And finally… carp diem

Vinny Parker, 54, said he was “shaking like jelly” when he caught the 31.7kg fish, known as Captain Jack, at the Holme Fen Fishery in Cambridgeshire.

Parker though he had broken the current records, set in 2016, but he was denied victory after the British Record Fish Committee (BRFC) said Captain Jack was too heavy when he was brought from Israel in 2013 and was fed too many pellets before being taken from the water.

Parker said he has been treated unjustly.

“I feel slightly cheated because the rules are very vague and it comes down to the whim of the judging panel,” he said.

Carp are not native to Britain and must be imported or specially reared here.

The BRFC said: “We cannot consider this a British record, and that word British is important, because it was imported from Israel at such a high weight and stocked into the fishery at a high weight.

“The second consideration is that for several months the fishery was artificially fed with 150kg of pellets a week, and that goes against the criteria we set.”