John Maddox Roberts

Sjoroveren (sorry, no umlauts) Don't worry about the cat. If the cops hassle you, just tell them you're into BDSM. That makes it a "lifestyle" thing, and it's protected. They know they're in for massive lawsuits if they bust you for a lifestyle choice.

If you'll name one for me, I'll put you in the pirate novel I'm working on.

When taking the Panama Canal, some time was spent in an inland lake (I've forgotten the name and am too lazy to look it up). It was (and I suppose still is) a frequent practice to spend a few extra days there "taking the freshwater cure" to let the water kill the attached marine life and let it fall off. Of course, it was more complicated in the days of wooden ships.

Patrick has posited the "Peggy Sue Got Married" scenario - one I have pondered many times myself. Suppose I woke up one morning and it's November 1963 and I'm back in my home in Richardson, Texas, where I'm a 16-year-old high school junior. It's a few days before the Kennedy assassination and I'm less than 10 miles from Dealey Plaza. What would I do? Supposing I can get anyone in authority to listen to me (unlikely) maybe Kennedy cancels the trip to Dallas. But would that accomplish anything? If it was a big conspiracy as many think, then the conspirators would have gotten him a few days later in another town. But the bigger question is: Would you do it at all? We know that bad things happened after the JFK assassination. But we also know that the worst thing didn't happen: there was no nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR. The Cold War ended without WW III. Would you want to risk changing that outcome? It's fun to ponder.

Where did yer Ma and me go wrong, laddie?

From what I've read, red-hot shot were never fired from ships, only from shore batteries firing on ships. You needed a furnace and it had to get really hot to heat a 4- to 32- pound iron shot glowing red. Keeping a ship from catching fire was hard enough without having a furnace like that aboard. I suppose the smith would have a forge, but it probably wasn't big enough to head heavy shot. There's a great description of a shore fort cooking up hot shot in one of the Hornblower novels, I forget which.

Morgan's force may have had Indian allies or auxiliaries as well, and they certainly would have been armed with bows.

quote: "...what was left over, something like fried pork skins..." Whale cracklins, mmmmmm! Bet they'd go good with beer.

Whaling ships must've been nerve-wracking places to work. They had big stoves on deck to heat the try-pots for rendering oil from whale blubber. So you're on a wooden ship with big fires burning, a cargo consisting entirely of lamp-oil and loads of firewood in the hold.

Because of the movies most people have the impression that all cutlasses must have curved blades, but many authentic specimens have straight blades, though almost always single-edged. some were cut down from longer horsemen's swords. Look around under "hunting swords." These were hangars usually with straight blades and often elegantly hilted. Handedness only becomes a question when half-baskets or sometimes side-rings are involved. A plain hilt with a knucklebow works fine in either hand. So does one with a full basket. And don't, ever, stick a bare blade through your belt and walk around with it, even if it isn't sharpened. Get a sheath. Somebody will sure as hell walk into it and you'll have a lawsuit on your hands.

It's not unthinkable. In the National Gallery in London many years ago I saw a 17th century Dutch still life; flowers in a vase on a table with a musical instrument or two and -- a Japanese wakizashi (short sword). Of course the Dutch were trading in japan and a wak would be easy enough to obtain, they weren't regarded with the respect accorded a katana. Even a lower-class person could own one so they could easily be sold to a foreigner. There were times when Japanese blades were sold in China and elsewhere in Asia, usually not of the high quality of samurai blades but perfectly fine fighting weapons. They were usually sold unmounted and furnished to local taste where they were purchased. During the reign of the dictator Hideyoshi the Christians were expelled from Japan, and many ended their days in the Philippines. The samurai among them often worked as mercenaries for the Spanish so katanas just might have gone to sea by that route. But if a pirate got hold of such a sword and liked it, the first thing he would have dome would have been to have it rehilted in European style, just as European blades were rehilted in Asia and Africa. He'd have wanted to use it like a cutlass. The idea of learning a completely different style of swordsmanship would have had no appeal to him.

Ship's biscuit used by the navy or bought for merchant vessels often sat in storage for months or even years before being placed aboard ship, plenty of time for lots of nasty things to get into them. I'd think a pirate ship would have a better chance of shipping fresh-baked biscuit and probably suffered less from the problem. Not that it was much of a health hazard, considering how lethal things like meat could be. Bugs are distasteful but as anyone who's ever taken a military survival course knows, they're a good source of protein and fat. But as said above, best eaten in the dark.

Chickens aboard ship go back as far as Roman times, when they were kept on naval ships for purposes of divination. During the Punic Wars an admiral named Claudius wanted to give battle but the priests said that the sacred chickens wouldn't eat. He said "Then let them drink!" and threw the coops overboard. He won the battle but his fleet was destroyed by a storm soon after. Even an atheist shouldn't insult the sea gods, at least not until he's safely back on shore.

Some canny sailorin' there, if it be a true tale.

This is spun off from a thread at swordforum. In James Clavell's book "Tai Pan" he describes a weapon called a "fighting iron" used in shipboard combat. It is described as having a short wooden haft thonged to the wrist and four or five linked iron bars terminating in a small ball, sometimes spiked. Since the novel takes place in Chinese waters in the early 19th century, he may have had the Chinese Kau Sin Ke (steel whip) in mind. A form of it is still a martial arts weapon. But I've seen an illustration in a French 18th century fencing manual that illustrated a man with a sword fighting another armed with a "fleaux brisee," ("jointed flail"), which looks identical to the fighting iron described by Clavell, minus the spikes. And the manual doesn't say whether the flail is wooden or metal. Does anyone know if this weapon has any historical veracity? It's always seemed to me to be a fearsome weapon and I've often thought of making one for myself, If I only knew anything about metalworking. Any opinions?

I'm always amazed at these finds of discarded armor and such. Every scrap of metal had to be shipped over from Europe. You'd think that the stuff would be recycled by smiths and tinkers for making hinges, straps and so forth. You could get several good knives from a sword blade. Yet they just threw them away. No competent craftsmen present? Or did they think the metal coming from overseas was sufficient? Of course, I'm grateful that they did it.

Some years ago in a magazine article I saw some pictures of the skull of Charles XII of Sweden, who was shot in the head in the early 18th century. The circumstances are not clear, but apparently the shot came from a musket on the Norweigian side, though there is speculation that he was shot at close range by a Swede in an assassination. whatever, the skull displays a large but neat hole on one side, and a huge, gaping hole on the other. The pics are probably available online somewhere. One thing is sure: Charles never knew what hit him.

Just speculating, but men like Bonnet usually spent months if not years in prison before hanging, and from the 18th to 20th centuries it was customary to shave convicts' heads to control lice. It also made them easier to spot if they escaped.

From the classic western "3:10 to Yuma," based on a story by elmore Leonard: "My grandma was scalped by Comanches and lived to tell about it. She choked to death eatin' lemon pie."

In the early days of Disneyland there was a 20,000 leagues exhibit in Tomorrowland. Basically, you walked through the sets used for the film. It had the organ room, the fabulous-looking (and usable) diving suits and the big round window, outside which was the giant squid, which was built lifesize and really looked alive, with tentacles writhing and beak coming out and snapping. There was also one of the models of the Nautilus, which was one of the greatest pieces of design in the history of Hollywood. It was only there for a few years. I sometimes wonder where all that stuff is now. Probably in a warehouse someplace. They never throw anything away. Back in the days before computer-generated effects they performed wonders.

Another whip, much used on galleys in the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay was what the French called the "nerf de boeuf" and the English, more crudely, the "bull's pizzle." Yes, that's right, it was the dried penis of a bull. The movies show rowing masters flogging rowers with a bullwhip, but the bull's pizzle was the favored instrument, because unlike a bullwhip it didn't cut the rower's back, thus reducing your galley's propulsive force. But it delivered maximum pain. In some places, it was used as a policeman's truncheon. Heavy and slightly flexible, a skilled man could easily knock someone unconscious with one. Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" has extended sequences set on Mediterranean pirate galleys in which use of the bull's pizzle is described in detail.

Generally, Europeans were slow to adopt the "hot" spices such as the capsicum (chile) pepper. Many of them still do not include them in their national cuisines. The British developed a taste for curries due to their prolonged tenure in India, but otherwise their native cuisine remained bland. Even in the States, only the Southwest used chile to any extent. I doubt pirates would have cared much for it, and at sea where drinking water was scarce, it might have been inadvisable anyway. By the way, I am from New Mexico, where it's spelled "chile." Heathens from outlandish places like Texas spell it "chili."

A bit of American rum trivia: Rum wasn't especially popular in America during the 20th century until WWII. Reason? With the war imported liquor became scarce. People just had to do without Scotch, Irish whiskey, French wines and brandy and so forth. Even domestic liquor was hard to get because of sugar rationing. But there was always plenty of cheap rum from Cuba and Jamaica. This was when rum and Coke became an American favorite and bartenders began to specialize in exotic rum drinks like the Zombie (shudder).

That confirms my thoughts on the matter.

Reenactors and pirate enthusiasts in general love to slather the skull and bones all over everything they own; hats, boots, sword handles, mugs and so forth. Is there any evidence that the jolly roger was ever used as anything but a pirate ship's battle flag? From period accounts it seems that the black flag was hoisted only when the ship was in pursuit of prey since you wanted to get as close as possible before the victim realized that you were a pirate. Pirates are known, when capture was imminent, to throw the jolly roger overboard with a weight tied to it so it couldn't be used as evidence in a trial. It seems to me that wearing the skull and bones about your person was just advertising that you were a pirate, an unwise thing in most jurisdictions. It was a way of saying, "Hi! I'm a pirate! You got a judge and a rope?" Does anyone know of the skull and bones being used on anything except tombstones from the GaoP?