10 things you should never do in a bivy

1. Take a slash without getting out
Whether it's down to summer lager intake or not wanting to leave the womb-like warmth of the 365 in January, when nature calls we've all thought it'' achievable from the pit. It isn't. Whether you're kneeling by the door, with the zip rasped up to belt height, the Gibbins' guttering method or the potential schlong slicing lager can method, don't do it. Just slide your sling backs on and get out.

2. Audition the finger puppets
When the rods are out, the food is consumed, the beer is drunk and the sun's gone down, you've only got one thing for company. You can try and avoid it like a fat girl and the last chocolate in the box but at some point your hand will be heading south. Good taste will see me skate over the issue (I said 'issue') but trying to convince your mate you 'had a bream last night' when he borrows your towel? Shame on you.

3. Phone porn
Since decline of the spoke mechanism, appropriate literature for Point 2 is hard to accommodate in the green man shed. Got a smartphone? Well, the next time you're driving a nail into your pelvis with your bare fist don't forget your free megabytes. But, just when you thought the vinegars were just around the corner, you've got to call your phone supplier and prove you're over 18. Which is basically telling some poor Asian you're about to 'shake hands with the governor of love'.

4. Try to 'get it on'
By some stroke (see 3) of complete fortuity, you've got a member of the opposite sex back to you 'Little Green Cottage with a lake in the grounds' and Barry White's on. Slant-eyed glances over your shoulder at the bedchair; 'are you comfortable on that groundsheet' or 'How would you like to feel your bare ass against Pertex' will all fall on deaf ears. You need to woo, cajole and impress your companion. I find, "There's some chocolates over the back of the bedchair' a magnificent gambit as A. Every girl loves Roses and B. It puts her in the prone position...

5. 'Get it on'
Picture the scene: she's still-hunting for the calories over the bedchair and you've taken the opportunity to lose some. You're basking in post-coitial radiance and her soft voice pipes-up from over the chair, 'Did you have a bream last night?'

6. Have it blown away (not connected to 4 and 5)
'It'll blow-over' you think as the wind swings 180-degrees straight into the door of the bivvy. It won't. No matter how hard you hope, any bivvy will tear remorselessly from its footings to reveal you engrossed in any of points 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 or 7, or maybe groupings of the above. Indeed, the recent fashion for people finding their quarry 'on the back of the wind' usually points to their preoccupation with one or more of the above.

7. Have a gas drama
While of no relation to Point 2, we've all had cooking fuel incidents. Whether it's smoking when changing a canister or fuel leakage, we've all done it. My own personal favourite was filling the Coleman and spotting a drip of fuel on the floor. Thinking the application of a naked flame would see a gentle, candle-like flame emitting from the tiny puddle, I soon realised that the majority of my pourings had soaked into the deck. One flick of the lighter and it was 'Tales of the Unexpected' for me. And I frown at you with my newly grown eyebrows for laughing.

8. Have a candle incident
While potentially linked to Points 3 or 6, I'm thinking of those infernal 'tea-lites'. They have no place in carp angling whatsoever, naked flames are downright dangerous (Huh, Steven Egerton from JRC fame?). Women buy them because their idea of fun is poaching in a hot bath, surrounded by tea-lites with rose petals scattered over the water while being read poetry. Believe me, they love it. Although my long-suffering missus seemed quite cross when, having forgotten our anniversary, I slipped her into a tepid bath, threw onion skins in it (the closest thing I could find at short notice), stoked-up the Coleman and read her a couple of chapters from Bravo Two Zero. There's no pleasing women.

9. Discover a leak
Normally, you'll wake up to a dripping sound. And the only reason you can hear it is because it's dripping into a puddle. The law of averages suggest it could be anywhere in the bivvy, but sod's law always puts the offending breech of the hydrostatics directly above your crotch. It will have soaked straight through the sleeping bag and into your breeks. So not only will you be living in a puddle for the rest of the sesh, you'll look like you've escaped from a care home. If you are lucky enough to realise the plumbing's gone before it soaks through, you'll just raise yourself higher and higher in the bag to avoid it until the chair tips, depositing you against the wet wall of your tent and splashing half a litre of gathered water all over you. Hence the three leg chair.

10. Chase an intruder
You've woken in the depths of darkness to the pitter-patter of tiny feet over your groundsheet. Either the girl you met in Essex last season has brought your new family to show you or you've got pest problems. It's clinically proven that a warm hut laced in Scopex can attract rodents from Mars and it's physically impossible to stop them from nibbling holes in everything once they're in there. Try as you might, no matter how many times you thwack the groundsheet with the heel of your Adidias, you won't hit the offending Mickey. Why? Like the Essex girl's piercing, it's under the storm flaps.