Captain's Log

Here fer yer inflammation be a brief account of the latest voyage of Pirates Against Pollution.

Although June, which should be a fair month, it was blowing a hooley as we neared the salted herring grounds in the South West Approaches. Well the Education Officer had just sighted a school of kippers and the cooks were minded to run out the argha for breakfast when an eerie sound assailed our ears. 'Twas no less than the singing of the fabled Bearded Blue Mermaids of the Silly Isles !

I gave the order "plug your eyes and peel your ears !" and after the initial confusion had sorted itself out, all hands stumbled to the rum locker in search of corkage to plug their ears, so we could safely approach these trixy creatures.

Well as ye will imagine, this took a time on account of the necessary emptyin of rum bottles and the whole ship was listin hard to port by the time we were ready to venture closer.

I don't mind tellin ye, our eyes were met by a strange and pitiful sight. Two mermaids ~ blue as bunions and comely as walruses ~ were settled on a small rock, utterly surrounded by a sea of rubbish.

'Twas a prospect as would make any self respecting member of our brotherhood as angry as a sea owl snared in a limerick. All manner of unnatural detritus, plastic pieces, let-go balloons, divers insanitary appliances, bevvies of empty drinking vessels, rafts of fag butts and more flavours of inconsiderately dropped crisp packets than you'd find after a Barry Manilow benefit: it all washed around the tiny ledge where these rare beauties lay despoiled in misery. Worse of all was the styrofoamin waves.

Well to cut a long story short, it seemed an affront to marine life to leave em like that so we opened a parlay with em and agreed to tidy up and give em a safe passage out to cleaner waters in return for certain mermaidly services. They was so grateful they promised to throw in a few rock songs as well.

So right away we tied Cabin Boy Coz to the drogue behind the whaler and dragged her up and down while she picked the sea clean with an old pair of crab nippers she carries for such occasions.

Well by the time we had finished, a storm was brewing, so we weighed the anchor and it come in around eleven hundredweight, as usual. Then we made for Anyport, as you would.

Now before long the waves grew higher, the wind grew windier and we fair sped along under darkening skies, all the time with the mermaids wedged in the forrard rigging, trimming their beards, practising their scales and comparing tattoos with the Bosun, Careless 'Four-hooks' Smith. Their names we learned, were Persile and Dazz, and right friendly they were, so long as you didn't mention their younger sister Aerial, or the black-fish of the family, Tess Cononbio.

I don't know if it was their wailing what did it but around sunset the storm grew angrier still until whole sea was a sheet of white foam, and eventually darkness fell upon us as completely as whale poo smothering a limpet. All ye could see was the faint glow of phosphorescence as the mermaids washed their hair on the poop deck and the worried face of the ship's crew lit up by the odd flash o' lightnin, and all ye could hear was the howlin of the wind and the creaking of the mast after the ships beaver escaped from his hutch.

Then about dawn I was down below re-stowing the scurvy rodent when I was a-summoned on deck by a great slappin of tails from the mermaids. These fine ladies told me they could hear a distant murmuration that they took to be singing, and ghostly forms of music. Though it was still as dark as pitch, we changed course and made for the sound. Bit by bit the sound grew louder and changed from quite ghostly to right ghastly. The air too grew cacophonous with unusual scents and putrid odours, smellin all in all, like we was sailing into the midden of old Mother Carey herself.

Quite shortly, by way of shortening the story by quite a bit more, we ran aground. As the rain turned from solid sheets to intermittent torrents, we suddenly found ourselves on an uncharted mudbank in the Middle of Somerset. "By the Gods and King Neptune's Codpiece says I, "that's a stroke of luck boys - we'd never have all got tickets for the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Arts otherwise, for it is a gathering place knowne as well nigh unaffordable, which cannot be entered without tickets which cannot be obtained except by those who already have them. At any event we're here now".

So it was shipmates, that we spent a constructive weekend carousing around the encampment from where I writes these lines, educatin passin natives about ecologically-friendly cleaning practices, recruitin new crew, sampling the culture and takin the opportunity to replenish our stores by relievin distracted revellers of surplus plunder, un-needed camping equipment and acquiring a general sufficiency of dry pasta and damp loo roll.

The crew set to and organised traditional pirate games for the locals, such as bin the cotton buds, fish out the crisp packets and keel hauling of polluters. Every time the pollutin was terminated the Mermaids were so pleased they burst into song, rewarding our ears with such as the theme tune from MASH, Bohemian Rhapsodie, the Wombles and other old shanties. Our eyes too were further rewarded as these splendid creatures produced delicate hair tresses and Hawaiian glasses from little places concealed about their person.

So here ye see before ye pictures of our own humble abode these past days, and some of the public outreach activities we engaged in.

May your voyages be plunderous and The Fish Be With You.