Tiswas was coming to the fair!
Tiswas was massive in the those days. I thought the Phantom Flan Flinger would show up and paste us all with pies! But he didn't. Or that local boy Lenny Henry would be there handing out condensed milk sandwiches! Or at least reading out made-up news in his hilarious Trevor McDoughnut guise! Did he bollocks. Instead we stood waiting for two hours (the equivalent of six days in infant years), until Tarrant – and Tarrant alone – finally appeared, spraying the crowd with a can of silly string. Ha ha. Well anarchic. Then he said some stuff which didn't seem very funny*.

Anyway. It wasn't all doom and gloom. My beloved brother happened to be Walsall's David Bird of hook-a-duck. Returning victorious from the stall he presented me with his prize to cheer me up. A FUCKING GOLDFISH! I had never experienced petdom before in my life, so this blew my tiny mind out of my cartoonish jug ears. I named him Speedy Gonzalez. We had to leave the fair early, as Speedy's bag was leaking, but I didn't care. I had a fish, and the fair could just suck my bald acorn.

In those days, there wasn't such a thing as cruelty to fish. We made Speedy what we thought was a very nice home in a big round glass bowl. It had gravel in the bottom, and water above that. Just what fish like. We put it on top of the telly. I very much enjoyed watching Speedy go round his bowl, and eating/ignoring the flakes of food I delivered by regular airdrop.

The next morning, I ran downstairs to spend more time with my new aquatic pal. My brother greeted me with a grim face. As he'd gone to open the curtains this morning, he'd trodden on Speedy, who had jumped out of his bowl because our house was somehow worse than living in a bag in a fucking fairground. I'd like to say this was a significant moment, but in emotional terms it was more like my balloon had burst than my beloved pet had died. My brother was probably more upset at having to scrape goldfish guts off his bare foot before breakfast.

Exactly – I mean exactly – the same fate befell Speedy Gonzalez 2, who came along a couple of months later following a school fête. From this we can draw one of two conclusions. 1) Fish don't like being kept in small bowls on top of hot televisions in 1970s Walsall. 2) Fairground folk get their prizes by preying on vulnerable goldfish, smooth-talking depressed fish with talk of a better life as a hook-a-duck prize. Once the unhappy fish realise they've been conned, it's too late, and suicide is their only way out. I won't patronise you by pointing which option is clearly the truth.


*I thought maybe there was something wrong with me but twenty years later he compered an awards cereony I was at, turned up late and was booed off-stage as his act consisted soley of reading aloud from a postcard listing 'Ten reasons why a cucumber is better than a man'. So I'm pretty sure he's the cunt.
(electricteeth, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 17:44, 3 replies)

He also has
the most insincere smile in the whole of celebrity endorsement.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 20:55, closed)

The reason the Phantom Flan Flinger
Didn't turn up was he was at our school fête, it was great.

I later learned that the Phantom was played by a local actor who's son was in my year at school so it was easy to book him to appear.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Fri 10 Jun 2011, 21:32, closed)

I've been on
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire twice and he was ace both times, good craic and plenty of time for people after the show...

And I fucking loved TISWAS.
( His Popiness the Hole Invaded Poland on, Sun 12 Jun 2011, 23:40, closed)