Stabroek News
March 7, 2001
So Shakespeare was a drug addict. Based on the discovery of two crack pipes in his old back yard we now know why Anne Hathaway kicked him out of their cold bed; bad boy William spent his nights at the bottom of the garden smoking up instead of attending to his spousal duties.
In fact the main reason he left for London was that supplies of top grade cocaine were hard to find in rural Stratford.
The discovery of the pipes and traces of other hallucinogenic drugs now brings for scholars a fresh perspective to Shakespeare's works. A Mid Summer Night's Dream was likely written on a really groovy acid trip. After all here is a man who talks about woods moving and one drop of blood turning the whole sea red - definite evidence of drug dependent paranoia. The Merchant of Venice was originally titled "The Crack Dealer from Golders Green" and the pound of flesh is a metaphor for a kilo of pure Colombian gold. Hamlet meanwhile is one long homage to the drug culture. "To b or not to b?" is Elizabethan code word for "To bong or not to bong?" and Ophelia was an opium addict. That's why she spends the whole play fainting and running behind the arras. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern were bumbling low level drug mules killed by a vicious Jamaican posse. And the comedy "Measure for measure" is Shakespeare's veiled warning to crooked dealers not to cheat him.
The sonnets are even more revealing of Shakespeare's love/hate relationships with drugs. "A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass ... make sweet some vial....then begins a journey in my head .... and keeps my drooping eyelids open wide". He writes "of rotten smoke" and "sweetest bud" "the sickly appetite" and "white despair".
In modern times Shakespeare would be a guest at the Betty Ford Clinic. Instead he produced 22 plays and countless sonnets which to this day inspire mostly terrible Hollywood movies. Imagine a drug addict was voted man of the Millennium.
The Ministry of Education must now be convinced that drugs are good for young minds and should be handed out in schools instead of milk and cookies under the slogan "Just say yes! yes! yes!" Let a thousand flowers bloom.
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Kowlessar needs Tupperware
Those persons convicted of throwing stones at the PPP speakers should be arrested for lack of imagination. Why pelt bricks when you could make your point far more eloquently. The only Minister who should be nicely handed a stone is Minister of Works Tony Xavier and this should be imported of course. Give Clement Rohee a pint of motor oil - one more than he has found in the Atlantic; Saisnarine Kowlessar a set of Tupperware bowls so he can bring lunch to work; Sam Hinds would love a toy rocket so he could pretend he was at the first Beal launching; Jagdeo pondering his cabinet might wish to watch the video "A Few Good Men". Dr Roopnaraine just needs a calculator to work out if he retained his seat in Parliament. Not to be outdone Desmond Hoyte might appreciate a brochure for a Florida retirement community and a CD of Barbara Streisand's "Memories".
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"P.P.P" Iron Tonic
The constant barrage of political commercials is having a terrible psychological effect on the population. One distraught young lady has written to this column recounting a dream she had recently which was a mix between the Bakewell commercial with the man and the "baby" and the PNC/REFORM ad on the Linden Highway.
"Dear W.R. .. desmond hoyte was standing by the side of the road holding the baby and the minibus came up and chairman joe singh in full military uniform was driving and hoyte got in and the dream switched and the bus was in South Ruimveldt and it stopped to pick up two little schoolboys calvin benn and gocool boodhoo and singh told them to sit behind him and behave themselves but kit nascimento was asking him long questions beginning with do you believe and jerome khan was scribbling a letter to the Stabroek News replying to a reply of a reply of a reply of a letter claiming that burnham had not banned flour and in the back seat doodnauth singh was looking through statements of poll and asking why the bus was going though every little street and singh shouted i am checking the voters list which you did not do in 1997 and hoyte was still holding on to the baby and the bus stopped at herdmanston house and hoyte went in and put the white bundle on the kitchen table and slowly opened it and guess what? It was a miniature Stanley Ming wearing a diaper arrrrgh............
Please help me! electorally depressed voter.
Dear electorally depressed voter. Hang in there - only 12 more nights to go. In the meantime switch to Humphreys. If you still feel tired we recommend a daily teaspoon of "P.P.P." tonic.