BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead

Subject: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,A grieving fan
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:23 PM

Eckholt I. Cunningly, the world's top professional slug wrestler, was found dead today in a California cucumber patch, apparently the victim of a hostile encounter with an unusually aggressive and formidable slug...or slugs.

Worried family members had been trying to contact Cunningly on his cellular phone for hours when the body was found by a crew of migrant cucumber pickers. He had apparently gone out, as was his wont, "to check out the local talent".

Juan Gonzalez, a veteran picker, said he was making his way row by row through the field of cucumbers when he noticed a disturbed area of the field. There were broken plants strewn about and the earth showed signs of a desperate struggle. The puzzled Mr Gonzalez followed the trail until he found Cunningly, the famous slug wrestler, lying face down on the ground.

"At first I think maybe he was the victim of a mugging," said Mr Gonzalez, "but then I notice the slime! There was a lotta slime all over him! I turn him over and say, oh by gosh! I know this guy. I seen him one time years ago on Geraldo wrestling slugs. He was amazing."

Paramedics were rushed to the scene but failed to find a pulse. Eckholt Cunningly was pronounced dead at 11:25 AM, Calfornia time.

The cause: Death by slug attack.

"We feared it would come to this," said Mr Cunningly's weeping wife, Daphne. "'E was gettin' on in years, and 'e 'adn't been takin' 'is Wild Yak Extract supplements regular loik I told 'im to."   Daphne Cunningly has faithfully accompanied Eckholt across the world throughout the past 30 years as he took on and defeated the toughest slugs in every country in Europe, most of North America, and in exotic locales as far away as Sumatra, Liberia, New Zealand, and Madagascar.

"I told 'im 'e was gettin' too old for the game," said Mrs Cunningly, "but 'e just wouldn't quit. "'E always was lookin' forward to tykin' on a bigger and meaner slug than the last one."

"This time," added their son, Stigweard Cunningly, "he took on one slug too many. If I find the bastard slug that did this, I'm salting him, I swear it!" Stigweard plans to go in his father's footsteps, so it's not quite yet time for the slugs of the world to become too compacent...

Meanwhile, a local promoter from Oakland, "Dick Dastardly" (apparently a stage name), has offered $5,000 to anyone who can locate the slug that outfought Eckholt Cunningly. Dastardly plans to get a trainer and a trailer, have the slug go professional and stage fights with it across the USA and eventually the world. Stigweard Cunningly says he is training relentlessly himself and will be ready to meet the slug in the arena within 6 months or less, if it has the slime to come forward and face him.

Santa Cruz police, however, are considering the possibility that a large number of ordinary-sized slugs may have "swarmed" Eckhold Cunningly for some reason. "I don't believe one slug could have done it," said Detective Lancelot Davenport. "I think we're looking at a swarming here. Upwards of 5000 slugs suddenly attacking en masse."

"That's a load of rubbish!" exclaimed Daphne Cunningly. "Slugs are rugged individualists, they are, and they don't never (sic) work together. They don't bloody well swarm anyone. Wot we are lookin' for 'ere is one slug, one murderous slug, about the size of, oh, a Morris Minor or an Austin Minie, I'd say. You can see the sign plain by the disturbances on the ground and the prodidious quantities of slime. This bastard was a great, enormous, slimy killer wot must have been the biggest slug ever seen in these parts. It's because of all these damned bloody chemicals wot California is dumpin' on the fields to make the vegetables grow unnatural loik. We are going to sue the state, Governor Schwarzenneger, and the farm for all they've got!" At that point Mrs Cunningly broke down and was escorted, weeping loudly, from the scene of the tragedy by comforting friends and relatives.

Still another theory put forward by local standup comic, Harry Ames, which could help explain all that slime is that it was not a slug at all which did in Eckholt Cunningly, but a municipal, state or federal politician, while others say, no, it must have been a Hollywood Lawyer. "The one question I want answered," quips Harry Ames, "is this: Where was F. Lee Bailey on the morning of September 8, 2006?"

And so ends a glorious career which had taken Eckholt I. Cunningly from his humble roots in Swinefleet, Yorkshire, UK to appearances on U.S.A. Talk TV and a documentary on Belgian Television in 1992, when Cunningly fought and defeated the Belgian reigning champion slug "Ziggy" in a steel cage match in Brussels.

"It's not easy to pin a slug," Cunningly said in a recent interview. "They're smarter, faster, and meaner than most people think, and they've got incredible reflexes! You've got to have good hands and absolutely steady nerve at all times. It doesn't do to lose your nerve, because they can smell the fear and once they do...it's all over. I never met a slug yet that could put the fear in me. That's why I am where I am today...at the pinaccle."

We'll never know if Eckholt Cunningly lost his nerve in an obscure cucumber patch in southern California, and we may never know who was the slug (or the slugs) who laid him low, but we do know one thing. For Eckholt Cunningly it was a slug too far.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:28 PM

Was he a salted?
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,Robbie Jones
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:34 PM

Damn! This is a sad day for Swinefleet.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:40 PM

Castration of the Raspberry Leech, a first cousin of the slug mentioned above.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:42 PM

Trouble is, EVERY day is a sad day for Swinefleet....ever been there? *shudders*

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:45 PM

Good lord. Giant slugs. Raspberry leeches. F. Lee Bailey. Where is it all going to end?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 06:51 PM

Because we don't to alarm the public, we should like to point out that attacks from giant slugs are a comparatively rare occurrence.

Eckholt Cunningly's tragic demise is in no way typical, and he is in fact only the third fatality from a rogue slug, this week. Things are improving.

These are enlightened times and the days of the great slug uprisings are well behind us. Bad things were done in those days to slugs.

Also the days of smokescreens around what goes on in the ring in slug wrestling contests are long gone. Nowadays slug wrestling is a well regulated sport, and a fully qualified medical expert with experience of attending gasteropods is always at hand at the ringside in the unlikely case of a slug burst.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 07:00 PM

prime suspect

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Emma B
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 07:19 PM

let's all sing along too

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 07:30 PM

I think the real perp here is the Orillian Oracle who has way too much time on his hands!!!

Well penned!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 08:31 PM

Actually, Mudcat's prolific writer once helped that other resident of Orilia, Gordon Lightfoot, write an epic tone poem. It was called "Canadian Slimeways Slug Trilogy". Er, OK, maybe is wasn't one of Lightfoot's bigger hits.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 09:04 PM

That song is a folk gem which has never won the acclaim it deserves. It has 137 verses, and three movements. The first movement reprises again at the end, similar to the Railroad trilogy.

It seems that Paul from Hull has been to Swinefleet. What's it like, Paul? Is it the sort of place you'd expect a world champion slug wrestler to come from?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Severn
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 09:16 PM

...and this was a .38 slug! He took a size 44 large. Somehow this doesn't fit......

Could this murder be the work of some Es-Cargo Cult?

Someone who remembered when he tried to put that slug in the candy machine?

A conch on the head from some hired Italian mussel?





...."AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHH! I've caught a slug! Go on without me boys!.........

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,Ripper in Australia
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 09:34 PM

Cunningly's been abusing and humiliating innocent slugs for years and profiting off their pain all the while. I'm not a bit sorry that he finally copped it. If anyone had it coming he did. I bet the slugs did swarm him. God knows, they had reason to. Stupid pommy bastard.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 09:40 PM

Check this out:

The glory, the majesty....of Limax Maximus!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:07 PM

The REAL perp.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: pdq
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:20 PM

Here is the real suspect...

"...Slimes of Passion

Discovering the hidden nature of University of California SC's slippery mascot

The banana slug belongs to genus Ariolimax, a group of land slugs that range from the Salinas Valley north to Alaska and east to the Sierra Nevada. The species question is under debate. Some folks think that there is only one, A. columbianus, throughout the range; others claim the presence of a second, A. dolichyphallus. A definitive answer will be a long time coming.

Dolichyphallus translates as "giant penis", and the slugs we know and love definitely live up to it. Banana slug penises have evolved to be almost as long as their bodies. When you consider that the average banana slug is 6 - 8 inches long, this endowment is impressive even by our standards. While having a big member to show off before mating may be a plus when trying to get the attention of that special slimer, there are drawbacks.

Since slugs are hermaphrodites, each partner's wiener must fit into the other's genital opening. This makes choosing a mate of equal size a must. Before actually getting down to it, both partners check out each other's equipment - no slug can ever be accused of rape, because both partners must present their plumbing before anything else happens. If either slug miscalculates, it may get its wanker stuck during actual copulation and be unable to pull out afterward. When this happens, the unstuck partner bites off the stuck one's slughood - scientists call this "apophallation", though "Bobbitization" may have more of a ring in popular circles."

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:20 PM

*** Shudder... ***

Now I begin to appreciate what Mr Cunningly may have been up against in that field.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:44 PM

Brilliantly presented.

Reminds me of the wonderful children's book "Slugs Is Slugs."

Of course the nautical slugs are even more fierce, and exotic: Click at Your Own Risk!

I'm also reminded that I used to be a member of a contradance band called the "Sea Slugs" way back in the 1990's.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,W. Spelling
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 10:57 PM

There is no truth to the rumor that Eckholt I. Cunningly's body was found with his privates bitten off...

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Janie
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 11:13 PM

The guy who introduced Limax Maximus to North America is a marked man if he ever ventures into my lettuce patch!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 11:15 PM

What about the rumor that he was found wearing Little Hawk'a aunt's underwear?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 01:16 AM

I accidentally ate his aunt's underwear. What the guy was wearing was LITTLE HAWK'S underwear.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,Anwar
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 01:25 AM

How do you accidentally eat someone's underwear? How is that possible?

And how is it possible to know when a slug has been "pinned"?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 01:32 AM

"How do you accidentally eat someone's underwear? How is that possible?"

The underpants were tangled up in the bra.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 01:48 AM

Static cling from the dryer.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 08:53 AM

Unfair ways to deal with slugs is to sprinkle salt on them, or serve them unlimited quanities of beer. The former destroys their exteror and the latter their interior. Take your pick but don't sample too much of the beer or you may go they way of the slugs.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 09:52 AM

"They don't care if they're swimming in Guiness.
Or drowning in Miller Lite"

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:07 AM

Time to elect this year's Slug Queen Vote early, vote often!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Les from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:20 AM

swinefleet

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 10:59 AM

I hesitate to stick a toe into this slug-fest, having apparently inadvertently set it off. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,Lorrie Man from Swinefleet
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 02:34 PM

Here's an aerial photo of the glory that is Swinefleet. Note the lovely colour of the limpid waters of the river Ouse, which flows by at the foot of Swinefleet.

Swinefleet and the Ouse

You can also zoom in for a really close look and maybe catch a glimpse of me bird sunning herself with her top off in the backyard!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 03:27 PM

Is that pronounced "the ooze"?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Les from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 03:35 PM

I'm afraid it is!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 03:53 PM

Well, that says a lot, doesn't it? ;-) No wonder Mr Cunningly was so drawn to a lifetime spent grappling with gigantic slugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 04:37 PM

No it was a famous slug, I don't know any famous slugs myself, nothing much about that in my Gardeners World, they don't even have names for them!
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST,Artie
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 04:41 PM

I've zoomed in as close as I can on Swinefleet, but I still can't see the girl sunbathing. I wouldn't swim in that river for 100 pounds. I wouldn't drink the water for 10,000!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Les from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 04:54 PM

Most of the rivers round here are a bit to thick to drink and only slightly too thin to plough.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 06:28 PM

Bloody awful what can be done by a couple of thousand years of urban development, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 07:18 PM

Well done our Les! I couldnt find a website half as good as that about the place...

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 07:28 PM

Oh its ALWAYS been like that L.H. the Romans managed to WALK across the main river in the locality, & them in all that armour too. For some strange reason we built a sodding great bridge some years ago to roughly mark the crossing point the Romans used.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:12 PM

Did they walk on the water or were they wading through it?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:27 PM

They were on skis.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 11:28 PM

So this would be the ancient origin of waterskiing, would it?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 12:36 AM

Yes. Here is photographic evidence--it shows part of a legion of centurions crossing the Rubicon. Scouting party: some members of Legio VII Gemina. That picture was taken just before they were sent to Spain.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 12:51 AM

Member of their Airborne Special Services.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 12:55 AM

The same six Legionnaires preparing to invade the Northwest Territories.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 01:23 PM

*G* Guest...

L.H. the Humber River was fordable in Roman times, though that fact would likely surprise anyone looking at it now.

Having said that, both the Thames at London, & the Seine at Paris, & lots of other major cities I would guess also were, at some point in their history, as its often the case that large settlements spring up at the lowest fordable point of a waterway.

(while 'Ull is still considered something of a major city in U.K. - at least to those that know of it - its somewhat downriver of what was ever any fordable point).

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 02:14 PM

I drove into Hull yesterday. It must be one of the most beautiful approaches to any city - that road with wide estuary to your right, and the bridge over in the distance.

I had pasta and curizzo sausage at a restaurant in town - I wish you guys wouldn't put slugs into everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 02:38 PM

That bloody bridge makes for a VERY expensive backdrop though, wld!

I grant you though, yes, it can look pretty good.......for a working river, th'Umber can look very serene & 'unspoiled'.

...but don't blame me about the slugs!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 02:58 PM

Gourmet food. Slugs covered in chocolate are going for big bucks on the internet. Business opportunity here for the willing.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 03:01 PM

I can believe it of THEM..... silly b*st*rds....

*G*

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Sep 06 - 03:58 PM

Slugs make a lovely smoothie!
G

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 04:14 AM

My condolences to his family. They are suffering, and Cunningly's death leaves a trail of sadness. I'm not all that surprised, though, as he has risked his life many times over with his close encounters with inanimate, or barely animate objects and creatures. His close call stepping through a swarm of cigarette butts and peanut shells at the Tonsil and Shamrock Pub was a real nail biter. I can't, though, dismiss him feeding his house cat while holding his 42 year old son. The poor cat was frightened out of its wits.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:17 AM

♫♪Slimy to the Moon ♪♫

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: frogprince
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 04:57 PM

WHO WOULD WANT T0 WRESTLE ANYTHING WITH CULINARY HABITS LIKE THIS?

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 05:26 PM

They are hemaphrodites, so it is quite in order to tell them to "Go fuck yourself" of course ☺
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:19 PM

...and so they will

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:22 PM

And they share! (scroll down)

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:23 PM

"WHO WOULD WANT T0 WRESTLE ANYTHING WITH CULINARY HABITS LIKE THIS?"

I looked at the pic, frogprince. Hey man, that's good shit . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:29 PM

Nah, he/she wasn't actually eating that stuff, it was just going through the motions.
G

I'll get me kilt!

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 06:32 PM

Eckholt! Eckholt!
Its not your fault
You were sent to meet God
By a gasteropod
You fought quite quite stunningly
Oh Brave Eckholt Cunningly!
How it raises my hackles
To think it bit off your tackle
That's not in the rules, of man/slug duels
So please think upon it
If you see a slug, stick one on it
And think of Poor Eckholt
Whose only fault
was to fight a big slug one time
who's sporting ethics were slime
Mind you - he must have been crackers
To let a slug near his knackers.

Subject: RE: BS: Famous Slug-Wrestler found dead
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Sep 06 - 07:08 PM

LOL!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! Wonderful stuff! Denizens of Hull, you are outdoing yourselves and simultaneously creating a soul-stirring and tremendously moving memorial to the fallen hero of Swinefleet. Well done, chaps, well done!