All aboard the well-heeled yachting club that's 100 miles from the sea In the newly formed club's defence, however, I would cite the example of the rewards that have come from membership of the Cotswold Sardine Fishing Club (CSFC). The club was started a couple of years ago when Charlie, a regular at my local pub, would, when in his cups, speak only of sardines. He had been in the oily fish business for years and could not only tell the difference between, for example, the European Sardina pilchardus and the South American Sardinops sagax, but also felt it incumbent to share this knowledge with the rest of us. Any mention of things piscine and Charlie would steer the conversation towards the merits of the tinned pilchard. And this led the locals to form the CSFC. The aim of club members was to cast a telling word or phrase into a conversation - for example, "I see sprats are on the menu tonight" - watch Charlie wheel the talk round to sardines, and then extract oneself from the discussion leaving an innocent bystander to be collared by his fishy chat. This was not as easy as it might sound. Many a time I was caught having my ear bent about the 21 different species that can be squeezed into a can. Despite Charlie's death two years ago, the CSFC continued to exist thanks to two of the pub's patrons, an Irishman and a Welshman who, for convenience's sake, I'll call Riley and Evans. The two rodmen secured a small fishing beat locally (it cost just £68 a year) and were allowed to fly-fish as many days as they liked between the opening of the season in April and its close in October. Our heroes would arrive in the pub weighed down with rods, nets and waders and announce, with some swank, that they were "off fishing." Jealousy quickly evaporated when the two sportsmen returned to the pub with a score of tales of the ones that got away - but never with a fish. Soon pictures of salmon and trout were pinned behind the bar by members of the CSFC to remind Riley and Evans what a fish looked like, while others regularly commented that £68 a year was extraordinarily good value "unless you wanted to catch a fish." I mention the above so that the Chipping Norton Yacht Club can take heart and not worry too much that it will be laughed out of the smart rustic set. After all, one can guarantee that it, too, will have its "Charlie"" who can entertain the area's locals, which include the Prime Minister, David Cameron, the former News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks, and Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, with tales of whaling in the Norfolk Broads or the sighting of land in the Solent. The club, too, can pin up pictures in its clubhouse for those who have forgotten what a lead plummet looks like, and cover its tables with navigational charts to help its members tack across Gloucestershire to Avonmouth. And, with its well-to-do connections, it could suggest to the Ministry of Defence that if the London Metropolitan Police is prepared to lend Brooks an elderly police horse, then shouldn't the Royal Navy follow suit and let the Chipping Norton Yacht Club have the occasional use of an aircraft carrier? It seems only fair.