Fish Fight: Hugh’s Last Stand review – ‘Nice one, Hugh’

What Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s campaign really needs is some happy fish slapping

There was a little story in the papers the other day about a girl who slapped a supermarket employee round the face with a wet fish while her friend filmed it on his phone. Asda in Accrington, if I remember right, and a bream. Obviously this sort of behaviour is totally unacceptable … but it is funny, isn’t it? And I’m wondering if it wasn’t just a random happy slap attack, to be shared on The Face Tube, but part of Fish Fight: Hugh’s Last Stand (Channel 4, Sunday). Which might give it more legitimacy, though you could say that the unfortunate fish counter worker, a 52-year-old woman, wasn’t really a fair target.

It’s three years since Hugh F-W decided the planet’s oceans were worth saving and started to bang on about fish. In this update he’s having a look at what has been achieved. And in the North Sea, the news is good. Well, unless you get seasick – there’s a filthy chop off Peterhead today, the trawler Budding Rose is bouncing about all over the place and I’m feeling queasy just watching. It’s beautiful though, as are the sad-eyed golden-green cod that spill into the hold when the catch is landed.

The good news is that none of this lot are going to be thrown back dead into the sea. For now it’s a pilot scheme and means the Budding Rose has CCTV cameras all over the place (you’ve got to feel for the poor crew, being watched by Big Brother in Brussels). The fish is even marked “CCTV Cod” in boxes at market; make sure you ask for it in the chippy – large CCTV cod’n’chips please, open, and a pickled free-range happy egg.

Anyway, it marks the start of a ban on discards that will come into effect next year. A dumb European law has actually been changed, by a British TV chef and the hundreds of thousands who got behind his Fish Fight campaign. That’s bloody brilliant, moving even. Nice one, Hugh. Maybe nice one you, too.

The fight wasn’t just about about discards though; It was about the brutal assault on the waters around Thailand for fishmeal that is used to feed the farmed king prawns that go into your ready meals. Mmm, ocean pillage masala. And there’s progress here, too. A man named Bob promised to do – and is doing – better. I think, from the way he does it, that Hugh is thinking of Blackadder when he says “Bob”, which he seems to do as often as possible. Bob is Prawnographer-in-Chief. Sorry, I did have a self-imposed EU ban on all fishy puns, but one seems to have got through the net.

It was also a fight with the supermarkets. And here the news is not so good, I’m afraid. Bloody supermarkets, booo. You can always rely on them to let you – and the planet – down, just when everyone else is making a real effort.

What are they doing this time? Well, they pretend to be all ethical with their line-caught, own-brand tuna, but then they’re also selling other cheap tuna caught by environmentally unsound methods, such as “fish aggregation devices”. Dolphin unfriendly? Actually no; and as I’ve said before in this column, I’m no fan of dolphins (plus Richard Branson likes them and I’m no fan of his either). But FADs also kill sharks, rays and turtles too, which I like a lot … What? Environmentalism isn’t about which are and aren’t your favourite sea creatures? Oh.

What it means is the fight isn’t over yet. And on the Hugh’s Fish Fight website you can find all the details about the fish-sourcing policies of the different supermarkets, plus how to complain if you don’t like what you see. So get twitter-mailing and everything else. And if that doesn’t work, I wouldn’t totally rule out the tactics employed by that girl in Accrington. Not on the poor fish counter worker, but on someone higher up – as high as you can get at.

Plus it would make for better television too, if there’s to be more (this isn’t really your last stand, is it Hugh?). Not that it’s bad. Hugh works hard, with his rallies and marches and suit-bothering. But the campaign is mainly about signatures and emails, not the easiest things to turn into television. Imagine if there was actual happy fish slapping too, of high-ranking supermarket executives and politicians.

Is a bream really the best choice of weapon, though? Wouldn’t a larger flat fish, maybe a turbot, be better? Hard to grip? Then a whole salmon – held two-handed, and swung like a baseball bat. Slap!

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