December 2nd, 2009
“Arrr!”
Oe, who im this? Here comes a grizzledy old sailor! Him beard is rough and burly. He’s clutching a bottle of grog, like in that poem that goe “15 men on a dead man’s chest, mohh omlo and a bottle of rum”. he is obviously a pirate! Mr O’Brien goe “I’ll deal with this, darling, I know all about Ocean.” Good idea!
“Hellooo! Mr O’Brien here, your elegant escort in this festive fortress we call Elf School. Welcome to the lobby – do you have your travelling bags or will it be a far briefer stay? Time, and the perplexing puzzles of the Pole, will tell! Oh, excuse me – yes… yes mumsy I… yes, I have! I have got clean underwear on yes… all right… yes…” He im talking on a phone but I don’t really noe if there’s anyone there, it didn’t ring! He’s back to talking to the sailor now. “She worries! Now! You are…?”
“Salteye!” the grizzledy man growl. “Salteye the Pirate!”
“And your age?”
“A matter of private record,” he snarl.
“Salteye, middle-aged, from the Sea, and he’s a Pirate. And, he’s a team captain!”
“That’s right, Captain of the Gloomy Gulch, Oi am. But we say crew, not team. Oi’ve been sailin’ the seas these past decades…”
“The seven seas?” say Mr O’Brien, with his Ocean knowledge
“Well you’ve got yer basic seven seas, then there’s the Sea of Troubles, that’s a particularly tricky one ter sail through, there’s the Sea of Holes, that’s an interesting one, and we’re all glad they’ve abandoned that remake they were thinking of doing. So there be a few but yeah! The seven seas mainly. And Oi’ve been a-sailin’ ’em a-lookin’ fer me son, see! Arrr.”
“Your son?”
“Arrr. Oi left a baby behind, still fermentin’ in its muther.”
“Left?”
“Er, took off, you moight say. But quickly Oi decoided Oi were wrong ter go, but when Oi went back, Oi couldn’t foind the tyke! Local tongues had it, a typhoon came along and took him and his muther away – did for her, but some say the baby survoived! Only he was blown away to lands afarrrr. So that’s me mission, arrr. Arrr you familiar with the sea shanty?”
“As a genre? Yes,” say Mr O’Brien.
Salteye look at him puzzledly.
“Oi said are you familiar with the sea shanty?”
“And I said yes!”
Puzzled again.
“Oh – arrr.”
“Roight, good, well that’s what we used to do to pass the time while we went over the various seas, see. Here have a listen, Oi’ve got a recarrrrding of me and me crew singing a swarthy shanty, arrr.”
Arrr! Here is his swarthy shanty m80s, arr: