Perhaps tonight, Josephine

Slumping further into her chair, our host regressed into incoherent muttering, followed by incoherent dribbling, and eventually rather lucid snoring. Feeling short-changed by events, certain foolhardy swabs attempted to rouse her, prodding her in an increasingly firm manner, with increasingly sharp implements. If one were to assess the upshot of this tactic by the extent to which the slumbering Scot was stirred to action, then the stratagem certainly passed muster. For indeed, when she awoke to find a cutlass hanging out of her bicep, she leapt to her feet and let rip with such a flurry of steel that the aforementioned malefactors were in no time negotiating call-out charges with the local hook-and-peg prosthesis vendor.

Subsequently, with all pertinent extremities suitably hacked, she tossed back her locks, smiled for her audience, and slipped back unconscious with peerless elegance. The extinguished lights of our exalted host signalled an apposite end to the evening, and we bid adieu to avoid being co-opted into the dish-washing detail.

Before hauling anchor, however, it became clear that some of the greenhorns were still having problems rolling their ‘arrghs’. To address this development need, we made a quick diversion to Madame Jo-Jo’s College of Advanced Nefariation.


Personal Trainer
Madame Jo-Jo
Likes: pie charts
Dislikes: second-class mail

Flower of Scotland

Three desserts and no coffees later, the swabs dived as one for the rum and baccy. Their commander, however, remained aloof, preferring to attend to her postprandial oral hygiene by scraping her tongue free from the film of deep-fried sorbet, a claymore being her instrument of choice. This was, of course, “Sink ‘em all” Sinclair, a whimsically ruthless heathen from the darkest, most northern Highlands, where your average wee bairn is not allowed solid food until it can pluck out a man’s eye.

An unusually refined brigand (she liked *both* types of wine), she was also one of her country’s healthiest criminals, devoutly consuming five vegetable portions each day through a balanced diet of crisps and fermented grape juice.

Given her seniority and notoriety, we were surely in for a classic night of after-dinner speaking. A minute or two of her hawking and hem-hemming built up an air of anticipation so tense you could have cut it with an oar. With both tongue and throat cleared, she took a long tug on the bottle marked “RED”, wiped her chin on her sleeve and giggled coquettishly before collapsing back in her chair, whistling the dance of the sugar plum fairy.



Cheerleader
“Sink ‘em all” Sinclair
Likes: Bohemian rhapsody
Dislikes: the rhumba

Rich pickings

Now, I enjoy slaughter and pillaging as much as the next pirate, but I would still argue that one can have too much of a good thing. Of course, not everyone would agree. For example, Miss Ivy’s idea of respite was to charter a slow boat from China and idle away the months conducting wanton villainy with rancour aforethought. Bereft of compass – magnetic or moral – she wreaked havoc with such gay abandon that the respective brethren of the coast could suffer her mischief no longer and banned her from six of the seven seas.

Nonetheless, her life aquatic was presently academic: there was but one exit from the room, and it was presently occupied by Commodore Filthy, a silvery old tar with more chatter than a parrot’s union rep.

The other hearties were playing a waiting game, for as sure as night follows day, the first to pass within two yards of the old boy would be sucked into the vortex of his relentless monologue. Once hooked, resistance was futile, for this ancient mariner was supernaturally compelled to share his epic story, albeit juiced up with the odd giant squid, a well-oiled Amazon or two and an exceptionally large number of nymphs.

Voice of Reason

“Filthy” Rich Argenti
Likes: megamixes
Dislikes: radio edits