Life’s too short to measure a goldfish
THIS Easter holiday weekend, thousands of fathers will spend a small fortune trying to hit a cardboard target with a pellet from a wonky air rifle. If they succeed, their lucky children will return home from the funfair clutching a goldfish in a plastic bag.
By Tuesday night, the goldfish will either be swimming around in a bowl modelled on one of those Hanna-Barbera cartoon space helmets or will have been flushed down the toilet.
Goldfish are as much a part of the traditional British Easter experience as Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and chocolate bunny rabbits.
I’ve no idea who came up with the concept of goldfish as fairground prizes, but kids seem to like them. Rag and bone men used to tour the streets on horse-drawn carts touting ‘old clothes for fish’.
Boys and girls would willingly swap their dad’s best Sunday suit for a manky goldfish with the life expectancy of, well, a goldfish.
When it comes to pets, give me a labrador any day of the week. As a hobby, keeping fish is right up there with cultivating mould.
If you want to gawp at brainless pond life with slack mouths staring out from behind a plate-glass screen, there’s always daytime television.
What I hadn’t realised until now was that buying a goldfish is fraught with as much difficulty as obtaining a shotgun licence.
Brian Heard has written to me about his recent experience at the Pets At Home store in Hove. He took his grandchildren there to buy them a couple of goldfish for their aquarium. They were approached by an assistant in a green uniform, clutching an iPad, who proceeded to ask Brian a series of questions.
Why did he want the goldfish? Did he have any fish already? Yes, four. As this impertinent interrogation unfolded, the assistant earnestly tapped the answers into the iPad.
HoW big was the tank in which the goldfish were to be kept? About the same as that one, Brian replied, pointing to a display tank on a nearby shelf. In which case, the assistant said, Brian wouldn’t be allowed to buy any more goldfish.
Pardon? That’s a 20-litre model, and fish require a minimum of one litre of water per centimetre of length. And since goldfish can grow to 5cm, another two would exceed the maximum capacity of the tank.
Hang on a minute, Brian said, the identical tank in the shop contained dozens of fish. Ah, the assistant said, but that’s for commercial not domestic use. When Brian protested, t he assistant said: ‘ Fish have rights, you know.’ Brian left the shop empty handed, with two disappointed grandchildren in tow.
He thought I’d be interested in this story since I regularly bring you r e ports of s hops refusing to sell stuff to people on elf ’n’safety or ‘ proof of identity’ ’ grounds. Thi s is s certainly a new one on n me. I’ve never heard of f anyone being required d to complete a ques--tionnaire before they y could buy a goldfish.
Initially, I assumed d this was an isolated d incident, just another er example of an officious us jobsworth proving my golden rule that if you give someone any kind of authority they will always, always abuse it.
But out of curiosity, I thought I’d investigate further. Turns out Brian isn’t alone. There’s even an online forum for people refused goldfish.
I bring you one example, verbatim, except for some deleted expletives, from a frustrated chap who calls himself ‘ Cornish Seagull’. It is a minor classic.
‘Looking after Daughter’s goldfish, o one dies and decide to re replace it. Go to Pets At Home and experience the bloody “Spanish inquisition”! S o me bloody jobsworth asked me size of tank, what filter system did I have and wait for it . . . what experience did I have of fish?
‘ Explained very slowly t that I was just looking after D Daughter’s fish and one died and No, tank didn’t have filter system but I planne planned to transfer fish to pond. ‘Told it was company policy not to sell fish to customers without filter systems! Got asked to leave store when wife pointed out that most of their fish had fin rot and how could they moralise when their fish were in such a poor state!
‘I’m 56, have had a successful career, raised two kids, had two cats (died at 15 & 16) still have two dogs and make very good jam but I can’t buy a goldfish!!
‘Has the world gone mad or am I missing something?’ In reply to another contributor, who has had a similar problem, Cornish Seagull writes: ‘I suggest you return to the shop with a club hammer and demand they sell you a goldfish or their tanks get it!’
What kind of mad world is it in which the simple business of buying a goldfish can provoke people to the point of violence? Apparently, all this stems from the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, after which the RSPCA i ssued strict guidelines about keeping fish: ‘The general rule is to allow 2.5cm (1in) of fish to 4.5 litres (1 gallon) of water, with a minimum of 45 litres (10 gallons).’
I’m sure this is sensible advice, but who has got the time to measure a goldfish? For a start, they keep flapping about if you take them out of water.
on their website, Pets At Home boast of their ‘responsible retailing’ credentials. They’ll even sell you a ‘Beware of the Goldfish’ sticker. They just won’t sell you a goldfish.
Still, there’s always the funfair, but for how long? A number of MPs, including Jack Straw and man-ofthe- moment Nigel Evans, have signed a petition calling for the law to be changed to ban goldfish being given away as prizes.
Happy Easter.