But anyway. We ambled along there today, my sister and I, to see him in action. We got to the turtle tank nice and early, so nice and early in fact that we were the only people down there. Happily, it turned out that Joe was patrolling the borders, rustling up trade with the help of a megaphone: 'all of you tourists, get down to the tank - NOW!'

Once he was satisfied with the audience numbers, he disappeared out the back, presumably to powder his nose and have a last look over his lines. The visitors rattled away in various languages, and tried to stop their children from winging Barbie into the pool. After he had allowed the suspense to build to a satisfactory level, Joe emerged at the other side of the room, to the sounds of a pan pipe CD, wearing a life jacket, and carrying a plastic bucket of what can only be described as evil in its purest form. Minced fish guts.

He then talked the assembled tourists, and us, through the various floating wonders of the deep. The highlight of these was definetely Lulu, the vegetarian green turtle, who weighs 32 stone, and who Joe describes privately as 'a bitch'. She doesn't appear to be sticking to her diet and can often be witnessed gobbling down the bloody offerings meant for the sharks and her turtle chum, Jersey. Lulu is a big fat fake. To get the visitors extra specially wound up, she sometimes pretends to get stuck in some railings at the far end of the tank. There is generally an outcry, and an angry mob hunt down the nearest member of staff, and insists that Lulu be winched to safety. As it turns out, all that is required in the way of a rescue mission is to lob a couple of mackerel heads into the water, and Lulu frees herself with miraculous ease.