Avast Ye Land Lubbers!

I`ve always loved swashbucklers. As a kid I used t' pick up stick an' make like I be sailin' th' high seas, plunderin' me way across th' Spanish Main.

It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and in honour of the scurvy dogs of yore, I’ve decided to explore my obsession. I don’t know where it started really. I do recall having pirates Lego – how odd that a company made kids toys out of murderers and rapists – and I’m pretty sure I saw an Errol Flynn movie with him as a pirate, but I don’t recall which one.

While in Disneyland I went on the pre-Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean ride (and later thought it would make a terrible movie). I saw the Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance during high school. In university I sat in a friend’s dorm room playing Sid Mier’s Pirates for hours when I should have been studying. I went Friggin’ in the Rigging with the Sex Pistols and was Rhymin’ and Stealin’ with the Beastie Boys.

Pirate movies haven’t fared as well. Geena Davis’ Cutthroat Island was one of the biggest movie bombs of all time, reportedly making pack only 10% of the budget at the box office and dragging down a studio as it sunk. The ‘90s also saw Muppet Treasure Island and Hook, none of which added much to the mythology. In fact Cutthroat scared everyone else off until Depp signed on the Captain Sparrow, the worst pirate you’ve ever heard of.

So how about some time-wasting links?

• Learn how to talk like a pirate.

• Get your own pirate name. I’m either the Dread Pirate Bonney, Buckaneer Sylvester or Pirate Walt the Back-Stabber, depending on which generator I used.

• And for a true time-sucker, translate your entire site into pirate lingo.