There was more laughter—and Gerald was leading them along very ably: they were drunkish and amenable, even gullible, since making a speech was a kind of trick.

That's Cap'in Blackie! The notorious killah!

[…] rocky pinnacles, from whence he sends forth a sort of choking chattering song, if such it can be called, or, with an upjerk of the tail, hops away with a loud musical whistle, very much after the manner of the Blackbird.

That's manipulative, the conventional take on a wife who chose to stay wedlocked to her perma-tanned husband despite his chronically cheesy behaviour, from phone calls to a sex chat line (purportedly for the purpose of opinion polling, a typical Berlusconi stunt) to old-coot flirting with curvaceous TV starlets (some of whom he put forward as candidates in the upcoming European parliamentary elections) to verbal (at minimum) groping of women who usually sex-wagged right back.