Your Daily Shakespeare

The MacDonaldization of words forces many to lay that reason asleep which disturbs their gayety. Among recent new entries is ‘Brexit’, a word suitable to a speaking-club made of millions, where most half-hear what, if they heard the whole, they would but half-understand.

Furthermore, some words in time are debased by repetition, and can no longer be heard without an involuntary sense of annoyance. Hence I will spare my twenty-five readers further comments on how England will work-out her separation from the European Union. Official news suggests that about half of the citizenry is filled with all that sparkles in the eye of hope, while the other sees but penury ahead and thickens the gloom of one another. Continue reading →

Those who follow the reigning fashion, or from fashion borrow their taste, will have observed that, after a de-facto 20 years of relative unpopularity, red wine has undergone a commercial and cultural renaissance.

Not that it was ever dead, but lore and clichés suggested that thoughtful solitude was the natural setting for a glass of red. Or, in a different setting, it was considered an erotic prelude to the real thing. An idea with a long tradition. In his “Art of Love,” the Latin poet Ovid says, Continue reading →