Scupper me mainbrace, lads

Woot!  It's Talk Like a Pirate Day today, me hearties. I was a bit late last year, in acknowledging this 'armless adventure. For some reason, wannabe pirates find it very difficult to carry a tune possibly because they have drink taken.  The scurvy crew who started the v'yage are now hoping to monetize the idea by publishing books and selling t-shirts and other booty.  Why just last month I was having a bit of pirate fun with Cap'n Pugwash on The Blob.

Last month I was also down in Cheekpoint rifling through their book-exchange, and came away with Poison Island by "Q" in a 1932 Kings Treasuries of Literature edition.  Set in 1813, it's an adventure with a mappe of a Treasure Island, a blind Peninsula War veteran, a washed-up sea-captain, a boy hero, his forthright nanny who is surely going to marry one of the adults and roll-up-your-sleeves Lady of the Manor who can finance a voyage to the Caribbean. The black-hats all conveniently die and the white hats get all the treasure. All good fun indeed and all the better for not having to pay a red cent for it. You OTOH will have to pay £3.00 (and a sackful of doubloons for p&p) for your own copy. There are ITLAPD events in some quite unlikely places. You can get a free fish-tender (something you eat apparently) if cry 'shiver-me-timbers' at Long John Silver's, or a free donut elsewhere if you saw off a leg and have a parrot about your person.  Or you can listen to Cap'n B-flat murder the Righteous Brothers with You got that pirate feeling: so dreadful it's okay.

More importantly, O'Reilly is halving the price on all their R-language [arrrrr, geddit?] programming books until 21st September. R is real useful for graphing and statistical analysis and real difficult to get your head around, so the books might be a good buy.