George, David and the Bard (A report in the key of D minus)
One bit of famous and serious reading advice used to be: “Brush up your Shakespeare.”
Of course, the old Bard is not popular with everyone – and sometimes, other writers just serve better:
An ambulance arrived at a house in Wiltshire where a man had collapsed, a day after he had died.
His wife Audrey said she made three emergency calls and was told it would be more than an hour. When the crew arrived on the day it was too late.
The next day, another ambulance arrived with its lights flashing and sirens sounding. A full ambulance service investigation is under way.
So, one can conclude from this that the Wiltshire ambulance service were not in a particular hurry because they had been reading Mark Twain, or were at the very least living by one of the writer’s famous quotes:
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Talking of quotes, the Bible, like Shakespeare, can always be relied on to come up with the goods.
Take this one, from 1 Corinthians xv. 55.: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Well, sometimes death can indeed be the ultimate sting:
The last time Shawnda K. Hatfield was scheduled to appear in court for sentencing on a forgery conviction, a newspaper obituary announced her unexpected death and cremation.
On Thursday, however, the 41-year-old Dunkirk woman was alive - if not especially well - when she was sentenced to four years in prison by Delaware Circuit Court 3 Judge Robert Barnet Jr.
Hatfield maintained she did not have a clue as to how or why her death notice was published in The Star Press on Aug. 30.
Still, ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’ is good advice. So, David and George, pay attention please…
Now, don’t be shy: hand me that report of yours.
Good, thank you.
And now we’ll feed it to the Randomized Shakespeare Quotation Generator… Round and round and round she goes… And where she stops…
Ah, yes, of course. Macbeth; V, v 19):
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
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