I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination - Jerome K. Jerome

Montmorency’s ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at.

That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea. It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, to talk very loudly to each other about how you don’t need any tea, and are not going to have any. You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, and then you shout out, “I don’t want any tea; do you, George?” to which George shouts back, “Oh, no, I don’t like tea; we’ll have lemonade instead — tea’s so indigestible.” Upon which the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out. We adopted this harmless bit of trickery, and the result was that, by the time everything else was ready, the tea was waiting. Then we lit the lantern, and squatted down to supper.

"I never knew you played the banjo!" cried Harris and I, in one breath.
"Not exactly," replied George: "but it's very easy, they tell me; and I've got the instruction book!"
From Three Men in a Boat