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We celebrate the 450th birthday of the Great Bard, along with the rest of the world. On 23 April 2014, we launched this lovely commemorative series of postcard magnets that percolate – not the famous sonnets – pithy aphorisms that make for great contemporary quips, underscoring Shakespeare’s relevance through the ages.

The Elizabethan market town of Stratford-upon-Avon hosted thousands of visitors from around the globe, turning the birthday weekend into a giant birthday bash, which saw a 1000-strong birthday procession and tourists joining the pageant to finally lay flowers on Shakespeare’s grave in the Holy Trinity Church.

Everyone should have fondness for at least one of Shakespeare’s plays. Perhaps for you, it’s Hamlet or King Lear. Twelfth Night maybe. The Merchant of Venice. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Perhaps The Tempest. Or the famous Romeo and Juliet. In his brief lifetime of 52 years, Shakespeare added hundreds, perhaps thousands, of words to the English language. These phrases have become everyday speech, common expressions like “fair play”, “a laughing stock”, “neither here nor there”, and “dead as a doornail”.

If you need to know more about the Great Bard, the Royal Shakespeare Company is spearheading a three-year Jubilee, between 2014 and 2016, to mark Shakespeare’s birth and death. It will be grand. There will be theatre performances, even live streaming cinema around the world. Over here, we’re just happy to join in the festivities to honor the world’s greatest playwright.