Talk like a Pirate Day

"ARRRRRR SHIVER ME TIMBERS, PIECES OF EIGHT, YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM"

"You wouldn't expect somebody with shark fishing in the title of their blog to let 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' pass un-commented upon would ye? Arrrrrr" There is something rather wonderful about the West Country Burr and by the West Country I mean Bristol and Portishead and not Cardigan and Llangrannog. With apologies to the Rhyl Popular Front for that one. 
I have just finished reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson so I am Long John Silver's age reading it rather than Jim Hawkins's age when I assume most people do read it and I wouldn't have read it had I not come across a copy in the attic of my recently deceased Aunty. Finding it was like finding Treasure as it is a 1949 Puffin paperback copy first published by them in 1946. The book itself first saw the light of day in 1883. Her house not dissimilar to the Admiral Benbow Inn and a house that she had lived in since this copies publication.  
I wont attempt a book review but will offer you some observations on the tale and perhaps bring it up to date a bit.

If Treasure Island was written today the Hispaniola would have to be called 'The Gammon' cos we can't have none of them thar foreign sounding names as one of our fleet. Nigel Farage would be the buffoon Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollett would be Jeremy Hunt who is to see his plans confounded by Long John Johnson who is attempting despite the best attempts of Labour Activists in East End Hospitals to turn Great Britain into Treasure Island. He is doomed to failure but like Silver in the original book he limps on to fight another day. Jim Hawkins is all of us or rather the 48% in the Apple Barrel, the 52% up on deck are the Leavers destined to scuttle the 'Gammon' by fair means or fowl.
Every time they come below deck for another apple, the hole in the side gets bigger and bigger.
I personally identify as Ben Gunn below, the constantly startled and amazed castaway who realizes that he has been sharing the same island with the wrong people all along. When this lot arrive on 'Not Treasure Island' he'll want to 'remain' rather than be saved and taken back to Blighty. We cannot set sail without mentioning the hero of the tale Dr Livesey aka Jeremy Corbyn. He will look after all the Jim Hawkins's of this land whether we find the Treasure or not.  

I could wax lyrical but I wont because I will bore myself and that is what a writer must never do. What I particularly like about Treasure Island is that death is all encompassing, is all around. Three deaths in the opening five chapters. Death was expected and death was even welcomed in such a tough and austere age. The Old Sea Dog Captain Bill, Jim Hawkins' Father and the Visually impaired Captain Flint run over by the Horses of the Department of Work and Pensions. We live in an age that fears death, that sanitizes death and even offers Pre Plan Funeral Arrangements so that you don't have to think about it when it happens.

The writer himself, Robert Louis Stevenson, died at the age of 44 on his own Treasure Island of Vailima, Samoa. His occupation had been novelist, poet and travel writer. Now that is a life worth aspiring to.