Somehow I happened upon a fascinating article about Shakespeare and the plagues that he endured. “Plague erased social, gender and personal differences. Shakespeare responded by emphasizing people’s unique and inerasable difference. His work is a narrative vaccine.” It is written by Emma Smith and is in the New York Times Opinion section. Now some people, most people, actually keep a tally of deaths, that is what they are paying attention to. Not me – there is the blog about tips from a cat, there is the funny article about Do Not Panic from the New Yorker and now there is this. Most masterful, Emma, most masterful.
Here is how it begins. Twitter has been taunting us: When he was in quarantine from the plague, William Shakespeare wrote “King Lear.”
He had an advantage, of sorts: Shakespeare’s life was marked by plague. Just weeks after his baptism at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, the register read, “Hic incepit pestis” (Here begins the plague). Mortality rates in the town were four times that of the previous, plague-free year. Shakespeare, the son of the town’s glover, survived it and many further outbreaks. Much of his work was composed, if not in lockdown, then in the shadow of a highly infectious disease without a known cure.
While the theaters were closed for an epidemic in 1592-3, the fledgling playwright produced his hugely successful narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” (a piece of beautiful erotica in which the goddess Venus throws herself at the unwilling Adonis) and “The Rape of Lucrece” (a queasily voyeuristic poem about sexual assault).
Again in 1603-4, when plague prevented the coronation celebrations for the new king, James I, and one in five Londoners succumbed to the disease, Shakespeare was probably writing his study of civic corruption, “Measure for Measure.”
It is so uplifting to read this. A sense of history puts everything in perspective but most people cannot look beyond their nose stupidly enclosed in a face mask. The only people who should be wearing face masks are people with the disease – it has nothing to do with the transmission of the disease. The most ridiculous sight is people walking their dogs, picking up their dog’s feces, wearing a face mask. The coronavirus lives longest in feces. That is a fact, it is not my opinion, but it makes no sense to tell dog owners that. So I won’t, but it is a pain to go out in public and look at such stupidity. I stay in with myself. By the way, I do not have a dog.
So let us go backwards, to the blog of March 27, 2020 talking about the video found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YPg3PmhBbS4. It was posted on March 9,2020. My first viewings of the video brought relief and a sense that justice had been served. But later thought about things and became logical, rather than emotional, and realized that there was more than one scenario. One scenario is that the Crown Prince of Dubai (hereinafter CP) did not know of his father’s (ROD) monstrous behaviour, learned of it for the first time on March 5,2020 when the appeals for confidentiality of the High Court’s findings failed and the findings became public. He believed ROD’s explanation of everything. But only four days later a very sophisticated video is posted. That could be a possibility as he has a great deal of money and a filming crew – so it could be done.
But here is another scenario. The video is made in advance in anticipation that the appeal to keep the ruling secretive would fail. So they are armed with a defence with CP looking like a good guy.
I shall never know which scenario is the truth. Synonyms for scenario are: course of events, chain of events, series of developments, situation; sequence of events. But the second scenario is the most plausible, synonyms being rational, open to reason, full of common sense, logical, fair, fair-minded, just, equitable, decent; intelligent, wise, level-headed, practical, realistic; based on good sense, sound, judicious, well thought out, well grounded, reasoned, well reasoned, valid, commonsensical, advisable, well advised; tenable, plausible, feasible, credible, acceptable, admissible, believable, viable. ANTONYMS unreasonable, illogical.
When I become disillusioned, I become very disillusioned.: which is undeceive, enlighten, set straight, open someone’s eyes; shatter someone’s illusions, disappoint, make sadder and wiser; informal throw cold water on. ANTONYMS deceive, fool, disabuse, disenchant.
The only thing about our ‘relationship’ that does not fit and makes no sense at all is why did I meet almost the entire Royal Family of Dubai in that hotel in London? I guess I will never know. It was so unfair to them, well and to me. So there are two mysteries in my life. Who ordered the attempt on my life on August 18, 2019 and why did I meet the Royal Family of Dubai. There is one thing I learned, I say laughingly, stay clear of multibillionaires who inherited their wealth. I am laughing. You might get a beautiful building in Malaysia named after you but what good does that do if you do not live there. Alix Residences, by the way, and at the moment it is a hole in the ground, with no air conditioning, of course.
This also is unbelievable. I asked my computer guru Chris to do my statistics, the general numbers and also a run down of where visitors lived (or I suppose visited). It is absolutely mind boggling and interesting. 264 in the UAE. Some I can know and understand. For example, Taiwan would be a fascinating woman I met at the Rotunda restaurant. Even Malta, it would be Palmer Valentine, a man I met in London and a most amusing story relating to him. But others not so much, no idea. People in China, Huh?
