101 YEARS OLD AND STILL DIFFICULT TO PLEASE...
MY HOPES were high when I was invited to Sea Life London for a preview of their “Rainforest Adventure” but I was puzzled when I read the details. “Discover the UK’s largest population of piranhas,” they said, going on to mention the hissing cockroaches, snapping turtles and Goliath bird-eating spider, but where, I wondered, was the sloth? So I relpied to the invitation with just one question: “How can you have a rainforest adventure without sloths?”
“How true,” came the reply. “We shall point that out to the organisers.” So somewhat mollified, I went along to partake in the adventure anyway.
Even without sloths, I must confess that I have always enjoyed a trip to Sea Life, on the South Bank of the River Thames. After entering, one approaches the various displays across a transparent walkway over the top of a shark pool. Being a naturally cautious and trepidatious person, I always need to pluck up courage to walk across this. I cannot help fearing that there is a Blofeld in the wings who can cause the walkway to slide open, leaving me plummeting into the shark-ridden waters. Fortunately this has never happened, so I was reasonably confident this time. Indeed, halfway across the glass walk of death, it occurred to me how much more scary it would be if every footstep were accompanied by a creaking noise and the sound of glass cracking. I offer that idea to the organisers at no cost.
My walk then took me through the tanks of fish of many sizes and colours, turtles, penguins, jellyfish and sharks, which are surely the most frighteningly elegant creatures I know. Having recently tried to emulate a recipe for turbot with Grénobloise sauce and sea herbs which I saw Gregory Marchand cook on Saturday Kitchen the other week (actually, I used sea bream instead of turbot and I skipped the sea herbs, but it was still delicious), I must confess I kept wondering how best to cook the fish I was watching. The small ones were good for little more than whitebait, while others would, I felt sure, be excellent deep fried in a good beer batter. Some of the biggest, however, would make a glorious centre spread en croûte for a dinner party.
All this made me almost forget the slothlessness of the Rainforest Adventure when I reached it, but the vines tangled on the ceiling reminded me. “Could you not,” I asked one attendant, “have placed a sloth or two hanging from these vines?”
He agreed that it would considerably enhance the exhibit but said that he feared visitors might be tempted to prod the sloths, which would frighten them. He was right, of course, and I decided that they had rejected my favourite animals for good reason.
I still do not understand however why they promised a bird-eating tarantula, when there was no bird in sight. If they advertise a bird-eating spider, we surely have the right to see it eating a bird. All thoughts of eating birds or cooking fish vanished when I saw the cockroaches, of which two were not hissing but brazenly making love. Embarrassed, I fled to the exit. Sea Life is a gloriously scary place.