5 years ago today!

5 years ago, the Shark Fisherman put Richard Brautigan's 'Trout Fishing in America' back on the library shelf and set about making his own slice of history, his own piece of pecan pie. 620 Blog posts on I have to congratulate myself for my resilience in continuing with this concept album of a blog in the face of Welsh antipathy and indifference. On average 56 people read each post and only 5 of those are Welsh which shows that my reach is wide. It was more when I syndicated to Facebook but a year on from 22nd January 2016 I will have been free from that soul and life sucking medium. The loss of readership was the cost that I was prepared to pay.  By now you are probably wondering why I have included the 'War of the Worlds'  Well, on Friday you don't need me to tell you what is going to happen in Washington DC. Unless you are insane like me, then you are surely as worried about the next four years as were the Victorians about the prophecies of HG Wells. I have to admit that President Donald Trump appeals to my sense of the absurd. Any man is as horrific as our own fears that we imbue him with. One thing that we lack in our armoury against him is what we had back in the 1980s and that was cutting edge satire in the form of Not the Nine o Clock News and Spitting Image We need these types of programmes to maintain our sanity in the face of potential Armageddon. My concern is that it has been almost 80 years since the last World War, a length of time unprecedented in the history of conflict and wasn't it the European Union that was the glue that kept us together? Many wars between 1939 and now but not a Global Conflict. The signs have been there for a while. With ISIL, Brexit and Trump/Putin we have a potential explosive cocktail. As individuals we are as impotent as we ever were. Our only defence, our sense of humour and our ability to minimise these threats through film, theatre & literature. If Trump is as thin skinned as he appears then one does wonder what will happen when he is insulted by North Korea. Rest assured dear loyal Shark Fishing in Wales readers, you will know what I feel as soon as it happens. Here's to the next 5 years if we're still here...