It's almost midnight. I am practising my silent touch-typing, as I don't want to rouse the powers that be (i.e. my parents) from their bed of slumber and/or Mash-watching.

As I type, I am contemplating Shakespeare. You know it's bed time when you very almost cry on behalf of The Bard. I find it incredibly sad that he's so very very famous, but doesn't know it. Think about it. He slaved away his whole life writing things which he probably didn't think were monumental. He probably despaired a lot. Screwed up countless sheets of old paper. Splattered his ink pot across his little room in frustration. Wept bitter tears of writer's block. Stayed up till the early hours of the morning, writing in the dark and wishing someone could hurry up with the invention of the lightbulb. And all that time, he never knew that one day, everybody in the country would know who he was. If he'd have known back then, I'm sure he would have been a happier man and enjoyed his life more. Maybe taken a few risks, and given Iago a proper goddamn MOTIVE for killing lots and lots of people indirectly.

I am also pondering how people KNOW what Shakespeare meant by writing what he did. For all anyone knows, he may have had his own little agenda. He may have been writing entirely in euphamisms and metaphors. We shouldn't assume, or ever pretend to be definite about knowing what anything written by anyone who is dead is about. It's too late now, anyway. We will never know, because Shakespeare is DEAD!! Pushing up daisies, extinct, no longer with us. He has ceased to be. I would go as far as to say that he is distinctly EX-SHAKESPEARE.

After having discussed at great length with Joe what I should say to Shakespeare if we could bring him back to life, the first thing would be "WHY WHY WHY WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME??" That's as far as we got, but I would also want to know what it felt like to die. And how long he thought about the wording of "To be, or not to be, that is the question"