BEACHCOMBER
101 YEARS OLD AND STILL A MAN FOR ALL SONNETS...
GREAT Moments in British Poetic History No.47: Shakespeare tries unsuccessfully to pick up a girl on a walk in the park. SHAKESPEARE: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
GIRL: “Whatchoo on about? It’s freezin’ and it’s only the beginning of spring anyway. What’s all this summer nonsense you’re talkin’ about?”
W.S: “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
GIRL: “Well that’ ain’t sayin’ much. If you’d said that 10 days ago I might have been flattered but it don’t take much to be more temperate than the weather we’ve been having recently. I’d call it damning with faint whatsit.”
W.S: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.”
GIRL: “Yeah, well, I’d agree with you on that one, unless you’re trying to blame Theresa May for the bad weather on top of everything else. When you say ‘darling buds’, do you mean the former Home Secretary? Is ‘darling bud’ rhyming slang for ‘Amber Rudd’ then? She’s been shaken a lot this past week and now she’s been stirred too.”
W.S: “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
GIRL: “D’you mean her lease on the Home Office? She was there for almost two years, you know. That was quite long enough for her to have found out what was going on, don’t you think? Or are you asking me out for a short date? That’s a bit mean, innit?”
W.S: “Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines…”
GIRL: “Well it’s certainly not shining too hot today. Or are you just suggesting that things got too hot for Amber and she turned from Amber to red and had to stop being Home Secretary, gettit?”
W.S: “…and often is his gold complexion dimmed.”
GIRL: “Nah, you lost me there. What’s this gold complexion? D’you mean Tony Blair or is it Donald Trump you’re referring to, though I’d have thought he is more orange than gold?”
W.S: “And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed.”
GIRL: “Oh is there a fair on? Though if it’s declined, then I think I’ll skip it and go for a haircut. My hair’s a bit untrimmed, as you say.”
W.S: “But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st.”
GIRL: “You still on about that summer stuff? But how can I have a haircut without losing possession of my hair, which is a mousey brown not fair anyway?”
W.S: “Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.”
GIRL: “Death? Are you threatenin’ me? And what do you mean grows’t? Are you suggestin’ I’m getting fat? Gerroff or I’ll call the police.”
W.S: “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
GIRL: “Oh, so now you’re saying’ that my life depends on men, are you? Well you’re a proper little Harvey Weinstein aren’t you? You theatricals are all the same. I’m off.”