For a long time I have been completely mystified by the number of coconuts constantly floating in the Regent’s Canal. Am I just going insane and imagining things? Do the monkeys from London Zoo lob them in? Is there a secret coconut shy gambling ring? A lost tropic island under Bulls Bridge?

At long last we have an answer thanks to the BBC tv programme “The Secret Highway”, it is as follows.

A group of Indian friends led by Mrs Pushpa Chaundhary continue their Hindu religious traditions at Southall, west London, where they supplement the Grand Union Canal for the sacred River Ganges. They conduct regular ceremonies on the banks of the canal to worship the water and present gifts to their god. These gifts consist of coconuts and flowers which they offer to the water to be swept away to sea.

It is so obvious when you know and it does makes you look at the waterway in a totaly different light, I will not now be surprised to see a naked person being baptised at Little Venice in January.