With a celestial Ocado and cure-all peas, life’s good in the goldfish bowl

Absolutely nothing funny has happened this week. However, so many of you have been asking how my famous goldfish Eric Gill has been coping with lockdown that I thought it time for an update.

I had rather hoped to bring you Eric’s thoughts directly via the internet but he’s not terribly good at Zoom, due to his inability to concentrate for more than a few seconds.

However, I have carried out an in-depth (about 14 inches, in fact) interview with Eric and I precis the results below.

Eric reports that shielding has been no problem as he has been in lockdown anyway for the last six years in a series of Perspex globes of ever-increasing size.

He is well used to not having visitors, apart from the alarming incident of the seagull which got into my lounge and stared frighteningly and doubly magnified through the walls of his domain.

Eric reports that his health is tip top save for one bout of stringing. Stringing is best not described in a family newspaper.

Sufficient to say it is not a pretty sight and is caused by over consumption of starchy protein and a lack of fresh veg in the diet.

It is cured by my chewing a couple of frozen peas and spitting them into the bowl.

A gourmet treat for a poorly fish!

As a result of the above and other tasty flakes and pellets miraculously delivered through the hole in the top of Eric’s kingdom, he has come to regard me as a sort of celestial Ocado.

Indeed, the vision of my face in the firmament and the consequent shower of goodies has prompted Eric to develop a cargo cult, with my good self as the ever benevolent deity, rather like those Pacific islanders who worship the Duke of Edinburgh.

When asked why he always circulates his globe in a clockwise direction, Eric merely replied that if we were in the southern hemisphere, he’d go the other way!

And when I inquired as to why he favoured the top half of his home of late, he pointed to the murk at the bottom and asked: “Mate, would you drink that?”, which kind of indicates that it’s time to change the water, an operation that involves much spillage, mixing of chemicals and expensive filters.

A while back, rather than carry yet another watering can of dirty water down the steps to the kitchen, and having read about an integrated hydroponics system that involved salad crops fertilised by fish waste, I administered it to my ten foot high umbrella plant. Sorry to say that after being carefully nurtured for over 20 years and surviving three house moves, my treasured pot plant looks to be on the way out!

Finally, Eric pointed out to me that in Switzerland it is illegal to keep a fish on its own.

I retorted that if I introduced a companion he would undoubtedly eat it.

Besides six years is quite old for a goldfish, so he might well be taking a trip to Switzerland sooner than he thinks.