The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (23 page)

30
If you’re mounting a deer’s head and want to use the natural skull, remove the eyes, flesh and tongue with a knife and the brain with a long spoon. If you have any problems, boil the head until the flesh turns grey and then remove. Be careful not to boil it too long, as the skull will separate into several parts.

31
Vampire squids look like they have teeth on the inside of their tentacles and a black ‘cape’ of webs between them. When threatened, a vampire squid tucks its tentacles under itself to look like a pumpkin. If bitten by a vampire squid, a normal squid does not turn into a vampire squid.

32
Presumably not with ‘preen oil’. Vampires’ anatomy may be a mystery, but they are unlikely to secrete a waxy oil from a nipple-like protuberance near their tail.

33
Byron, when pursued by love-struck Lady Caroline Lamb, described the experience as ‘like being haunted by a skeleton’. Prone to melodrama, she once wrote ‘Remember Me!’ in a book on his desk, which just prompted Byron to write a bitchy poem about her.

34
Certain sorts of people like to tell you that ‘left brain people’ are logical, linear and good at languages while ‘right brain people’ are creative, open-minded and intuitive. The truth is that all brain functions involve both hemispheres of the brain. Anybody who says this kind of thing is probably stupid, trying to sell you something, or both.

35
Ship’s biscuits were not in fact infested with weevils as commonly supposed, but with the bread beetle, which is a relative of woodworm. The large white ‘maggots’ reported in ship’s biscuits were actually the larvae of the cadelle beetle. Some speculate that the latter preyed on the larvae of the former and kept those biscuits free from bread beetle infestation.

36
The Royal Navy stopped using cutlasses for boarding actions in 1936. The US Navy used them until 1949, the year the Soviets exploded their first atomic device.

37
Spiders’ webs are rich in vitamin K, although you’d have to eat loads to get your recommended adult daily intake of 120 micrograms a day.

38
Don’t be afraid to ask your friends and family for constructive criticism of your finished taxidermy. You can only improve by listening to honest opinion.

39
Shelley’s body washed up in Italy in 1822, possibly murdered by pirates.

First published in Great Britain 2012

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © Gideon Defoe and Richard Murkin 2012

Endpaper illustrations © Dave Senior 2012

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