Upon Being Cultured.

I like to think of myself as a few levels above your average Philistine. For I know of Richard III

Or the slightly maverick take on Shylock's famous speech in The Merchant of Venice delivered by a wag called Stephanie in our English 'O' level class in approximately 1982 and met by raucous snorting and sniggering by her equally mature 14 year old class mates:

"If you prick us do we not breed?"

However, to show how grown-up I can pretend to be now please allow me to redress the balance and stop the Bard of Avon from spinning in his grave. Here is the original...very moving and sadly still as relevant today as it was then.

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,organs,dimensions,senses,affections, passions;fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that."

Arilx