Well that was nice. You'd best be off now.

About 1 week after I returned from work, my good friend and regular lunch buddy decided to leave. No, the 2 were NOT related. Unfortunately that means I've started to eat lunch at my desk more (bad thing to do) and this is one of those times. I decided to take advantage of it, though, and do a quick update of the ol' blog.

First order of business: Keep those name suggestions coming!!!

Now that that's out of the way...I recently discovered Podcasts. Yeah, I know they've been around for a while but I've been busy! Anyway, along with that discovery I found that Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me has a podcast!! Woohooo! I love that show. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a current events quiz show. Funny and informative all in one. Check it out!! It's free for goodness sake.

I've already learned a few things after just a couple of episodes. For example, Batwoman in a current DC Comics series is a lesbian. Excellent....

But was shocked to learn that in the UK they are dumbing down Shakespeare in an attempt to make it more accessible to the youth. Ok...I can understand that to a certain degree...but they seem to be going well beyond that.


For example, Act One, Scene Seven - Macbeth and Lady Macbeth discuss killing King Duncan

Shakespeare:
Macbeth: We will proceed no further in this business: He hath honour'd me of late: and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon.

Lady Macbeth: Was the hope drunk, Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? (...)

Macbeth: I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. Away, and mock the time with fairest show: False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

The translated version:
Macbeth: I'm not going to do it.

Lady Macbeth: Cowardly custard!

Macbeth: I've changed my mind. I'll do it.Keep reading, you won't believe it!!

Unblieveable. The title of this blog is another example of a translation. In Act Three, Scene Five, when Juliet wakes up with Romeo, she says (one of the most famous lines): 'Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.'

This is translated into: 'Well that was nice. You'd best be off now.' Seriously.....

I know it's hard to follow. I even have to take a few minutes to get my brain wrapped back around it and I even acted it...for a while on a very regular basis when I was in Shakespeare on the Loose (a traveling Shakespeare troupe). BUT there are other ways of making it accessible to youth than the route they've gone here.

You can find more here