Gone fishing

Yesterday was Prawn Fishing day at Alphabet, with the entire office decamping in a convoy of minibuses (well, three) up the motorway and to the back of beyond. The reason? No real reason ... I think it's coming out of our socials budget.

Happily some bright spark had got some tinnies for the journey, so by the time we arrived at 'Bottle Tree Prawn Fishing' in Sembawang we were nicely lubricated - and the poor prawns never knew what hit them.

The secret to a good haul is to ensure your rod is properly baited - so we came to the pond prepared, with as much freshly diced chicken hearts as any hunter of big game could wish for. Then you need to site yourself, preferably far from the madding crowd, so that you don't have too many rods competing in the same patch of water - though crucially you still need to be close enough to the beer garden in order to ensure you're constantly being topped up with Tiger. Wrestling with prawns turned out to be thirstier work than I'd imagined.

Amos Hong was the first Alphabeter to get off the mark, bagging a little beauty. After that, we collectively got into our stride - and by the end of proceedings, we had seriously dented the prawn population of northeast Singapore. I think special mention should go to Captain and myself for both managing to grab a prawn each with our bare hands. Anyone who pooh-poohs this feat of arms should look closely at the sharp claws on these things - these are seriously hard arse bastards, my friends.

Favouring brains over brawn Dawn, Kelly and Jovita got the most prawns - with Dawn just pipping the others for our top prize. Little had I realised that after the fishing was over, there were more thrills and spills to come.

I had imagined that after we caught the prawns we'd cheerily wish them well, pop them pack into the pond, and they'd swim off to talk about their close escape with their mates. Sadly a rather more gruesome end awaited them: think sharp satay stick, struggling prawn, and King Edward II.

It was grim work, and frankly I've seen enough anguished prawn faces and rectums to last a lifetime. But my squeamishness did pass after we'd barbecued the buggers and dipped them in sweet chilli sauce...

... and naturally, this being Alphabet, we managed to find a bit of time for some drinking games, as evidenced by the last two photos.