Sad Stories of the Death of Kings: Richard II

Currently, on the BBC, a set of Shakespeare's history plays are being broadcast under the title of The Hollow Crown, which I've just started watching and recommend.

As a person brought up in the Anglo-Welsh education system of the 1970's, Shakespeare fills me with less than fond memories. I did Julius Caesar for mock O Level and Richard II for the real thing: no comedies in Wales in the 1970's. Probably just as well.

Julius Caesar is all about ambition, pride and treachery; Richard II about tyranny, mental instability and paranoia. And treachery, again. However, the best thing about the plays is that they are quotable:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress built by Nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

Stirring stuff from John of Gaunt.  ("Star spangled banner" is not really in the same league; we're English, we do this thing for a living. Mind you, they did have Richard Nixon, a Shakespearean villain if ever there was one).

How about this from Hamlet, which seems to have the most quotes:

one may smile, and smile, and be a villain

How many politicians would fit that description?

Appropriately, it's also my birthday today, a whole 48 years. How hard can it be?