Apart from the occasional scientific genius such as Penzance's Humphry Davy or a holiday photo-opportunity in Rock by David Cameron, England's poorest county rarely gets into the national news headines for positive reasons. All too often Cornwall gets noticed for closed tin mines, traffic gridlock, wrecks, complaints about Rick Stein taking over poshed-up Padstow or Hoorah Henrys running amok at Polzeath.
So yesterday's reports that Johnny Depp may film the next instalment of Pirates of the Carribean (well, parts of it) in picturesque St Ives is the biggest cultural boost for the county for a decade, since the right-on Eden Project got started and Cornwall finally got its own university.
Will Depp Mania be a good thing? Not necessarily. Films and TV series such as Poldark, Twelfth Night, the Bond movie Die Another Day and Saving Grace have savoured Cornwall's rich and wild scenery. Apart from the high murder rate, Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca must be judged good for the county's image, though Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) made the locals cross by presenting them as sex-crazed idiots. The Camomile Lawn (1992) made them look like sex-crazed toffs. Neither is true.
Surely Johnny Depp as lovable Cap'n Jack Sparrow (working title On Stranger Tides) can't do St Ives much harm, especially not if his new co-star is, as rumoured, Penélope Cruz. Its narrow streets, its vertiginous cliffs and pounding seas are fabulously photogenic.
And didn't DH Lawrence and Frieda live happily out at Zennor on the Penzance road, until driven out by xenophobia? Hollywood publicists might be wise to find Johnny some Cornish ancestors; Penélope too, just in case.
All right, so St Ives crawls with tourists, but judicious editing can keep them out of the shot. So it rains a bit too, according to hostile briefings from the Devon tourist lobby. But, if necessary, the filmmakers can rewrite a few scenes to be shot in the film's other key maritime location, Hawaii.
• This article was amended on 3 March 2010 to correct the spelling of Humphry Davy's name
