But Pirates! comes with all the usual Aardman strengths intact, particularly the sense that its characters and creators alike are too good-hearted and sweet to nitpick. The ambition is all in the craft rather than in the storytelling, but it’s hard to say no to the proficiency of that craft, or the mild good cheer behind it.

The Marathas made reciprocal presents of a ‘horse and sarpech to all leading members of the English settlement’.

It was a joke, dickfor. I'm a passifist. Or rather, a passive-aggressivist. Violence is for the feeble minded. Now taunting, that's where true art lies.

What really gets me is that the fundiloons (yeah, know, like the real ones) of the world are so troubled by Harry Potter because it's getting at the kids before they can discern truth from falsehood, but nearly every church I know of does the exact same thing.