Now I can Die in Peace...

I find myself quoted in the Albany Times Union.  The story is here.

The money shot is this ...

That's a nice looking coat, isn't it?

And then last night, moments prior to Live-Blogging My Insomnia, I managed to see myself on YNN (which is a local all-news cable station).  YNN is owned by Time-Warner and it is the default station your television goes to when you turn it on.

At first I thought a large, hairless rat had affixed itself to my neck.  Slowly, through the thick, purple air, the nadir of the night, the fog of my own scant consciousness, it dawned on me that the rat was, in fact, my second chin.

Troubled, I turned on Sir Derek Jacobi for his take on Richard II, part of the PBS series called '[insert first word here] Shakespeare.'  Might be 'Uncovering.'  This is the third one I've seen and they are outstanding.

Just hearing him say the words 'sceptred isle' gave me goosebumps.  The whole thing, or at least part of the whole thing, is here:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands, --
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

It's stuff like this that still makes England great.  This and that whole St. Crispin business is what gave the Brits the strength to shake their fist at the Hun and his fiendish machines of war; to stay calm and carry on.

The fact that they just foujnd the bones of Richard III under the tarmac of some parking lot in Leicester only adds to the general magnificence of the thing.

Nice looking coat, isn't it?

Then I went back to bed.