'Yes,' I say, but I am still thinking about my friend. How dare he decline my call? It was a nice call! It was a call of friendship and coincidence! And it's not like he was busy! He was sitting outside drinking a latte and reading the Mirror, grateful for a few moments to himself on his one day off of the week! That's exactly the right time for a pointless call!

I suddenly realise something with horror. All those calls I've ever made to all those people that haven't been picked up ... all those times the phone has rung out, or gone to answerphone, or not rung quite enough times to convincingly have gone to answerphone ... what if I was rebuffed each time? What if they weren't just busy, or they hadn't just left their mobile in another room, or it wasn't that they were simply running out of battery? What if each one was a conscious decision? A decision weighed up in mere seconds? What if I was a constant rebuffee?

There was no way of knowing. I had to assume the worst. I was an outcast. I'd witnessed it. I was a man from whom it was not worth taking a phone call.

I am filled with embarrassment and annoyance at my mate. I want to call him and have it out, but what if he doesn't answer? He'd win again! I frown. You can't treat friends like that. In fact, I pompously decide, you can't treat human beings like that. It should be against the law. I vow to write to some kind of European MP about this, but then I hear Jon Gaunt saying that you can't trust European MPs as far as you can throw them, and I am filled with hatred and annoyance for the world, and I agree with Jon Gaunt, because when you feel like that it's hard not to.

My phone rings.

Ha! I think. It is him. He's finished his coffee and, flushed with guilt and regret, he wishes to apologise for not picking up. I fish the phone out of my pocket and look at it. How should I react to one so heinous?

But it is not him. It is my friend Colin.

I press 'Divert', and I silently fume, all the way home.

FISHING

There are three of us in a rented Vauxhall Astra, pulling into the driveway of the Perthshire cottage in which we'll be spending the next two days. Our assorted womenfolk will be joining us later ... and it is our intention to impress them.

'We'll catch our dinner!' says Richard, and Marc and I look at him in awe.

'What, like a deer or something?' I say.

'No!' says Richard. 'We will fish! We will immerse ourselves in that most noble of battles - the battle betwixt man and fish - and we will win!'

'Yes!' says Marc.