After the recent shocking death of an angler on the St Helens Canal at the hands of an apparently crazed stranger, something distressingly similar has happened this week on my local River Cam!

(article link here)
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Home/Murder-victim-died-in-sustained-attack-24062011.htm

This happened on midsummer night June 21 but it only emerged today that the poor guy was actually fishing at the time on a city centre stretch that I and many friends regularly fish after dark too.

I’ve been sickened by some comments I’ve heard locally about the fact that the victim was not from our area, was homeless and sleeping rough. So what? He wasn’t out begging, hassling people, serving up drugs or breaking into houses. He was minding his own business, fishing!

Police are questioning teenagers 17 and 18, one local and one ‘no fixed abode’. With the big Midsummer fair in town I guess the ‘travelling community’ might be part of their investigations…(however I’ve encountered enough nasty little local hood rats that it would not remotely shock me if the perps turned out to be non-gypsy).

Cambridge that night was awash with the bright young offspring of Cameron’s & Co’s class chums, our future leaders and pillars of society, ra-ra-ra-ing it up at their college May Balls. Some of them may even have witnessed the murder, police believe.
That kind of sick irony seems to sum up modern Britain these days.

Sorry to rant on what should be just a fishing thread, but I needed to vent some spleen. My sympathies to the deceased man’s family and friends, and I hope to never have to type such words again unless responding to deaths by natural causes.