Shakespeare? No such author!

Over 350 years have slipped by since Bill, 52, Author, passed on to that great stage in the sky. Today he is a number of things - a literary legend, a cult hero, and a multizilliondollar little earner in merry old Shakespeare crazy England. My last visit to Stratford on Avon planted me in the bullseye of the Shakespeare industry - a mix of resort, shrine, and cultural supermarket. When he migrated to paradise in 1616 his squalid little village didn't have expensive stores, souvenir stalls or its own luxurious Hilton Hotel. The quaint little dwelling in Stratford's Henley Street is where William Shakespeare, son a John, a glovemaker was allegedly born in 1564. True or not, the tourist queues grow longer by the day for a glimpse of the Bard's manger. The closer to 1600, the more you realise there's not a scrap of evidence that William Shakespeare was the author he's claimed to be. The tiny grammar school of his supposed education in the 1500's was about the size of our standard dining rooms today, improbable to produce the playwright we now know as 'The Bard'. There was one poor, ill-paid teacher who was given three books - one Latin Grammar, one eulogy on Queen Elizabeth and an almanac probably chained to a desk and a dirty great stick, boys, for the use of. The Shakesperean plays and poems show an exceptional grasp of a wide variety of subjects - language, law, science, philosophy, politics and the classics. It's generally accepted that the author would have needed an astounding vocabulary - 15000 - 20000 words. John Milton, author of the epic Paradise Lost had a mere 8000. There's no evidence that Shakespeare ever went to school, that he ever owned or read a book or that he could even write his own name. There are only about six alleged 'signatures' of his in existence - four of them most likely guided by someone else's hand. The official shingle at the entrance of the Stratford Grammar School today states: "It is generally BELIEVED that Shakespeare was educated in this school." Not that he WAS, but that it is 'GENERALLY BELIEVED' he was. A visit to Shakespeare country is incomplete without a trip to Anne Hathaway's cottage. We all know Bill married her - or do we? The marriage register states she married another some three years before she was supposed to have trod down the aisle with wondrous Willie. As Shakespeare lovers and groupies queue up at box-offices around the planet, and pay well to worship the bard and his works, what do we really know about him? The most honest answer would have to be - precious little. The standard avoidance distractions are usually, 'Yes, it's possible Francis Bacon & his brother might have done them, but it's a bit academic.' Totally irrelevant. I don't really care whether Snow White wrote them. My core challenge has always been, if he's the great national, indeed, world treasure he's cracked up to be, show me the FORENSIC EVIDENCE! A single page of his handwriting should nail it - I'm not too precious about quality proof (evidence). The doubting Thomases claim that there is a huge difference between the historical King MacBeth and the Shakespearean MacBeth - that the Scottish king was chosen by universal acclaim, whereas Shakespeare's Macbeth has the status of a street criminal - they claim it was an anti-Scots conspiracy concocted by a team of Oxford or Cambridge scholars to vilify the Scots for poitical purposes. I don't really care! Show me the forensic evidence of the conspirators if you must, but don't trot out the predictable coulda woulda shoulda theories. I mean, reputations are at stake, and it wouldn't do to have a fresh crop of Oxford Dons lying destitute in the gutter in torn wigs and scuffed shoes. Just show me any 'Poor Yorick' who knew him well.