gullybogan

Flickr photo by Gullybogan.

Dear Reader,

I was in the Knox City newsagent (the bright cheery one upstairs, not the dark dingy one downstairs) looking for hobby magazines on writing, which they keep practically up on the ceiling, when i noticed this magazine (see accompanying photograph, dear feedreader) right down practically on the floor.

Now, i’m not going to make the clichéd observation that it’s a fishing magazine, and yet it’s got a woman in a bikini on the top, and what does a woman in a bikini have to do with fishing anyway.

Because, let’s face it, i bet plenty of women in bikinis go fishing.

And she is holding a fish, after all.

No, the reason i’m drawing your attention to Miss Indy 2008 Kate Hockly being on the front page of NAfA magazine is… well, how much does she look like a mermaid, with that fricken big fish draped over her legs?

A LOT, that’s how much. Deny it if you will, but you’ll know that i’m right; deep down you’ll know it.

I’m not suggesting that this is how the mermaid myth got started – bikini-clad grid girls holding big fish in their laps – cos everyone knows it’s not.

The mermaid myth got started when a group of lonely fishermen noticed how cute a dugong they’d caught was, and one of them had his mates hold its head while he slipped his tackle into its genital opening.

But i am suggesting – with no real length of time spent thinking about it, and absolutely no hard evidence to back up my ludicrous idea (that’s why it’s called ‘blogging’, and not ‘researching’) – that the magazine is tapping in to the hidden race memory of the time when all fishermen dreamed of having tackle-inserting encounters with beautiful sea mammals.

It’s like them olden days alcohol ads that carried subliminal images of devils photoshopped into the ice cube swirls, to tempt alcoholics (who, apparently, see devils telling them to drink ALL THE TIME) to go out and get shit-faced.

It’s EXACTLY like that.

Fishermen all over Australia are being exploited. They think their higher-brain is buying the magazine for the articles (how to catch a metre Barra at the Mary, the world’s best mackerel lure, Sydney harbour’s kingfish secrets, and so on), whereas in fact they are being hoodwinked by brain-stem-stirring images!

Something should be done to stop this subliminal encouragement to fishermen to fish, before the world’s supply of water-going fish is completely depleted. And dugongs, too.

Next time i see a bikini-clad grid girl nursing a fricken huge fish, i’m going to go on up to her and give her a piece of my mind.

I suggest you do the same.

Yours,
Gullybogan