And thus did Barrie 'Blackbeard' Goodridge dare Asia's most fearless and dastardly to shake a pegleg and feast on Captain's Parrot - which on closer inspection turned out to be Caribbean mango reef chicken - at this year's Publishers Ball.
The Society of Publishers in Asia hoisted the Jolly Roger for this year's annual bash, transforming Hong Kong's Grand Hyatt into Port Royal, with a range of hooks, eyepatches and swords available at the door, in case some particularly absent-minded buccaneers had left theirs behind in the cabin. Such last-minute adjustments were not required by either Davide Butson or Abbie Chan, respectively awarded the best dressed man and best dressed woman of the evening, while the crew from the good ship International Herald Tribune laid claim to best dressed table.
For one night in November, the Hyatt heaved with the publishing industry's most-feared and revered dandies and scoundrels, wenches and ladies, swashbucklers and, allegedly, a parrot. Other guests in dinner jackets and evening gowns had perhaps been intercepted on their way to another function by some roving rogues.
Despite the arsenal of pistols and cutlasses assembled in one ballroom, the event passed peacefully enough, with the smoke lingering in the air at the end of the evening reminiscent of cigars rather than gunpowder.
Diary has it on good authority that those who woke with a sore head the next morning did not find themselves stowed in the hold on a three-month voyage to America, while a check-up of the Hyatt's chandeliers confirmed that this lot of brigands were indeed a desperately honest lot.
In fact, they departed with less booty than when they arrived, removed from their persons for the benefit of The Society for the Relief of Disabled Children. Huzzah!