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The English sport of "Conger cuddling" (which is one other reason I'll have to add to the ever improving blog in progress "why I LOVE the English) involved the attachment of a conger eel to a piece of string and two teams on boxes. The object was to slap the opposing team with the fish until you had eliminated all of the competitors. A pretty cool idea, if you ask me, and one that should certainly take consideration for addition to the Olympics before, say, bowling.

Alas, the sport is no more. Environmentalists, which have robbed us of all our fun, from spotted owl tossing to Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse juggling, threatened to protest the event, and event organizers, apparently frightened of the reaction by England's ichthyphiles, put an end to the event, and, sadly, to the aspirations of those athletes such as myself whose skills were not quite good enough for the major leagues, but could certainly be adequate for fish slapping.

I'm hoping it doesn't end there. I long for a day when we will see the addition of "fish slapping TV" on our satellite dishes, and where not only conger eels, but Northern Pikes and the occasional Muskie are used in these feats of athletic prowess. We need to discover our inner fish slapper, and put an end to this PC silliness once and for all.

And if the environmental lobby doesn't like it, well...WE have the fish!