feargal sharkey, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much, sir.y will know you for your music career, but in recent years, you've become one of britain's most prominent, noisiest campaigners to clean up and protect britain's waterways. and when we suggested an interview, you wanted to meet here — why here? the simple truth is this is the amwell magna fishery. i've spent the last six, seven years as chairman until the last few months, and ifind myself, and the club find ourselves six years ago now, five, six years ago, having to pick a massive fight with the very people who are charged by us, by the nation and by parliament to protect, nurture and look after these rivers and particularly this kind of river. this part of the river lea is a choke stream. there are only 225 on the entire planet. most of them were here in southern england and this one was on the verge of extinction through lack of flow, it had effectively turned into 2.5 miles of stagnant garden pond. and when you say "lack of flow", isn't thatjust nature telling us that the climate is