There’s one upside to having Parkinson’s disease

I am just back from my final salmon fishing trip of the year. I have never had a worse season and have hardly cast a line. This autumn’s almost unprecedented sunshine has been terrible for fishing; the river Tweed had been reduced to a dribble, through which even Alex Salmond could easily lead an invasion force from Scotland to England while wearing a three-piece suit. I returned to find a letter from Salmon & Trout Conservation lying on the mat. It is bizarre that the only friends these fish have are those who want to stick a hook in them. The chief executive sounded at his wits’ end as he appealed for funds.

I hope I’m wrong, but I think we may be looking at the beginning of the end of a primeval cycle in which salmon are born in freshwaters, then embark upon prodigious migrations at sea before mysteriously returning to their natal rivers. The reasons for my pessimism are numerous, but mainly manmade. In the meantime, salmon farms continue their torturous business, producing miserable-looking creatures to be served up as ‘smoked salmon’ at dinners across the land for those who know no better. Anyone who has visited the West Coast of Scotland and seen the enormous cages in which so-called salmon are ‘farmed’ will be aware of how far these environments are from the natural life of a migratory species. Having been eaten alive by lice, poisoned by chemicals and ‘cleansed’ with hot water, their only resemblance to real fish is the presence of mangled fins and tails. It is almost two years since a group of numpties from the Scottish parliament completed a review of the industry saying ‘the status quo is not an option’. It turns out that it is, for nothing has happened since.

But it’s an ill wind.