Some of you may have read in my May 6th, 2010, blog (http://blog.peterjames.com/2010/05/now-you-seafood.html) the grim tale of the car that was pulled out of Shoreham Harbour, ten years ago, which had been underwater for an estimated four weeks.  Inside were a lobster, a plump eel and what appeared on first inspection to be a football.  The police dive team who had assisted in the recovery of the vehicle threw the eel back in the harbour, then began to play spoof for who would take the lobster home for their dinner.  Then the Assistant Chief Engineer of the the Port of Shoreham ducked inside the car to retrieve the football, and discovered to his shock that it had hair on…. it wasn’t a football… it was a human head.  The eel and the lobster had been enjoying their own private larder.  Suddenly no one fancied the lobster any more and he was thrown back into the harbour.

Now for the postscript…..  lobsters are apparently very territorial.  Eels can be, too.  A few weeks ago, ten years after this incident, Keith Wadey, the Assistant Chief Engineer, made one of his periodic inspection dives in this area of the harbour – which is, incidentally, the only part of the harbour where the public have 24 hour access to the quai – and photographed this enormous lobster – which he is certain is the very same lobster that was lobbed back ten years ago.  If you look closely at what it is dining on, you will see it is the eel.   How’s that for an example of the food chain……???    So, smoked eel, anyone?  A nice lobster salad…..?   But this is not the last you will be hearing of the redoubtable Mr Lobbie….. he will be making a guest appearance in my next Roy Grace novel, “Dead Man’s Grip”  – and not on a dinner plate……