So ...

Der Spiegel writes about why I shouldn't have fallen in love with raw herring and anchovies and rollmops up here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Some 3,500 barrels of mercury have been found in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden. There may be thousands more to be discovered. Experts say the sea is full of industrial waste -- but nobody knows how much.

And just in case I didn't think that was bad enough ... 'And it's not just industrial waste. Following World War II, virtually the entire chemical arsenal of Nazi Germany was dumped, with much of it -- at least 35,000 tons -- ending up on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical weapons from the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States were also chucked overboard in the northern Atlantic, North Sea, and elsewhere, including the Baltic. The poisonous weapons -- including mustard gas, phosphorus, nerve gas, and other highly toxic chemicals -- were joined by hundreds of thousands of unused bombs, mines and grenades.