ANYONE FOR PIRATE SCHOOL?

I wonder how long it will be before a bored careers officer suggests piracy as an option. Well, it appears to be lucrative, and it seems anyone with a fast boat and a few rockets can have a go.

Of course, things being what they are in 2008, the government would have to launch a Pirate School, hopefully as a Private Finance Initiative, and all those with an affinity for piracy could chip in: the banks, of course, the oil and other energy companies, the Inland Revenue, just for starters.

Students could begin on our major rivers by learning how to ease pleasure cruisers laden with expensive booze and women to secluded moorings, only to be released on payment of a hefty ransom.

Their first SATS would be conducted on the Norfolk Broads and the Lakes. Successful students would graduate to the Channel and lure ferries to the Isle of Wight, with the threat of stranding everybody there, in 1956, until a bounty is paid.

Piracy in 2008! What is all this? A concerted international effort off the coast of Somalia, blowing a succession of speedboats and so-called 'mother' ships out of the water, would soon put an end to it. I suggest the UN enlists Johnny Sparrow Depp as operations adviser. Failing that, I’m sure my old friend, Goatee Beard (like Black Beard, only shorter) would help.

I asked him the other day where his buccaneers were at the moment. He replied, ‘Same place as usual – under my buccanhat!’

How we laughed.