Personalised Romeo & Juliet: pwn Shakespeare for the weirdest Valentine's day gift ever?

One of the weirdest Valentines gifts that I have ever heard of comes from giftideas.co.uk and it’s a personalised edition of Romeo & Juliet.

This is personalisation beyond where personalisation has gone before.

Instead of just putting an inscription in the frontispiece of a nice edition of this Shakespearean tragedy, and maybe letting you choose the cover, Giftideas suggest that you submit six names – you, your loved one, his/her best mate, your mum, the cat perhaps – and then presumably using a find-and-replace tool the site replaces the names of characters in the book with the ones you have provided.

Giftideas then print out a copy of your personalised Romeo or Juliet and send it to you.

So it’s as if Shakespeare was thinking of you, your mum and your boyfriend when he sat to write this romantic tragedy.

This will create lines like:
“O Mike, Mike, wherefore art thou Mike”
And
“Lo what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Maureen is the sun”

What if it gets to pet names or jokes?
“Turn thee, Mr Snookums, and look upon thy death!”

What if you called all the characters after your family of pet hamsters? The possibilities are mind-boggling and make me ache slightly with repressed laughing.

Yes “personalised” is a bit of a euphemism for “mutilated to create a jaw-splittingly hilarious LOL-fest” or just straight out “pwned”.

Is pwning famous authours the best way to say “I love you?” Well it will certainly give your squeeze a few LOLs if you’ve got a similar sense of humour. I’m considering it.

This service is also available with Pride and Prejudice, Alice in Wonderland and Dracula, all books costing £19.99 from www.giftideas.co.uk