Blackbeard's Ankh raised from Davey Jones Locker shock

The dreaded Ankh of Blackbeard - formerly of course the Ankh of Cheops - has been raised from the bottom of the sea off the North Carolina coast where the ship sank, from the extremities of the wreckage of the Queen Anne's Revenge, where it has malevolently festered for the past 300 years impatiently waiting.

Harold Camping was in rapture has he said this is the sign that he was waiting for that proves that puff of smoke last week in Iceland really was the first sign of an apocalyptic armageddon.

The Ankh of Blackbeard is well known to Indiana Jones fans from the fifth film in the trilo... quarte... quintet, as the powerful artifact once owned by the Egyptian Pharoah Cheops, that was so powerful it could cause your beard to appear as if it was smoking.

Cheops, the geezer who had the Great Pyramid at Giza built, also had the Ankh made by high preist Imotep, who conjured up black magic, mumbo-jumbo and a plague of scarab beetles to make the Ankh as a safeguard against Moses and his blasted Ark of the Convenient. It is said the Ankh was a lot more powerful than the Ark, but some experts say that is just because CGI is a lot better than melting wax dummies with a blowtorch.

Plundered in antiquity from Tanis, where it lived not far from the Ark of the Convenient, the Ankh spent time in the possession of many of history's biggest villains until vanishing without trace in a violent storm on its voyage to the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome to be studied by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Legend has it it wanted to be lost because it was so malevolently evil. That was until Blackbeard came along and looking down into the lapis lazuli blue waters of the Caribbean from the prow of the Queen Anne's Revenge saw a glint of gold. He dove into the crystal clear waters and surfaced holding the Ankh... his beard ablaze from that day until the day of his death... The two where made for each other and Blackbeard was heard to mutter, "My Precious", under his breath to the Ankh on more than one occasion.

When the British Royal Navy caught up with the blackguard and killed him, he had left the Ankh in his cabin for the first time since they had made their pact of bedevilment many years before. The Ankh was furious its master had been killed and glowed white hot in protest, not knowing this would be its undoing - and it burnt straight through the ship, sending them both to the bottom... until now.

Many people say it is foolish to have brought the Ankh of Blackbeard up to the surface but President Obama said it had to be done:

"We were a bit hasty burying Osama bin Laden at sea. Since then we have found out just what evil things lurk in there. We got intelligence that bin Laden was slowly making his way toward the North Carolina coast. When we realised the Ankh of Blackbeard was there we had to get to it first as bin Laden would have used it for evil. Now I have it around my neck for safekeeping. Don't worry It won't affect me... my precious..."