Loch Fyne

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to complain about a nightmarish experience I had recently at your branch in Milton Keynes. To be completely blunt, I wasn’t hugely inclined to dine at your restaurant in the first place; after a documentary I watched about open sewer being tipped into the ocean I don’t usually touch so much as a prawn. The idea of eating something that may have been tainted with my own faeces frankly turns my stomach. Secondary to this, all fish remind me of the various occasions during my schooldays when I was beaten about the face with a raw kipper as punishment for underperforming in sport. Unfortunately, I was a sickly child and suffered from asthma but my fellow students were unsympathetic and ruthless. On one memorable occasion a young brute by the name of Thwaites struck me repeatedly with said aquatic fauna until our House Master, Mr Capstick, burst onto the scene like a knight in shining armour. Taking Thwaites by the scruff of the neck, he dragged the wretch into his office to whip him within an inch of his life. I must admit I took a dark and perverse pleasure in hearing Thwaites’ screams of pain from down the corridor and even now, fifty years on, thinking of it gives me an agreeable warming sensation on cold winter’s days.

Fond memories of Thwaites’ well-deserved flogging aside, I was persuaded by my good lady-wife Agatha to visit your seafood eatery last Friday with my odious godchildren, Honoria and Augustus. I ordered the plaice and was pleasantly surprised to find that despite my misgivings, the fish was actually quite delicious. I was enjoying my new-found fondness for pan-fried creatures of the deep when I saw something that makes me nauseous even to recall: a slug writhing under the skin of my lunch. Stifling a scream, I caught the attention of a waitress, who explained that the gruesome thing was in fact an egg-sack that was moving because of the heat.

You have completely and utterly ruined seafood for me. The very thought that I may have accidentally consumed the black pustule brings bile up in my throat and makes me feel quite lightheaded. I had already had an abhorrent day with someone else’s revolting offspring and this incident just plummeted the day into new levels of horror and revulsion. I believe that all fish ought to be properly gutted before serving, especially in restaurants where I am expected to pay through the nose for it.

Please ensure this never happens again, or I foresee some closures by the Health Inspector.

Yours stomach-churningly,

Derek Haselhurst-Horton