Never one to miss out on a bit of PR, budget hotel chain Travelodge's latest ruse to give customers a good night's sleep is, and I kid you not, goldfish hire.
Following its controversial appointment of a £60,000 director of sleep and trials of window transfers giving customers' nicer views than the nearest A road, the company is today claiming that staring at a friendly goldfish can take away the pain of a stressful day.
The scheme follows a Travelodge study of 2,000 UK consumers, which revealed that two thirds of respondents associated an aquarium with tranquillity and serenity.
A third believed watching fish swim creates serenity, while the goldfish was voted Britain's top favourite pet fish (a not entirely unexpected victory, unless funfairs are now giving away swordfish for getting hoops on a ring).
To prove this is not a spurious exercise, Travelodge roped in "sleep expert" Chris Idzikowski, from Edinburgh Sleep Centre.
He said: "Stress causes difficulties in achieving a quality night's sleep so if you have the space, time and would like to try a novel stress reduction technique, consider keeping fish. You would need to watch the fish every evening for at least 15 minutes prior to sleep."
Just don't get the fishbowl mixed up with your overnight glass of water...
