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We just received this letter that was sent by Mr. Jean-Jacques Paul, a retired missionary who lives at 26 rue Tabaga at Lens-le-hout and we couldn’t fail to share it with you, dear readers.

Dear Sirs at le Mouching,

I am one of your loyal readers for several years now.  Today I would like to contribute to the education of the masses, as I did during my career in Indochina and later in Algeria. (Ah! The colonies, we don’t shed enough tears for our loss…)

Rarely, in your fascinating columns, is the ferocious appetite of certain races of fish mentioned. On the contrary, we are told over and over again about the discreet taking of the fly or of the lures that are taken timidly at the edge of the lips.

Ahhh! All this is far from the famous story of the late JONAH who was swallowed up by the whale and made his soft bed (although somewhat humid) in the stomach of the Cetacea.

Not too long ago a fisherman whose barbarous name escapes me (I think that it originates in one of those nordic countries where the language is barely civilized!) pulled out of his nets a cod fish and his attention was drawn to it’s distended stomach.

With the aid of a well honed knife he opened the abdomen of the animal (who barely flinched) and to his surprise discovered an object in a red/orange plastic material. Very quickly (our man was a physiognomist) it was evident that the object was none other than a  vulgar dildo that, certainly, a woman of easy virtue had thrown from the bridge of the ship. Alerted by the object’s pronounced taste of the tide, the codfish had swallowed it withoutany more difficulty than if he had consumed a vulgar prawn.

Just recently a similar tale happened to Henri, my dear nephew… let me tell you about it.

He had just returned from a voyage to distant country and he had a great desire to try his new fly rod in the river near his home.

“It’s sunday” he said to himself, “the stores that sell fishing licenses will be closed, so what… I’ll go and get my license tomorrow!”

And without waiting he started to test his new fly rod, it was a LOOP if I remember correctly.

About a quarter of an hour later a police car from the neighboring village stopped near said river, an officer got out and approaching my dear nephew asked for his fishing license.

Apologetically Henri explained his predicament and promised, with his hand over his heart, to buy the license the moment the stores opened the next day. The officer didn’t want to hear any of it and handed him a ticket of an exorbitant sum, tipped his hat and left.

Crazy with anger, my nephew crumpled the ticket into a ball and threw it into the river. Shortly after that, he caught a good sized rainbow trout and put it in his creel.

Returning home he opened the stomach of the now defunct beast and what did he find in the said organ? I’ll give you a thousand to one; it was the ticket written by the exacting police officer.

But the best part was, when he tasted the trout, it had a decided taste of pig.