As a self confessed nerd I have lately formed a notion to tell people when I have acquired some of these useless facts.

Here is the first.

In the smallest room in our house I have taken to keeping the complete works of Shakespeare.

As I dip into various plays it has struck me that Englands greatest playwright did not set all of his plays in his native country – au contraire.

So, being a nerd, I decided to write down just where he set his plays (you will find that the countries add up to more that his number of plays, this is because I allow a place setting if part of the action happens there.)

He did in fact set more plays in his native island than anywhere else, but only just.
He set fourteen in the UK (including Scotland and Wales one each) but he set a staggering thirteen in Italy making it his technical favourite.

Next favourite is France with seven , closely followed by Greece with five.
After that he scattered his settings throughout Europe .
He set one in Austria , one in Denmark (no prizes) part of one in Czechoslovakia , part of one in Cyprus , another bit of one (again no prizes) moves the action to Egypt.

Then there are two serious problems , Pericles is set “dispersedly in various countries ” and The Tempest is on “An Island ” .

But despite our long claim of him being an honorary Irishman he set none in Ireland.