Another day, another local sign.
This one is outside Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, a place very close to my heart – I actually got married to the long-suffering Mrs 6000 there. So I’m not writing this lightly.
Texas (UK)?
Let’s not beat about the bush here: Texas is not in the UK.
Texas is nearly three times the size of the UK.
Texas would swamp the UK.
Texas is not in the UK.
I asked 100 individuals which country Texas was in* and 99 of them knew that it was in the USA. The other one was a beagle, and you can’t really expect a beagle to know that sort of thing. But then, who knows: maybe the sign was done by a beagle? What they lack in geographical nous, they surely make up for with their sign-writing abilities.
I do understand that as a National Botanical Garden, Kirstenbosch is obviously more about horticulture than geography. But still, publicly displaying this sort of inaccuracy is – at best – embarrassing.
And at worst…? Well, it’s not even the worst bit of the sign.
What sort of repugnant nonsense are you planning on serving in your restaurant on New Year’s Eve?
Literally no-one wants to bring in the New Year with cool fish soup. We’re all well aware of the results of boiling a fish anyway: it’s mingy. It’s absolutely the worst way of cooking fish that exists. That’s why normal people advocate frying or grilling fish, with a touch of lemon or garlic butter, (add seasoning to taste).
Also, why goldfish? How bizarre. Is this the latest hipster fad or something? I also felt that it might be ecologically unsound, so I checked the SASSI lists, but goldfish isn’t even mentioned. That’s because you don’t eat goldfish, you look at them. Serving goldfish soup is the start of a slippery slope. What next? Sautéed hagfish? Parrotfish bisque? Ugh.
You simply don’t need to do this. Play to your strengths. Just do plants.
That’s what you’re good at. Plants. Do that.
But maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Again.
Maybe this isn’t a meal at all, but rather just a spectacle. How very cruel.
We’re all well aware that the average goldfish is able to survive in a range of temperatures, from near freezing right up to 30ºC. But 30ºC is merely warm. However, ‘Hot Water” would suggest something well in excess of that. And while the goldfish may be able to briefly tolerate this higher temperature environment, the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water will decline as the temperature increases, meaning that the goldfish will struggle to breathe and eventually die or be cooked. Or both.
It’ll probably make a horrible whining noise as it expires. Goldfish usually do in my experience (Rocking The Daisies, 2013).
For your information, I will be reporting this sign to the SPCA and the Two Oceans Aquarium. I would also have reported it to some local geographical society or other, but I literally couldn’t find one that still existed. Maybe that’s what’s behind the Texas (UK) debacle.
Please, Kirstenbosch. Don’t put the anyone through such unnecessary cruelty. Let’s go into 2018 on a high note (and I don’t mean the last squeals of an expiring Goldfish). There’s enough to see and do in Kirstenbosch. You don’t need gimmicks like this.
Please reconsider.
* obviously, I didn’t really do this. I have a full-time job.