[no subject]

Fishing lines: He sure could play a mean bass
By Keith Elliott
18 May 2003

Optimists say that when you die, you go to a place
where you are surrounded by everything you wanted in
life. If that's true (and I have no inside knowledge
one way or the other), then John Entwistle should be
surrounded by predatory fish at this very moment.

Not a lot of people know this, but Entwistle, least
frenetic member of The Who, liked fishing. No, change
that. He was passionate about it. The Who's singer,
Roger Daltrey, in a eulogy to the former bass player,
said: "If John had had it his way, we would probably
have been on the road 365 days a year. No, make that
351, as he would have still wanted to have his two
weeks' fishing."

Entwistle, awarded the accolade of Greatest Bass
Player of the Millennium, had one small edge over the
rest of us. He had money. This not only allowed him to
go big-game fishing in exotic places such as the
Bahamas and Hawaii (I'm told the Florida Keys was his
favourite), but also gave him the chance to remind
himself of those more restful days.

In his vast house at Stow-on-the-Wold,
Gloucester-shire, Entwistle built himself a pub he
called the Barracuda Inne. Well, you could put a few
bottles of sangria in your front room and do the same.
But Entwistle had a bit more space than you or I, and
he filled it with fish.

Whenever he caught a shark, tuna, marlin or sailfish,
he had a life-size, glass-fibre model made and shipped
from Florida to Stow, where he displayed it on the
wall or hanging from the ceiling. When he died last
year, more than 100 of these fish decorated not just
the Inne but also the billiard room, bathrooms and
bedrooms. (Not one of the models was of a guitar fish,
a shark-like member of the skate family. I can't
explain why.)

I move in slightly less rarefied circles, and never
got an invite. But I've seen photographs. The
Barracuda Inne is, or was, an extra-ordinary sight,
like being inside a vast aquarium where everything was
predatory (a bit like life, I guess).

All good things, alas, come to an end. Entwistle died
aged 57 on the eve of The Who's 2002 tour of America.
The family, who tolerated rather than adored his
angling passion, emptied the tank. And at Sotheby's in
London this week, Entwistle's shoals of fish, along
with his vast array of guitars, were sold at auction.

The hammerhead sharks, wahoo, roosterfish and
barracuda unsurprisingly were less coveted than those
guitars, one of which sold for #95,200. (The whole
sale raised #1,093,372.)

Displaying an 8ft hammerhead or a 10ft marlin would
probably mean evicting one or two members of the
family. Still, the downside would surely be outweighed
by the benefits: wonderful talking point, no inane
chattering, scares annoying children, cheap to feed.
And it carries a small part of John Entwistle's soul. 


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com

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