Sirius Black

The Sirius Star, an Arabian oil tanker carrying $100 million of crude oil, has been hijacked off the Kenyan coastline by, wait for it, Somalian Pirates!

I'm sure this is devastating for someone who was a boat and a load of black stuff down when they woke up this morning, but for me, this is the greatest thing to happen to the world in a number of years.  Think about it, when you were a nipper, all you ever wanted to be was a pirate. (That or a princess, but the tablets stopped those feelings.) The dream of millions of young lads worldwide have been recognised by a band of Buccaneer Somalians.  Remember Somalia?  Famine, drought, scrawpy looking kids covered in flies?  Well, these are the same people who are now charging about the high seas with peg legs and parrot donned shoulders.  Presumably.

Fair play to them, I'm actually proud of them. It's like when the geeky kid at school turns into a popular kid in all those films we don't believe.  Only this is real.  Thankyou humanity! My faith in you is restored.

Somalians, on average, earn $600 per year. This means that at face value, this 1 boat could pay the wages of over 166,000 of them!  Not taking into account if they flog the boat afterwards. A used oil tanker fetches between $42m and $116m depending on the size. Great bit of business that. (I realise they probably aren't going to spread the wealth, but I just love these guys right now, so go with it.)

These Pirate Gods, as I like to see them, haven't hurt any of the Sirius Star's crew, which would have been more "Pirate" but not hurting them just makes them even cooler for me.  Now, this may cause a rise in crude oil prices, granted, but this tanker only carried 1/4 of the daily product of Saudi Arabia.  A real drop in the sea for a massively rich country like Saudi, so it shouldn't cause a price hike, but the greediness of the oil barons no doubt will.

Whatever the outcome please join me in a toast for the Somali Pirates, Arrrrrrr!