The Random Yak

It’s Monday again, and today I’m glad I don’t have to…

…be knocked off a podium by someone hurling a dead eel.

But some people do. Or rather did, before an anonymous e-mail complaint led to the termination of a 30 year tradition in order to better honor the “rights” and memory of dead eels.

Sadly, I’m not kidding.

Since 1974 residents of Lyme Regis, a fishing village on the coast of Britain, have held an annual “conger cuddling” competition. The traditional game involved two teams of fishermen standing “like bowling pins” on wooden platforms and taking swipes at one another with 25-lb conger eels.

No, the eels were not alive at the time of the contest. Fishermen regularly catch conger eels (not the intended catch) in their nets. They apparentlyfreeze the eels and thaw them in time for the competition – in essence, making use of something which would still be dead anyway and would otherwise be thrown away.

The contest provided a fundraising opportunity for the community, which donated the proceeds (averaging approximately $5,600 a year) to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat crews.

But not anymore.

Nope. The event has been cancelled – permanently – because an anonymous emailer (read: stark, raving, barking moonbat with unbelievable chutzpah) “Called the practice disrespectful to the dead eel” and threatened to film the event “to attract adverse media attention.”

Disrespectful to the dead eel.

So, according to this brilliant anonymous logician:

Already Dead Eel > $5,000 for charity.

No wonder he or she chose to remain anonymous. No person in his (or her, ladies on the hook for this one too) right mind could possibly believe this insanity.

The eel was already dead.

I don’t care what kind of misguided belief system you follow, there’s not one that says a dead eel minds being swung at the fishermen who caught it. (If anything,a strange sort of revenge mentalityprobably suggests the eel would appreciate the chance to get one more whack in.)

If you want to protest the whirling of live eels, go right ahead. I’m against the torture of live animals at least as much as the next reasonableYak on the mountain. (Note: I said “reasonable” Yak, and by “reasonable” I mean “steak-lovin’, hamburger eatin’, fried-chicken savoring, reality-orientedYak. Don’t bring that “meat is murder, animals should have representation in Congress” attitude over here. I’ll slap you with an eel.) But don’t start calling the people of Lyme Regis “fishslappers” and sending your prophets of doom over tostop the practice. (Statistically, 57% of you got the reference.)

The entire episode puts me in mind of a Monty Python sketch. If anything, the Python crew probably rejected just thisscenario as too far-fetched for belief. After all, trying to sell a dead parrot is humorous – trying to stop people slapping one another withdead eelsis just absurd.

Linked to the Open Trackback Posts at Pursuing Holinessand Third World County (who mentioned “Silly Season” and the improper elevation of silly issues to inappropriate status, which of course makes that post a perfectfit for this one).