Avast ye scallywags, today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here be all ya need for celebratin’ in truly piratical fashion!

Firstly, I’ll refer ya to the official ITLAPD website to find your local ITLAPD event – celebrate this glorious day by drinking a pint o’ grog with your fellow crewmates!

Speaking of grog, cast an eye upon this piratical ITLAPD punch from A Fine Kettle of Ish.

Those cherries, they be as black as me ol’ mum’s heart. And a twist o’ the ol’ sour fruit does tend to keep the scurvy at bay. Now, if ye be drinkin’, ye best be singing. A sea shanty, that is. Sure, a right sprightly tune keeps the sails full and the monsters at bay.

And although ’tis true, this be Talk Like a Pirate Day and not Dress Like a Pirate Day, with Halloween a mere two score days hence, surely you’ll want to give some thought to the most effective pirate garb to go plunderin’ a ship’s hold’s worth of candy?

Lastly me mateys, I leave you with these words, a sea chant to say with your fellows when deep in yer cups or putting yer bravest face forward against the terrors of the heaving sea, when yer heart truly knows that the only grave awaitin’ ye is naught more than blood and salt water, a dark eternity held fast by Davy Jones’ long embrace.

Fifteen men on a dead man's chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike
The bosun brained with a marlinspike
And cookey's throat was marked belike
It had been gripped by fingers ten;
And there they lay, all good dead men
Like break o'day in a boozing ken.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of the whole ship's list
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

The skipper lay with his nob in gore
Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore
And the scullion he was stabbed times four
And there they lay, and the soggy skies
Dripped down in up-staring eyes
In murk sunset and foul sunrise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of 'em stiff and stark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ten of the crew had the murder mark!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers' glut with a rotting red
And there they lay, aye, damn my eyes
Looking up at paradise
All souls bound just contrariwise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Fifteen men of 'em good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
Ev'ry man jack could ha' sailed with Old Pew,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

There was chest on chest of Spanish gold
With a ton of plate in the middle hold
And the cabins riot of stuff untold,
And they lay there that took the plum
With sightless glare and their lips struck dumb
While we shared all by the rule of thumb,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

More was seen through a sternlight screen...
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Chartings undoubt where a woman had been
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
'Twas a flimsy shift on a bunker cot
With a dirk slit sheer through the bosom spot
And the lace stiff dry in a purplish blot
Oh was she wench or some shudderin' maid
That dared the knife and took the blade
By God! she had stuff for a plucky jade
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight
And we heaved 'em over and out of sight,
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

- Young Ewing Allison, "Derelict"

Categories: Projects

Tags: costume, fancy dress, halloween, Halloween recipes, ITLAPD, pirate, pirate song, punch, pyrate, recipe, sea chanty, Talk Like a Pirate Day, TLAPD