giving it hammer and tongs with their massive speakers on the beach when all of a sudden the wind kicked up. Any African rain storm is always preceded by a wild shit storm of wind so we knew what would happen in about ten minute’s time. I just managed to get home before God, being a Catholic, pissed all over the Uni’s party.

Alexander is lying alongside his mother fast asleep in bed with a gutful of lobster. I have three monster fish in the freezer.

Instead of lying awake with the noise of rappers from hell, I shall fall asleep to the sound of rain from heaven bashing on my wriggly tin roof.