**Intermission**

Detained in brig. Release date scheduled for mid-July. See you land-lubbers soon...

Lawrence of Melancholia

Matters sartorial now shipshape we proceeded to the business of buccanerial discord. As part of a results-driven hardball programme to get our ducks in a row, the crew was broken into numerous focus groups. Over a moveable feast of low-hanging fruit we then netted out our goalposts while the Admiral kept his balls in the air. Finally, having strategically fit our ticks in the blue-sky boxes, we were ready to put our game plan to bed and concentrate on actioning our no-brainers and fast-tracking our big-ticket items.

Naturally, before we could discuss the lessons learned, we needed someone to benchmark our metrics. Key to this process was Mr Sad, a fellow of infinite gloom whose dejected aura caused the ambience such injury as to make an undertakers’ convention a more likely source of merriment.

With our notes and a heavy sigh, he retired to his murky corner, the sole ornament of which was a faded print of notable storms. Like broken convicts en route to the Gulag we attended our fate in mute anticipation.

Only when our hearts were fit to explode did he finally decide our fate and, in his hushed tones, solemnly deliver his decision: “Your team dynamic, sir, is OK”.

Grand Inquisitor
Larry Sad
Likes: nothing
Dislikes: everything

Where’s Wally?

Keen to reassure my good fellows that everything was proceeding *exactly* according to plan, I bade him desist with his tomfoolery, and shifted his patch so it no longer obscured his good eye.

“What miracle is this?!” he begged. “For five years have I seen naught, but now thou hast my sight restored!” He embraced me like a long-lost son, and told of how he had awoken one morning, blind as the proverbial. Ever the sage, he had attributed this novel handicap to the questionable moonshine he’d knocked back after a particularly hard night of dice and wenching.

With the benefit of hindsight, he now realised that said impediment was more likely due to his wayward valet, who on finding the opportunity for mischief had evidently seized it with both hands before scarpering toot-suite to the ale house.

With great fury and oaths he strode to the door and bellowed for his manservant. The rascal appeared directly and, without missing a beat, asked whether the admiral should care to have his breeches fetched before or after the imminent disciplinary hearing.

And so, gaze averted, we waited for the gentleman’s gentleman to confine the admiral’s gentleman to quarters more befitting the occasion.


Gentleman’s gentleman
Wally Wallace, The Plunderer of Penzance
Likes: electricity
Dislikes: icebergs