For anyone who is not familiar with the idea (and it is indeed a rather strange idea), Fortune Teller Fish are vaguely fish-shaped pieces of transparent red cellophane. They are really simple to use. All you have to do is place the fish in the palm of your hand or someone else's hand and watch to see what happens. The exact way the fish moves allows you to interpret your "fortune". Each fish comes with a little list of interpretations which are as follows:

Moving head = Jealousy
Moving tail = indifference
Moving head and tail = In love
Curling sides = fickle
Turning over = false
Motionless = Dead fish
Curls up entirely = passionate

Obviously the amount of fish movement depends on how warm or cold your hand is at the time and how well the plastic fish sticks to you. Most people will recognise these fortune telling fish from Christmas Crackers however you can also get them in joke shops and off the internet. The fish is mildly entertaining once a year on Christmas day for about 5 minutes after this has fallen out of a cracker but that is all. I would never actually buy one of these and I actually find it really surprising that it is even possible to do so because even if they were 10p I would still consider it a waste of money.

It is ok as a free cracker toy but even then it is a bit on the disappointing side as the fortunes aren't really fortunes. They are just types of mood that you might currently be in. It would be more fun if the little interpretations predicted something for your future - more like the kind of thing you find inside fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants.

My little cousins find this a bit more entertaining than the adults however they don't really understand what all of the words mean so it isn't really that well suited for children either. It is quite immature but my brother and I usually make our way around the Christmas table, giving all the crackers a good shake, and then sit down somewhere where there is a nice heavy one. I have found this to be an effective way of avoiding the Fortune Teller Fish!