>My grandmother lived next door to one of the girls who gutted the
>herring catch in the little coastal fishing villages of Fife in the
>early 20th C, and she used to tell tales of having fish fights, when
>there were so many herring everyone got sick of them and used them as
>ammunition in local disputes! YEKK! Tired ole herring STINKS!

Herring are money. People in a fishing village don't get sick of their
primary source of income. But there is at least one well-known case
from the period of fish being thrown as weapons, simply because they
were the handiest available - look up the recent book on the Eyemouth
disaster. There had been an acrimonious dispute about the Church of
Scotland collecting local taxes for its ministry, when most of the
locals didn't belong to it (they were typically Brethren). So the
Kirk's minister and his bailiffs got bombarded with fish when they
turned up to exercise their authority, and in that situation you're
hardly likely to make sure that every fish you biff at the opposition
is within its sell-by date.

We used to drop spleens in each other's boots or hurl rectums across
the factory floor when I worked in a New Zealand slaughterhouse. The
sensation of a lukewarm rectum wrapping itself round your neck like a
scarf is one you don't forget in a hurry.

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