The adventures of Captain Hairy Bumchin

(A story for my friend Rebecca.)

“YAAARRGH!” shouted Captain Hairy Bumchin, wobbling precariously on the rolling deck of his ship. “SHIVER ME TIMBERS, YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!” He added.

For good measure he then bellowed “HORNSWAGGLERS!” before tripping over a coiled piece of rope and landing, face first, at the feet of a determined looking young Pirate.

Red Becca eyed him warily, before fixing him with her best steely gaze. “I don’t speak Pirate fluently yet.” she said. “But I think you’re saying that there’s a hole in the side of the boat.”

“ARRRRRR!!” roared Bumchin, approvingly. “That there be, young fella me lad!”

“Girl.” Said Red Becca, wrinkling her nose slightly in annoyance. “I’m a girl, not a boy. And that was very poor use of the English language, by the way.” Bumchin looked slightly uncomfortable.

After sailing the seas for many years, being a salty old sea-dog and generally making a nuisance of himself in pursuit of some shiny treasure, he wasn’t used to being spoken to like that by a nine year old landlubber. “You bilge sucking lassie!” he growled “I’ll cleave you to the...”

He didn’t get to finish his carefully crafted insult, as Red Becca interrupted him by pointing at a missing plank, raising one eyebrow and saying, curtly: “Be quiet! If we don’t get this hole fixed, we’ll sink, and then you won’t be so Jolly, Roger!”

“How did thee know my real name be Roger?” asked Bumchin.

Red Becca smiled slowly, whilst adjusting her eye patch. “Never mind. I’m really spectacularly clever like that. I once made a pizza with chocolate on, you know. Now, pass me that plank quickly, or we’ll be feeding the fishes. With ourselves.”

As Bumchin swung the plank round, he nearly clonked Red Becca with the other end. “Avast behind!” shrieked Red Becca, jumping out of the way.

“Arrr.” Said Bumchin, sadly. “Tis not my fault my behind be vast. Tis all the Captain’s Biscuits I’ve scoffed.”

Red Becca tried to push the plank into the hole. It almost fitted, but the rough edges just stopped it from sliding into place. She thought about it carefully for a moment or two, and looked at the Parrot on her shoulder, who just shrugged unhelpfully, before muttering “Pieces of Seven!” and falling asleep. “

Stupid bird.” Said Red Becca, shaking her head. She looked at Bumchin whilst thinking furiously. And then she spied the rough, prickly, stubbly chin, lurking at bottom of his face (as they often do), like a slightly disappointing hedgehog. An idea burst into her head. “Lean forward, Bumchin!” She instructed, lifting the plank up to his face. “I just need to sand a bit off the edge of this, using your sandpapery chin...”

Five minutes later, and the plank was in place. The ship was saved! Bumchin gingerly pulled a splinter out of his chin, before surveying the repaired ship. “Arrrr, lassie! Blow me down! We’ll nary be visiting Davy Jones locker today! A grand job thee have done, young Buccaneer. How can I reward thee?”

“Well....” said Red. “I reckon we should hoist the Mizzen, splice the mainbrace, and heave-ho on the poop deck”.

Bumchin roared with laughter, until tears ran down his wooden leg. “You said poop!” he managed to get out, before collapsing again with the giggles. Red Becca glared at the guffawing Captain, wondering if a cat o’nine tails would sort him out. Possibly ten, or even eleven, would be better.

At that very moment, a hoard of rather posh looking pirates boarded the ship, waving their cutlasses whilst trying not to get dirt on their tunics. The leader of the very neat band of pirates marched up to Bumchin, and announced (in a fairly posh voice): “Captain Bumchin! I and my crew are all called William, and we have come to claim back the Dubloons you stole from us, when we were attending the ‘Jolly Nice Chaps Called William’ convention. What do you have to say for yourself, you rogue?!”

Red Becca smiled, before looking at Bumchin, who was cowering behind a barrel, and said: “See? That’s what happens if you don’t pay your Bills...”

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

grumpyf1

Search This Blog