London's Manhole Trout

The semi-recovery of the Wandle has helped inspire imagination among an odd assortment of Londoners, including Design for London, the agency that advises the mayor, and developer James Bowdidge, who started an angling club — the Tyburn Angling Society — which has all the reflections of eccentricity one might expect. “John Buchan might easily have invented it as a pastime for a group of Edwardian boy-men with too much time and money on their hands (“Women members are allowed but must always be addressed in the masculine“). There are no records of any fish ever being caught in the Tyburn, but Bowdidge has a picture of himself standing in waders with a rod directed at a drain outside Claridges and later sent me a photograph of a pinkish fillet labelled with the name of a supermarket as ‘Tyburn Salmon.'” Ian Jack in the Guardian.