I have a complete works of Shakespeare in my room - it's one of those old, razor-thin paged volumes with tiny type, and it makes actually reading the content even scarier than usual. It also plays a small but significant part in my feeling of intellectual panic - i.e. panic that I'm not the intellectual I, like Adrian Mole, convinced myself I was destined to be. Instead, it reminds me that I shy away from anything approaching deep thinking, satisfying myself with the smug and possibly wrong conceit that because I can think more eruditely than the majority, that's good enough.

So what can I do about it. I have no idea - I have no desire to further my education, and talking to genuinely bright people scares me - I can only do it for tiny bursts, or even worse, I reduce the level of discussion to soundbites and unjustifiable opinion, and then run away.

Perhaps this is where Shakespeare comes in. I know I *am* bright, I'm just frightened of failing to prove it. Getting stuck into Hamlet (who am I kidding - A Summer Night's Dream would be better to kick off with) and actually enjoying it - I don't even particularly have to *understand* it - might prove to me that there is indeed more to me than the occasional filthy innuendo and solipsistic meandering.