Those bureaucrats in Brussels are at it again and this time if they have their way, rod and line anglers around the Cornish coast will be filling in a form each time they hook a fish.

Let me explain. The plan is to stop people taking too many fish from the sea, but not satisfied with penalising commercial fishermen, the bureaucrats are now targeting the leisure angler.

Boats of all sorts, be they cruisers, yachts, canoes or dinghies will have to be registered fishing vessels if only once a year you or anyone else tosses a line over the side in anticipation of hooking their supper.

Brussels wants fish caught that way to be counted as part of the quota that commercial fishermen land.

What utter rubbish. Do those suited beings in Brussels really think it will work.

As one who occasionally enjoys a few hours with rod and line it will mean each time a trip to the beach or local pier proves successful, I will have to fill in a form and send it off, otherwise it will spell the end of fishing for me.

No doubt eventually we shall see fishing wardens patrolling our beaches and piers making a note of who catches what and when.

It is about time we joined the French and take a different approach to such rules and regulations – ignore them and carry on with what you were doing in the first place. The French have been doing it for years on all sorts of issues and it seems to work.

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Here we go again. No sooner had the bells rung in the new year warnings were announced of increased council tax bills, higher fuel prices, rail fares up, a wages freeze, more high street shop closures and so it went on.

But the first thing everyone said to each other as the New Year began was “Happy New Year”.

What there was to be happy about I do not know. Perhaps after a few glasses of wine or a few pints of beer, it just became easier to stick to tradition.

I suppose one piece of good cheer was a national pub chain offering to sell beer at under a £1 a pint. What a marketing move by the company concerned.

First we had petrol dipping below £1 a litre and now beer below a £1 a pint. I wonder what else will come down in the coming weeks in an effort to get us all to spend more in the long term?

Perhaps Happy New Year was right after all.

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A BEAVER has been causing havoc in a sleepy Cornish town after escaping from a local breeder when flooding short circuited an electric fence that kept it penned in.

People living in Gunnislake were bemused to awake one morning and find trees along their river were mysteriously being gnawed down.

There are calls to reintroduce these creatures and other exotic animals back into the wild but I’m not convinced. The last time these industrious dam builders lived in this country there was an abundance of woods and forests but not any more.

The thought of gangs of beavers chopping down the last remaining trees in this county in order to dam up our rivers seems slightly irresponsible to me.

With the onset of global warming caused by deforestation there is increased flooding in this country surely something that a large beaver population would exacerbate, mind you the calls to re-introduce wolves into the countryside might enliven a weekend stroll in the woods.