'We could get the Zeffirelli version out on video for you to look at.'
'Who plays me?'
'Mel Gibson.'
'—Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all—'
Hamlet stared at me, mouth open.
'But that's incredible!' he said ecstatically. 'I'm Mel's biggest fan!' He thought for a moment. 'So. . . Horatio must be played by Danny Glover, yes?'
'—sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought—'
'No, no. Listen: the Lethal Weapon series is nothing like Hamlet.'
'Well,' replied the prince reflectively, 'in that I think you might be mistaken. The Martin Riggs character begins with self-doubt and contemplates suicide over the loss of a loved one, but eventually turns into a decisive man of action and kills all the bad guys.' He paused for a moment. 'Same as the Mad Max series, really. Is Ophelia played by Patsy Kensit?'
'No,' I replied, trying to be patient, 'Helena Bonham Carter.'
He perked up when he heard this.
'This gets better and better! When I tell Ophelia, she'll flip – if she hasn't already.'
'Perhaps,' I said thoughtfully, 'you'd better see the Olivier version instead. Come on, we've work to do.'
'—their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.'
The Will-Speak Hamlet stopped clicking and whirring and sat silent once more, waiting for the next florin.
5
Ham(let) and Cheese
'SEVEN WONDERS OF SWINDON' NAMING BUREAUCRACY UNVEILED
After five years of careful consideration, Swindon City Council has unveiled the naming procedure for the city's much-vaunted 'Seven Wonders' tourism plan. The twenty-seven-point procedure is the most costly and complicated piece of bureaucracy the city has ever devised and might even be included is one of the wonders itself. The plan will be undertaken by the Swindon Special Committee for Wonders which will consider applications prepared by the Seven Wonders Working Party from MX separate name selection subcommittees. Once chosen, the Wonders will be further scrutinized by eight different oversight committees, before being adopted. The byzantine and needlessly expensive system is already tipped to win the coveted 'Red Tape' award from Bureaucracy Today.
Article in Swindon Globe News, 12 June 1988
I drove to the car park above the Brunel Centre and bought a pay-and-display ticket, noting how they had almost tripled in price since I was here last. I looked in my purse. I had fifteen pounds, three shillings and an old Skyrail ticket.
'Short of cash?' asked Hamlet as we walked down the stairs to the street-level concourse.
'Let's just say I'm very "receipt rich" at present.' Money had never been a problem in the BookWorld. All the details of life were taken care of by something called 'Narrative Assumption'. A reader would assume you had gone shopping, or gone to the toilet, or brushed your hair, so a writer never needed to outline it – which was just as well, really. I'd forgotten all about the real-world trivialities, but I was actually quite enjoying them, in a mind-dulling sort of way.
'It says here,' said Hamlet, who had been reading the newspaper, 'that Denmark invaded England and put hundreds of innocent English citizens to death without trial!'
'It was the Vikings in 786, Hamlet. I hardly think that warrants the headline: "Bloodthirsty Danes Go on Rampage". Besides, at the time they were no more Danish than we were English.'
'So we're not the historical enemies of England?'
'Not at all.'
'And eating rollmop herrings won't lead to erectile dysfunction?'
'No. And keep your voice down. All these people are real, not D-7 generic crowd types. Out here, you only exist in a play.'
'Okay,' he said, stopping at an electronics shop and staring at the TVs. 'Who's she?'