What the dickens is going on with these blockheads who believe that Shakespeare's words are dead as a doornail?
It beggars all description! These scurvy noise-makers who insist that Shakespeare is all Greek to them!
For goodness sake!
What these clay-brained guts fail to realise is that Shakespeare is here forever and a day. He may have breathed his last 400 years ago this week (23 April - also his 52nd birthday; what a charmed life), but his words have come full circle.
It's high time these cream-faced loons were made to understand the naked truth.
When we play fast and loose; or make short short shrift; or are set packing; or have our teeth on edge; or go on a wild goose chase - it's Shakespeare!
When we wait with bated breath; and put our best forward; and break the ice - and when we refuse to budge an inch; or catch a cold; or are faint-hearted; or are in our salad days, or our flaming youth - it's Shakespeare!
When we're fancy free, or in a pickle, or have seen better days, then the long and the short of it is: it's Shakespeare!
If you are eaten out of house and home, or have vanished into thin air; if the game is afoot (or even if the game is up); if you've got a heart of gold, or have had too much of a good thing; if you're seeing things in your heart of hearts, or in your mind's eye; if something smells to heaven, or has you in stitches; if you are making a virtue of necessity, or think that something is as obvious as a nose on a man's face; if you have not slept a wink, or even committed murder most foul: it's Shakespeare!
Whether you send someone packing, or wear your heart on your sleeve; whether you go up the primrose path, or out of the jaws of death; whether you are in a pitched battle, or smell something in the wind, or whether you have had too much of a good thing: it's The Bard!
Not to lay it on with a trowel, but... when we talk of towers of strength; or sea changes; or pounds of flesh; or pomp and circumstance; or the dogs of war - or even the Queen's English, then it's Shakespeare!
But the truth will out! As good luck would have it, Shakespeare is the be-all and the end-all. He'll be with us in this brave new world till the crack of doom. It's a foregone conclusion!
This must be cold comfort to the nay-sayers - but they are living in a fool's paradise! They are a laughing stock! Good riddance to them! They should lie low! Mum's the word! But really - it's neither here nor there.
Because for those of us who do love Shakespeare then... The world's your oyster!