Patrick Simpson

For a quick introduction to this series, see “The truth is not out there #1“.

Today’s conspiracy is that William Shakespeare is in fact “Sheikh Zubair from Basra, Iraq“. For those of you who have never heard of Sheikh Zubair, you are not alone. I had never heard of the man either, but the internet knows everything, so no problem. Here we go: Sheikh Zubair is a sorcerer, originally from Nigeria. The article suggests he was operating from Madinah (Medina) rather than Basra, but that is just the depressing level of the press in the Middle East.

Mr Zubair practises black magic for money, or as he puts it I’ve earned a lot of money in Saudi Arabia. There are enough idiots here to trick and make money from. Clearly he dabbles in banking, too. This arrogance was his downfall, as he was arrested in a sting operation. But what a sorcerer he was! He has either been alive for over four hundred years, or managed to modify all of the world’s history records to suggest Shakespeare wrote those plays in the late 16th and early 17th century. Or he can travel through time! Awesome! And kudos to the Saudi Arabian police, for arresting and managing to imprison this powerful man.

So now that we know who Shakespeare really is, the question is why? Why would anyone travel back through time (this possibility is just too cool to not pretend it is true) to write the works of Shakespeare? As The Sheikh (I’m guessing this is his street name) is a sorcerer, we can only assume the works contains spells. So let us examine some of the works.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry

Well, The Sheikh clearly saw the credit crisis coming. We know he’s not a finance minister then.

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, shall we not revenge?

He seems to be promoting equality. Perhaps he’s not such a bad guy at all. Though I’m not sure about the revenge part.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come

This is getting very worrying. Could The Sheik be advocating suicide terrorism? Well, he did move to Basra, which is nothing if not a terrorist’s den. And he goes around calling himself “The Sheikh,” just like Abu Hamza. Clearly this man is a terrorist leader! And he can travel through time! We need to stop him! Now! We know he’s currently being held by Saudi police, but they are probably just cutting of his hands. He’s a sorceror, people! He can make new hands! Or hooks.

So, here’s the plan. We break him out of the Saudi prison (or perhaps just buy him out as part of an arms deal) and make sure he moves to the UK. Given the number of terrorists currently there, this cannot be too difficult; let’s just sign him up for an engineering degree and issue him a student visum. We will need several hundred copies of Shakespeare’s collected works, plenty of custard and a large school. We force the students to read Shakespeare’s works and then release The Sheikh into the school. Just sit back and watch the bloodshed.

The custard? That is for me. I really like custard and if I’m travelling to the UK there’d better be some custard in it for me. And I’ve just saved the world, people! I’ve earned it! You and your children can all sleep easily again. Until we find out J.K Rowling is not just a money-grubbing writer of pedestrian children’s books.