12 SEP 2017: Alone in your room and want company? The Hotel Charleroi Airport, in Belgium can provide you with a companion for 3.50 euros a night. The hotel has just launched a campaign that it describes as ‘surprisingly unique.’ And it is, because for $5 a day you can enjoy the riveting company of a goldfish.

I do not have a particularly positive association with goldfish. When my daughters were young, they each had one for a few days. At the time I thought that an open can of tuna in the fridge lasted longer than these unwelcome pets that were bestowed upon us.

The hotel is getting raves for originality and scorn for alleged animal abuse. People are suggesting that being forced to live alone in a bowl free of vegetation is mistreatment.

The hotel alleges the fish are only alone when they are escorts to guests who are alone, and after work they live in a fish tank with oxygen and plants. They posted a comment about people looking at the bowl being half-empty instead of half-full.

You know when it is better to have a fish bowl half full? When there is a croc in it.

A company in Darwin (Australia’s northern territory) is providing visits with a 16-foot saltwater crocodile. What they do is they put the human in the bowl (no animal abuse here) and lower it into an aquatic enclosure with the apex predator.

Crocosaurus Cove feeds the entertainment hunks of meat from a fishing rod to make it swim frenetically around the cage and jump up to retrieve a bite. They bait the animal with chickens and fish, but this is a reptile that is known to eat sharks and water buffalo, so that’s like being offered rice crackers when the turkey is placed on the Thanksgiving table. No, it’s worse actually, because the turkey is waving at you in a speedo.

The cage that houses the humans is not metal like you would use to protect your bird from the cat, no this one is clear plastic so as not to obstruct the view of the largest and most dangerous reptile to humans.

I do not have a particularly positive association with water bottles; they tend to break when punctured with flesh tearing teeth.

Saltwater crocodiles hold the record for the highest bite force ever recorded in any animal, with a peak bite force of 16,414 N (3,690 lbf). I looked that up. It means ‘ouch.’

The adventure is called the Cage of Death crocodile dive. I’d call it a tourist trap.