HOW I laughed and laughed when I heard that organisers of Chalfont St Peter's Mayfair have banned goldfish as prizes because people thought it was cruel.

Giving away goldfish at summer fairs is as old as the hills.

I remember my first pet, Fingers, was a goldfish.

I won him at a fair and cherished him for the rest of his life. And no I didn't flush his little body down the toilet when his life expired. I buried him in a large matchbox in my back garden with a lollypop stick grave.

Unfortunately I also dug him up a year later out of curiosity (I was only eight) but I'd rather forget about that.

The fact is that a goldfish is better off in the hands of a child than most other places. I hate to think what happens to the thousands of goldfish that never make it out of the pet shop and into a plastic bag just to the left of the coconut shy.

All this complaining at the sight of kiddies supposedly swinging these fish around in their bags is just another example of political correctness gone mad.

It seems truly amazing that people will complain about goldfish at fairs but at the same time go to the supermarket to purchase a nice piece of freshly air-drowned cod or a salmon plucked from the water with the use of a sharp metal hook.

Can you imagine going to eat a nice portion of cake only to feel the pain as a hook wrenches through your cheek?

I bet it's a great deal more terrifying than watching all the fun of the fair pass by from the inside of a cool, if rather small, bag.

Anyway, apparently goldfish only have a memory span of about five seconds so as far as they are concerned even if they have been trapped in a bag for days it still only feels like a few moments.

The point I'm trying to make is that we can't go on regulating every single facet of our lives.

How dull will we make everything by repeatedly pandering to the whims of a politically correct climate that is quite frankly beginning to suffocate.

Cruelty to animals is wrong. But as long as fish at fairs are not kept hanging around for weeks on end, I can't see the problem.

What I'm left wondering is how many veal steaks are eaten in the Chalfonts each week?

That would interesting wouldn't it?