A very merry Christmas to all or readers with some music, which is not entirely relevant either to Christmas or to fishing: a jazz version by the incomparable Maxine Sullivan of that old favourite, Loch Lomond:

UKIP is cock-a-hoop at this article in the Plymouth Herald.

FISHING quotas could kill off independent boats, fishermen have warned - and say they will be voting UKIP for “drastic political” change.

The comments came as fisherman at Plymouth Fisheries in Fish Quay met on Friday with Clare Moody, Labour MEP for the South West.

At least four boats moored in the quay were sporting purple UKIP flags.

When asked why fisherman were supporting Nigel Farage’s party, Bracken Pearce said: “Because what have the other parties done for us? The tweaks they are making aren’t working and we need some drastic change.”

One can understand the frustrations fishermen feel at yet another round of cuts in quotas based all too often on less than convincing evidence but it is about time they, their organizations, their spokespersons and, above all, politicians including those in UKIP understood the basic facts of life: it is not about the quotas but about the policy as a whole. As long as we are members of the European Union (and we hear more about that referendum than about Brexit from UKIP these days) we remain members of the Common Fisheries Policy; and as long as we remain part of that we do not control our fisheries and cannot do so. The quotas are a side issue. We need to concentrate on the main one.

Today is the Feast of St Nicholas, a fourth century Greek bishop and saint. He is usually associated with children and present giving. But he is also the patron saint of fishermen, which is appropriate to this blog as well as of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, pawnbrokers and students in various cities and countries around Europe and of the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine emperors, who protected his relics in Bari.

In Greece and Russia he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker because of the many miracles attributed to him. Hmmm. Perhaps we should invoke him more often.