Long ago, I acquired a Hamish Imlach LP, and a very fine album it was. It contained, among others, "Hairy Mary". The song describes a fella who after a few pints picks up a bird at the Palais and takes her home. Then comes this verse:

Oot cam her mammy, she was goin to the cludgie
Oh, a bucket of shardfish...

I knew that a cludgie was an outside loo, but what was the need for the shardfish? How would they help in the excretory process? And what WERE shardfish, anyway? After consulting various Scots friends and looking it up in Scottish dictionaries, I was none the wiser. Finally, I saw the verse in print:

Oot cam her mammy, she was goin to the cludgie
Oh, I buggered off sharpish...

Jon Bartlett