Kipper me capstans! Chris Grayling is getting a pizza the action. The man who brought you the shipless ferry company operating as an Italian takeaway is offering a solution to retrieving the ships captured by Iran. He is sending our top Naval officer, Captain Pugwash, to reclaim them.
“Captain Pugwash has an excellent record when it comes to dealing with pirates,” claimed Grayling. “I’ve seen all the documentaries!”
Grayling is sending a top-calibre crew with Captain Pugwash. Along with trusty stalwarts like Master Bates, Seaman Staines, and Roger the Cabin Boy, the navigator on the mission will be our very own geographer in chief, Dominic Raab.
“The Iranian pirates have seized our ships because some of the cargo wasn’t halal,” claims Grayling. “Specifically, the Hawaiian pizzas. Pugwash is tasked with retrieving the supplies of British pizzas and British pasta. We are calling the mission Operation Pirates of the Carbonara!”
The chief of the Iranian pirates is rumoured to be the well-known bigmouth Yahir Al-Ottokrap. “You hear a lot of crap about him,” remarked Grayling. “In order to deny him the publicity he so dearly craves, we have issued him with the codename of Cut-Throat Jake.”
Captain Pugwash’s ship, The Black Pig, is due to sail as soon as the risk assessment is completed. “To be honest, since Britannia waives the rules, this will be a box-ticking exercise,” said Grayling. “So the government has supplied Pugwash with plenty of pizza boxes. Ticking must be a naval term for filling them with food, I suppose.”
Grayling recognises that there are tricky waters to navigate. “I’ve given Pugwash a map!” he says. “It has a big black cross on it, labelled ‘treasure’. That should do the trick!”
Pugwash has requested further guidance. “I need to tell him which way to go,” admits Grayling. “Left or right. Or to use nautical terms, port or starboard. Well, the ship is in port, so I guess they must go starboard.”
The ship will sail from Dover, as soon as Raab finds out where it is.