Captain's Log

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

'Tis a goodly while since I last had the opportunity to inflame yer interest with an extract from the Log, so avast those of ye about yer domestications, screw in your reading eyes, and take a close note of what herefollows in this latest account of our voyages.

The more prescient of ye will recall from our last little exchange that we spent many an educational hour hauled out at Glastonbury with Persile and Daz, two enchantin Bearded Blue Mermaids who rewarded our gallant rescuing with all manner of feminine entertainments. On all accounts our stay found that mudbank to be one of the most pleasurable of ports, enjoyed to the full by all hands, exceptin of course Leprosy Jack the Sauce Cook who took an unplanned long drop into a poorly charted midden as capacious, had in not been well-filled by the relief of revellers, as would have accomodated a giant squid nest with room still to heave a catfish. Which goes to show the value of maintaining a close watch if you want to stay out of the proverbial.

Anyway, as ye'll know, all good things come to an end and so with the wind backing due northerly, rum supplies running close exhausted and our plunder severe depleted in exchange for all manner of herbal remedy and exotic aromatherapies, I decided we should lay aground no longer. Accordingly, Bosun Four Hooks Smith took a shore party and rounded up the crew from whichever sweat lodges, saunas, back-stage ligs and comfy billets they had wormed their snaggardly selves into around the encampment, and with a deal of shoving and a haulin from natives press ganged for the purpose, we slid once more into Old Briny and set a course to the west.

'But a mile or two out, with green water breaking on the foredeck and an octopus resting in the riggin it was quick apparent to a trained mariner like myself that she were riding right low in the water forrad, so I ordered a check for leaks and an inventory of the cargo.

It soon transpired that the cause of our lack of trim lay in the uncommonly weighty volume of personal effects which a number of scurvy crew had smuggled aboard and stowed in the f'o'csle. Encouraged with a few lashes of Hoover, the ships cat, the crew soon surrendered their ill-gotten tat onto the deck. A miserable collection of low-grade swag it was too: three hundredweight of supermarket lager, well-nigh a quarter ton of inconvenience foods which looked like they had never seen a field or cow, some four hundred and eighty-five tents in various states of disrepair, two sets of artificial breasts, a lather of mud-soaked matting and a diversity of junk as you might find at a car boot in Milton Keynes, all discarded, or so the crew claimed, by the fleeing natives. Setting aside the breasts which we consigned to the ship's Costume Locker in mind of the upcoming Basket Weaving Festival, and a quantity of red wine that we put by for de-rusting our prosthetics, the rest was clear ripe for goin over the side. Notin' however the toxic potential of the vittals and not wishing to add to the flotsam already cluttering the waters thereabouts, we commandeered a passing gin palace and settin its portly crew adrift on a raft of roll-mats with a crate of Economy Pilsner and a half box of Prawn Pringles, we filled their boat with the unwanted swag and Persile and Daz towed it back to shore.

With the ship now riding high, we set sail a course for the Parrot Islands. Old Leprosy was still singing as ripe as a curryboat's bilge ferret so we sailed with him confined to a skiff towed twenty fathoms astern. Unfortunately we had a following wind so it wasn't for three nights that the smell subsided sufficient for us to haul him back on board and assign 'im a long spell on crows nest lookout until the rain has washed him down.

Well by now those of ye less familiar with consumin the beauty of the written word may be wondering when this account is going to get to The Point. So it was that for purposes of proceeding in that direction we quite soon took a short-cut and navigated our way into the next chapter of this tale.

After bringin Persile and Daz on board by means of some old suction equipment we had acquired from an unattentive dredger we met one dark night outside an on the Manchester Ship Canal, that being another tale concernin Polly Aromatic Hydrocarbon the notorious parrot poisoner, which I shall not detain ye with here, I was soon closeted with the two mermaids and two of my closest advisers in my cabin. The advisers who were less close, listened at the door.

Now entranced as we were to have these fragrant ladies back aboard our vessel, we were right discombobulated by the tidings they brought us. Apparently they had been frolicking a moondark night away at the Squid and Galleon over Crooked Current way, when a leatherback turtle was brought in all but expired due to a long and desperate swim up from the Guanos, or rather where the Guanos ought to be. And here me bretheren crew, suspend yer King Lears upon whichever furniture of disbelief comes rightly to hand because what this sturdy reptile had to say was enough to send a shiver up the instrument of any cartographer.

Well as ye'll know the Guano's be an archipelago of islands who while right malodorous and biogenic 'ave always been as reliable in a geophysical and locational sense, as a marinated haddock. By dead reckoning, sextant or following yer nose ye could always rely, in other words, on them bein where ye left em last - which in most cases was as far downwind and to the rudder as was practicable in the circumstantials. Being formed entire from the excrement of shitehawks and other fowl of the sea the Guanos are one of those wonders of nature best left to coprophiliacs, over-optimistic fertilizer salespersons and reality tv producers.

So 'twas that I was amazed to hear that the Guanos had shifted from their long settled position and were, according to our rubbery informant, drifting hither and thither where wind and current took em, a hazard not just to shipping but to the olfactory powers of unsuspecting seagoers. Naturally on hearing this news my advisers and me good self resolved to investigate this freak of nature, and so hoisting Fumbler the ships dog to the top of the missen mast on the strict understanding that he would not be allowed down until he'd used his estimable sniffing nose to guide us to these sea-going dung-heaps, we began a search of the seas.

An hour or so had passed and I was ensconced in me cabin examining the ships organigram to figure how to demote the cabin boy, when a choking noise from aloft brought confirmation that Fumbler had caught the scent of the Guanos. Examining our canine lodestone with me spyglass I determined he was still breathing, if intermittent like, so we left him there as we set course in the general direction of his coughing.

Quite soon we could all catch the stench and not long after, with vinegar-dressings wrapped across our faces, we came close alongside a drifting poo-berg of Guano measuring some hundred perches in diameter. Boobies, gannets and all shades of seafowl crowded its rills and ledges and we soon ascertained by judicious use of sign language that they believed their nesting grounds to be suffering a case of terra mobilus, or wandering island syndrome.

Well while the symptom was plain enough - these isles were no longer respecting their right station in the navigational firmament - the means of their perambulations remained a mystery. Accordingly we set about a scientific enquiry.

I gave the order for all the most gullible crew to assemble on deck and the First Mate handed each a short straw so they could form up as a shore party. They returned good and smartly, spluttering and yeching with a small sample of the mephitic geology. Lashing together an simple but effective gas chromatograph from old string, bottles, a cats whisker and other utensils that came to hand in the Small Mammals Hold, our analysis revealed that instead of the traditional solid bird droppings, the island was now as much as half plastic by weight. Espying slivers of foam cups, balloon fragments and a melange of polymer debris a-floating in midwater, these ill-informed diving birds had been consuming this human debris in mistake for fish, squid and other wholesome nourishment. Not to put too fine a point on it, this poisonous artificial flotsam had passed through their innards and added itself to the very land on which they made their rude homes. 'Twas only a matter of time before the entire edifice took loose and set adrift. A sore number of young chicks were a starving on their nests due to their parents bringing back plastic instead of fish or having died themselves as their stomachs filled up with such litter.

What, ye may ask, did we make of such an ecological disaster ? If the land itself was now being replaced by the foul litter of industrialism, what were we, mere foot-soldiers in the service of Mother Carey, to do about it ? We fixed on tracking down of the source of the contamination to parlay with whoever was responsible.

But which way, ye may be asking, were we to turn ? Now when it comes to navigational guesswork, some turn to the I Ching for inspiration, others look for a sign in the waves, some buccaneers I've known to consult a set of shrivelled innards, while others play conquers but on the whole, we ask The Lobster. Bein right well stuffed, Blucher, for that's his name which is another story, normally remains tight lipped as a mussel clamped to a sporran, no matter what question you throw at him. If however but if you catch his interest, then in a good light and with a good eye the careful enquirer can detect a trembling of his snapping claw, which we take to be a sign of affirmation. So it was that we slapped Blucher down on the chart table and he right away laid his pincer in an easterly direction. Re-fastening the old crustacean in his undersea diorama I gave orders for a new course, and we set off due east, taking the Isla del Guano in tow.

Right cheesey our voyage was as you can imagine. Seafowl stayed well upwind and even the ships parrot was turning an uncommon shade of green, so pronounced was the whiff of putrid plastic and droppings. For three days we proceeded in an easterly direction, encountering more and more discarded balloons lyin in the sea. Many had strange insignia upon them such as "Joe's Taco Bar", "Barkers The Furniture Store", "McDonalds", "Ford", "Waterstones" and "Happy 60th Birthday". Intriguing though this was, the smell hung bad about us and the crew were revolting. So it was we were mighty relieved when our luck changed and a sign arrived from the skies.

Imagine if ye can, a strangely colourful concatonation of orbs floating in the air, coming bobbing towards us, sometimes dipping almost below the crest of a wave, other times catching a gust and riding higher amongst the wheeling shitehawks. Something alive, what is more, seemed to be wriggling underneath it. All the time it grew larger until with me spyglass I discerned that the thing a wriggling underneath was a fat figure in Norfolk tweeds, suspended by one foot from a collection of balloons and turned a nasty purple colour in the face.

To end up trussed aloft in such a manner was something no self-respecting pirate could bear - for the Norfolk Tweed is, to quote the PAP Code Protocol S4 "What Not To Wear When Pirating" :a man's or woman's tailored casual sports jacket loose belted with a box pleated front, frequently made from tweed, sometimes fine wool for girls and women. Norfolk jacket's were popular for wearing while hunting or fishing, the looseness and pleats providing easy movement of the body. In other words, a right nasty vestment.

Well after a few minutes, he drifted close enough for us to hear his cries. Through his splutters we gleaned that he was Chairman of the Norfolk Countryside Badger Baiting Alliance and had become entangled while overseeing their annual fundraising picnic at Burnham Market Game Fair. A gust of wind had taken him and the helium had kept him aloft, despite his best efforts to kick the balloons away and descend. Well now at least we knew the source of this marine pestilence - the old charity balloon release. Plainly we couldn't leave him there, drifting the airways and only a matter of time before he came down in the briny, a threat to any unsuspecting sealife which chanced upon him and mistook the balloons for an exotic jellyfish. Accordingly I ordered a round of grapeshot and we dropped him into the Isla del Guano, with a plunk like a seacow's prolapse.

Just as we was pondering whether to maroon the swollen turnip as king of shitehawk rookery, fate once again took a hand. We realised that we'd just crossed from international waters into the legislative embrace of the European Union. As a consequence the Isla del Guano had repatriated itself from the High Seas into a jurisdiction where it would - doubtless after some interesting legal arguments - be classed a toxic waste or recyclable plastics. Judiciously waiting for cover of darkness we therefore towed the island and its tweedy captain into a handy channel and let it drift ashore on the flood, confident that the responsible authorities could now cope with its reduction, re-use and recycling as appropriate.

Having beached the mountain of sea-waste we made our ways along the shore in search of a port with friendly village people where we could adopt the guise of weekend sailors. As luck would have it we soon sighted the leading lights of a small harbour, who turned out to be none other than Persile and Daz. What a turn up for the books says I, and not a chapter too soon.

After our long sojourn with nowt but shitehawks and an obese badger baiter for company we were mightily in need of refreshment and shindiggery. We were therefore much pleased that these good ladies invited us to join a gig they had been invited to perform at, a "Fairy Fair" in the grounds of a National Trust Property at Sheringham Park. At first we feared an encounter with more tweedy human vegetables but by and large the audience turned out more friendly and interesting, even if some were unusually well endowed in the pointy ear department, and our leather clad lady hoste bore a striking resemblance to a figure from the more restricted video games.

We set up an old herring net loaned by a local fisherman, to catch stray canonballs and introduced the younger visitors to a game of 'Knock Down The Ecologically Unfriendly Cleaning Products', followed by 'Bin It Don't Flush It' which educates participants about correct disposal of cotton buds (see 'The Code'), which also went down very well, until "Careful" Coz smashed the top of our toilet seat with a mistimed percussion blow during a thrash metal rendition of the theme tune from The Wombles. The Blue Mermaids led the community singing, featuring the old favourites Mash, Bohemian Rhapsody and Yellow Submarine, conducted by Sensible "Three Bottles" Sarah. Grannies and assorted relatives disported themselves in an ensemble of folding furniture, and we got hearty endorsement from The Norfolk Ladies Rum Club and the Matlaske Deaf Dog Society for our contrapunctal version of The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba (crisp packets).

The weather smiled upon us and all too soon a fair wind signalled it was time for all hands to the stomach pumps, so despite calls from the audience for immediate relief, we retrieved the beaver from the arboretum and struck camp. Ye can see here the photos taken by Clean Nigel to immortalise our visit. Feast yer eyes upon them and brush up on the Code for the next instalment for we are called by the sea, to the Annual General Meetinge. More, as they say en France, onion.

May the fish be with you