Blow Wind and Crack Your Teeth!

 Sunday. 7.15 a.m. A dark and supposedly calm morning here in Milton Keynes.

The digital thermometer currently reads 21ºc.

I am continuing with my transfer of writing material to word processing. As I do so, I am making changes to the original handwritten material and developing things as I go.

Tuesday. 8.15 a.m. I am waking up a good deal later than I have in the past. With no Alfie to think about and take out, that may be one reason.

It's wild and windy outside. The storm that is raging is called Bram. I'm not sure where the name originates, but possibly a contraction of Abraham. Answers on a postcard, please.

The digital thermometer currently reads 21ºc.

6.30 p.m. The wind is still raging. There are weather warnings across the country.

I can imagine Lear, out in the middle of all this, with the Fool, shouting at the wind and the rain. It wouldn't make much difference, but I used a quote from King Lear for this blog post.

Wednesday. 10.20a.m. It was bright and sunny earlier. I had been considering going into the shopping centre with my new Osmo Pocket 3, to get some footage, especially the Christmas display, which is always in the Middleton Hall section, near John Lewis. I was somewhat put off because of the roadworks along Secklow Gate, because, to get into the carpark near The Point, you have to make a detour. However, it wasn't as busy as I had expected, due to Christmas, and I managed to park, then pay at the new ticket machine, which allows you to use your contactless bank card. As I walked back to my car to collect the camera, a lady approached me, saying she needed air put in a tyre of her car, so I agreed to help, expecting we would need to go somewhere, such as a petrol station, to use their air machine. But she said she had a foot pump which I used, and soon, after quite a bit of effort, I managed to put sufficient air in the tyre, and I told her she should get the tyre checked and possibly buy a new one. So, having done my Samritan act, I managed to open up my car and set up the camera, which has several parts which need to be connected, before it can be used. I had only recently charged it, and there was enough charge to do some filming. I walked into the shopping centre, but I couldn't get the camera to work in landscape mode, so I had to sit down on a bench and work out how to change the orientation. Eventually, I got it set up properly and walked through the centre. 

I arrived at Middleton Hall, where the Christmas display is located, but found it somewhat disappointing. It's all bright, over-coloured lights, with a railway which runs around the perimeter, along with the usual Santa's grotto. All rather tacky, frankly. Usually, this display has a theme, such as Peter Pan, which is what it was some years ago, with a ship, and models of Captain Hook and Peter Pan. However, it has become boring and unimaginative at present.

I started walking back to the car, and as soon as I got outside, toward where the car was parked, it began to rain, although not particularly heavily.

Blow Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks!

Thursday. 8.10 a.m. Another Shakespearean weather quote is used as a blog post title. This time it's from 'King Lear.'

It's been extremely windy all night. I could hear it as I lay awake at around 2 o'clock. But as I write this, it has calmed down.

1.05 p.m. This morning we had the first poetry session, which is part of the U3A. There were only five people there, including myself. The idea is to read poetry you might have written (I haven't, but one Dexter House tenant had.) We took turns reading our favourite poems, taken from a handful of poetry books the two leaders provided. I will have to browse online and possibly print off some pieces for the next session.

Saturday. 8.20 a.m. It's really windy again. The path along which I walk with Alfie when I take him out, which runs alongside Strudwick Drive, has a really wet patch under the trees which overhang. It's not currently raining, but it must have rained overnight, which must have been the cause of the puddles.

1.30 p.m. I had a doctor's appointment at the Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre booked for 10.00 a.m. It was raining quite hard as I drove across Milton Keynes and got to the car park in good time. I was good and put on my face mask, as requested by the surgery and then found that the computerized system was not working so I told the receptionist that I had arrived, which sounds crazy as I was standing directly in front of her (that's me being totally literal if you see what I mean.) I sat and waited and then the doctor came out and called me into his office. He took my blood pressure (131/67 mmHg. Sorry, I don't understand these measurements.) Then my pulse (56 bpm) and I discovered my cholesterol level is 3 mmol! I have to say I'm really pleased, as they tell you it should be less than 5 mmol. It's all my hard work paying off it would seem, drinking cholesterol-busting drinks as well as 2 or 3 easy peelers (small oranges with thin skin) as well as an apple or other fruit. At least 5-a-day, as recommended by the NHS. My weight is currently 104 Kg, which sounds about right for my height and age.

There is a new show on at around 4.30 p.m., immediately before Pointless on BBC 1. It's called 'Make It To Market', and it's about creative people, for example, artists, sculpture, carvers and so on, and how they are mentored and supported to develop their careers and become successful. One artist was on this programme and she used 'Procreate' the painting and drawing software which I have on my iPad. It just goes to show how this can be used to create and design material that can be sold.

I discussed the horrible phlegm which is produced at the back of my throat, and he examined my throat (I had to 'say aah!' when I opened my mouth for him to see. I think that was the first time I've had to do that since I was about 12 years old, so a good many years ago.) He told me there was no inflammation to be seen and that I should drink plenty of water. Generally, it would appear my health is in good order. I also discussed the fact that I can experience fatigue from mid-afternoon onwards, and he told me that would be a result of my taking my medications. 

Sunday. 8.30 a.m. It's decidedly colder this morning. I have a feeling we'll be having more snow.

The Rain It Raineth Every Day

Monday. 3.20 p.m. The weather has changed considerably. This is quite normal for British weather. One day, dry and sunny, the next, pouring with rain. Which it's doing at the moment. If you could hear, which is obvious because you can't, it is raining quite hard. It rained earlier this afternoon and we had quite a heavy downpour around fifteen minutes later, it was dry and sunny, almost as if it hadn't been raining. As the proverb states quite clearly 'nay cast a clout 'til May be out.' Now, whether that refers to the month of May or may the shrub, I don't know. Shakespeare mentions May in the Sonnet 18, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate./Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/And summer's lease hath all too short a date.' As I've discussed in an earlier blog post, Shakespeare uses many weather metaphors in his plays. King Lear and his Fool wander the blasted heath in a howling gale. Feste mentions rain  in Twelfth Night (the title of this post is from one of his songs). The Three Witches in Macbeth talk about ' . . .   foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air.' I could go on.

I am attempting to find some sort of doggy care for Alfie so that I can visit Worcester to see my grandchildren. As you should have read in an earlier post, I didn't go to Worcester as arranged on Friday. I don't want him to go into a kennel. The thought of him being put in a cage upsets me, and it would really upset him. I would prefer him to go to someone who would care for him in their home. I have discovered people who do this through a search online. Having read their requirements and the cost (approximately £25-£30 a day.) they also require owners to have their dogs vaccinated or the vaccines they already have topped up. Further enquiries I have made reveal that this costs around £75, covering kennel cough. It's because you have to protect your dog and other dogs that may be cared for. Just another expense. 

Tuesday. 6.10 a.m. Another mild morning, but not as warm as it has been lately.

2.05 p.m.The excitement is palpable! The bunting is up. A pile of cakes has appeared in the community kitchen. Tea and cakes are ready for the Platinum Jubilee tea party. What more can I say? Nothing. It all gets underway in one hour! Just fancy!

I'm not sure, but I think I might have just heard a thunderclap. Or something very similar to the sound of thunder. The weather is somewhat wet at the moment, so it might very well be thunder. 

4.50 p.m. We've just had the Platinum Jubilee tea party, Plenty of tea, sandwiches and cakes. HM Queen turned up (okay, it was one of the carers who comes into Dexter House, wearing a Queen mask. Funny. Yes. But slightly sinister. The sort of mask often used by bank robbers.  Also, there was a quiz, 19 questions about Her Majesty, and I won, the prize being a box of Thornton's chocolates. So, the second quiz I've won in two weeks. (Okay, the first one I was in a team.) But even so, not bad to have won, and all my reading of the history of the 20th century came in handy. 

12.35 p.m. I've been to Sainsbury's this morning. I have to say that I find it more than a little annoying that they had to move around many items which have been in the same position on the shelves for more or less all the time I have been shopping there, and now some bright spark seems fit to rearrange more or less everything and make it hard to find some things. What is the point of all this? It's just to annoy your local customers and drive them to probably shop elsewhere. There IS no point. Or, if you're going to do it, at least have some sort of sign up to tell you where a particular item has been moved to.

5.00. I've been into the shopping centre to get my hair cut at Central Barbers. I parked where I usually park and no sooner had I parked than the heavens opened and there was a heavy downpour. I, fortunately, had one of my Regatta jackets in the car, which I put on before walking into the shopping centre, but around two minutes later the rain had stopped, and the sun came out.  I had booked online yesterday so at least I knew I had an appointment, and it was paid. I was really surprised how busy it was in the centre. I imagine it's because it's half-term this week in Milton Keynes and the fact the Queen's Platinum Jubilee festivities are this week. A definite sort of atmosphere in the air. Thank goodness, because the country needs some sort of light-heartedness after two years of crazy lockdowns. 

Blow Winds and crack your teeth!

Thursday. 7.50 a.m. Well, the title of this post says it all. The wind has been strong enough to take your head off, making even standing up straight really difficult, but I'm not so sure about the cracking teeth! But I can really imagine how poor old King Lear felt when he was on that blasted heath! Shakespeare uses weather a great deal as metaphors in his plays. In Lear, particularly, it represents Lear's state of mind. Well, I suppose if your daughters were to treat you in the way Goneril, Regan and Cordelia treat him, it's no surprise he's gone off his head and is wandering, literally and physically.

We've just had Storm Dudley crashing through, blowing over trees, tearing roof tiles off houses and generally causing havoc, mostly, it would seem, in the north of England and Scotland. We await the next storm to come in, Eunice. Will she be worse than Dudley? Probably, so batten down the hatches.

7.35 p.m. I am continuing with my writing. I am in the process of a new character. It's strange when I am in the creation process that a character which isn't real can begin to become almost 'real.' I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but you spend so much time imagining this fictional person that you can almost hear their voice and, in some cases, see them. I suppose this is what happens when you read a book, you imagine what the characters are like and the locations in which they live.

Friday. 5.45 a.m. The sound of wind outside has woken me up, so here I am once more working on writing this. I did the washing up at around 2 a.m. and sorted my washing for going in the washing up machine later, as well as the recycling, which is in its sack ready to take out. I have a feeling the wind is going to get stronger as the day progresses.

Watching BBC Breakfast this morning, they had a piece from the Environment Agency telling us how NOT to go near the sea and other places, such as flooded rivers, but then it was all contradicted by one of their reporters (but I think there may have been more, but I didn't keep my television on much longer.) was reporting from Porthcawl. The sea was being whipped up by Storm Eunice, but the gentleman didn't seem to be in the least bothered. So, why do we get a message to keep away one minute and then a reporter doing the exact opposite? This sort of thing has happened so many times over the years on BBC Breakfast. One of the most memorable being during floods somewhere in England, and a reporter actually standing in the water, up to his knees. What sort of message does it send? It's dangerous, so don't do it. Or are BBC reporters immune in some way? Just plain arrogance. Can they not report from a safer position? Or from a studio?

12.35 p.m. It's still windy. I don't mean a slight breeze. I mean a really powerful storm, shaking the branches of the trees I can see from my kitchen window. It's rattling the doors in my flat. I have taken Alfie out briefly, but I'm reluctant to venture out until much later because there's the possibility of trees being blown down or branches falling and hitting us. I will keep an eye on things and decide whether to go out or not. At the moment, probably not.

We did go out, considerably later than normal. It was still howling a gale, but it was necessary for Alfie to go out.

Saturday. 3.40 a.m. Well, would you believe it? I'm here again, in my armchair, in the lounge, having had a shave. I woke up and decided, because I couldn't sleep, to write a bit more of this blog post. The wind has gone, or, at least, Storm Eunice, has gone. It's peaceful, but I know there has been a great deal of damage, to both life and property. The O2, formerly known as the Millennium Dome in London, has been damaged. Great chunks of it's roof, if that's what you term a sort of large tent/dome, have been ripped off, so you can see the interior, and the top section of a spire of a church in Wells in Somerset has fallen off, videoed by someone on their mobile phone, as shown on the television news yesterday evening.

Wild and Windy

 (Thursday) It's blowing a gale outside as I write this at 7a.m. I think even King Lear and his Fool would have had problems on that blasted heath, having to battle this wind. On BBC Breakfast's weather forecast they're saying in some parts of the country the wind speed is in excess of 85m.p.h.

(Friday) It's not as windy this morning, but still chilly.

Because I turned 70 in October I had to reapply for a new Driving Licence. It seemed that the easiest way to deal with this issue was to go to the D.V.L.A. (Driving Vehicle and Licence Agency) and apply there, which I did in September. I was expecting that it would arrive within days, but took into account the fact that they would be working with fewer staff in their office, due to the social distancing regulations for the pandemic. I still hadn't received it up until today, so I decided to try and sort out here it was, so I needed the reference number I was sent via an email and wrote it down, together with my Licence number and then had to find a number which I could ring to, hopefully, discover what was going on. This was extremely difficult to find on their website and when I rang it, I heard a recorded voice and then it ended which was of absolutely no help. I then discovered there was a 'chat bot' which seemed the only alternative to a phone call. It didn't take long to get an agent to respond and I explained what the problem was and it ended with being given another number to ring, which I did. Around a ten minute wait (and the music I had to listen really getting on my nerves.)and when I got through I again explained what my problem was and eventually got told that the licence had been posted out only days after I had applied. So, because I hadn't received the licence, I was informed that a fresh one would be mailed out within the next couple of days and if I didn't receive it to telephone again. I'm just worried that it could have been intercepted by criminals (no doubt someone would be looking out for what they believed would contain a driving licence) and use my data for fraudulent business, no doubt using my ID for illegal use, which is why I needed to get this issue sorted out.

(Saturday) Here I am at 3.20a.m., sitting with my MacBook on my lap, in my armchair in my lounge with the wind howling outside and not able to sleep. It just isn't going to happen so that explains why I'm writing this at the moment, even though there's not much to write about.

7.05a.m. It now not as windy, thankfully.

9.25a.m. I think I might have got the weather wrong. Been out with Alfie for the second time and it's actually as windy as ever. Perhaps it's because the side of the building my flat is, it's far more sheltered from the wind. It was bitterly cold and Alfie was keen to get back inside. The sun keeps on going in and out, as it disappears and reappears behind clouds.

Been into the Centre:MK, the main Milton Keynes shopping centre to meet up with my friend Nick who came over from Northampton by bus, where he lives. We were scheduled to meet at 11a.m. I had to take Alfie out before I left and then drove into the centre of Milton Keynes, parking in my usual car park near The Point. Very few cars so it was easy enough to park, probably because not all the shops in the centre are open. I put my face covering on because you have to wear one in the shopping centre and the shops within it. Big black crows everywhere as I walk through from the carpark. Puts me very much in mind of the Hitchcock film 'The Birds.' They're everywhere, on the ground, in the trees and perched on the roof of the bus shelters and other items of street furniture.

I walk towards Costa which is near Marks and Spencer to wait for Nick to arrive. There's nowhere to sit. All the seating has been removed within the shopping centre. The benches which are dotted around the place, which obviously couldn't be removed, gave been 'blocked' with boards informing you that the bench has been closed off because of social distancing. All right, but when you eventually need a rest from all the walking you have to do to get from one shop and the next, you do occasionally need to sit and rest. When Nick arrived we decided to walk to Starbucks to get coffee and something to eat. On arrival we had to queue as the store was busy, no doubt because it was a Saturday. I ordered a chocolate chip cookie latte and a ham and cheese toastie and we walked around to sit on benches outside near Marks and Spencers. A bit cold and windy but there was nowhere else to sit. A bit difficult to drink and eat walking along but that doesn't matter. We then went into Marks and Spencer, but we had to walk round to the entrance that came out opposite one of the malls. The escalators were not working but we soon realised that it was because non of the floors above were open and the men's department, which we wanted to visit, was on the ground floor and tucked away in a corner and out of the way (why are the men's departments in stores always hidden away and considerably smaller than those for women? It was like a jumble sale, no thought put into presentation and lots of items of clothing shoved on clothing racks. Not the usual Marks and Spencer way of doing things. Nick bought a shirt. I browsed but didn't see anything I liked in the sale.

Nick said he wanted to buy postage stamps, so we walked the length of the shopping centre and crossed over the road going towards the theatre and when we got to the post office we found there was a queue to get in. We had to wait around ten minutes before we could get inside. From there we walked back into the shopping centre to use the toilets and then I walked back to my car because by now all the walking had made me tired and we departed, me to drive home and Nick to remain and then catch his bus back to Northampton

(Monday) Rather cold and windy this morning, which I was not expecting when I took Alfie out earlier. this morning. I've managed to transcribe quite a few pages into word processing, using the speech-to-text function on the iPad. It certainly speeds up the process, although I have to check spelling and some words get mis-heard.

'The rain, it raineth every day'

What a change in the weather! From almost spring-like to howling winds and pouring rain. Typically British I suppose. It's what makes this country the way it is, green, rolling hills and dales. Lushness. Verdant. There is a warning from the Met Office that we're in for severe storms. They've named the storm Doris. So, it's a Doris Day. Nothing to do with the sweet and sugary American actress and songstress of the 1950's and 60's. Snow in Scotland and whirling winds across the rest of England and Wales. Batten down the hatches and settle in for the worst of it.

I've entitled this post using a quote from William Shakespeare. That's from one of Feste's songs from "Twelfth Night" which is one of my favourite plays. There are many more references to weather throughout the Canon. Look at 'King Lear.' 'Blow winds and crack your cheeks.'  At the beginning of 'Macbeth' we meet the Three Weird Sisters. The mood and tone of the play is suggested by their mention of the weather in the opening lines 'When shall we three meet again/ In thunder, lightning or in rain?' In Lear the weather suggests Lear's state of mind. When he's on the heath with the Clown, he's wandering about in a state of madness and the raging wind suggests his state of mind. We are obsessed by weather in this country, probably because the weather is so central to our lives. My father was a farmer and was always going on about the weather, because it was so important to how the farm was run. No good trying to get in the grain harvest if it was pouring with rain. There was one of those old fashioned barometer in the passageway at the rear of the house where we lived. He would go out and tap it and then you'd hear him mumble something on the lines of 'ruddy weather!' or 'Better weather.' Or whatever. I never understood what that was about as a child, but he could be extremely moody and I think now that this was down to the weather. I think I'm similar in some ways. I'm better when it's sunny and bright but become somewhat more moody when it's rainy and wet. Well, if it means you can't get out and about when it's grey, wet and gloomy, it's bound to effect your mood. Also, I think I'm effected by seasonal variations, particularly when the clocks change in October (usually around the time of my birthday) when the clocks go back an hour. It's generally darker and colder which has something to do with it.

As I write this the sun has come out. It's bright and streaming in through the window. I've had to draw the curtains to stop it shining in my eyes. It's shining through the trees along the Redway behind the house and as the branches move it's making the light flicker somewhat annoyingly. Which is why I drew the curtains. It was pouring with rain as I took Carol to work at Milton Keynes Academy earlier but, as I say, it's bright sunshine now. I think the wind has dropped. It just shows how quickly the weather changes.

Working In Theatre- Stage Management Duties-Part 14

During my time working in stage management I had to do a wide range of jobs, doing 'The Book' as I've described elsewhere on here, doing 'props', operating various bits of machinery such as working on the fly floor, but also operating the sound for some shows. Generally you would be given the sound effects ready made up on tape and then merely play them back on cue during the performance, but on some shows I had to actually make up the tapes, using gramophone records and transferring the sound effects onto tape. I had to splice in pieces of coloured tape between the cues so that I could run the tape machines and have the next cue lined up so the tape stopped exactly on the head of the machine so when the cue was given the sound effect would start immediately. Also, you had to make sure the sound came out of the correct speaker on the stage, as some of these speakers were set up around the back of the set so that the sound would seem to be coming from a particular place on the stage. There was house music for when the audience was coming into the theatre for the beginning of the play and was played in the auditorium. There would usually be 'curtain up' music, for the opening of the play and usually, if there were scene changes, music to cover these. The plays I worked on had sort of 'theme music' rather like you get at the beginning of a television play or series. Generally the house lights go down and the lights fade on the  house tabs (stage curtains) and this is when the opening music is faded in and as the curtain rises this music plays out and fades so the play can begin. As I said, most of the sound effects would come from gramophone records. The BBC released some excellent sound effect LP's (this was long before digital recording techniques, CD's, computers and so on.) but sometimes we had to record special sound effects which couldn't be found on an LP or from other sources. We did an Alan Ayckbourn play called "Time and Time Again" which required the sound of a cricket match being played off-stage, so we had to record the sound of a ball hitting a bat, people cheering, clapping and so on, and this was done with some of the actors on stage and recorded directly onto tape. For a Shakespeare production of "King Lear" at Ipswich a specially composed electronic score was composed (this before electronic music was more widely used in theatre or television productions) and my own Akai tape recorder was used in the sound department for this production.
I'm not sure whether I mentioned the one blunder I made when I was sound operator on "Roots" at Ipswich Theatre. I had not set up the tape properly for one cue, and I think I wound the tape on to the wrong cue at one point and instead of  music coming out of a record player which the actress Jenny  Quayle is supposed to put on. She got the sound of rain instead of Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite. I was totally embarrassed by the mistake I had made and had to rush down to the stage and apologise profusely. Unfortunately if you don't concentrate hard on what you're doing on something like that it's easy to made that sort of mistake, particularly on a show when there are so many cues coming thick and fast and not keeping an eye on which cue is lined up on which tape machine (there were two on the sound-deck at Ipswich Theatre.)
On rare occasions members of Stage Management had to appear on stage. I was what was called a Technical A.S.M. which meant I was supposed to be wholly a stage management member, but you could be called upon to fill up the stage in some productions.  Acting A.S.M's were so-called because they did stage management duties but could also be expected to take on minor speaking parts. One of the ways someone who wanted to become an actor could get into the business. I hadn't been at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham for very many months before I was called upon to be a walk-on in A Winter's Tale (no doubt one of the many 'Gentleman' or 'Courtiers' that there are in Shakespeare's plays.) During this I had to be costumed in doublet and hose, including very uncomfortable shoes and at one point during he show myself and another A.S.M. had to kneel on really uncomfortable sort of duck boards on stage, which really hurt my knees, I think in such a position that I had one knee in contact with the floor and the other bent ( a one-knee bend? Is that the right term?) and it was very difficult to keep still without moving so as to 'upstage' the other actors. No speaking or noise came from us during this scene, but I think I got a permanent impression on one or other of the knees which came into contact with the floor! Later in the season they did a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and myself and this other A.S.M. were on stage during the opening scene which had a fight going on between the Montages and the Capulets and we were fighting with staves, which meant actually having to use what were in all intents and purposes sort off broom handles and we were supposed to fight with these staves.

The Rain it raineth every day

The weather has been absolutely awful for the past couple of days. Rain, wind and now the possibility of snow. Actually it has been quite a mild winter up until now. So mild, intact, that I've actually seen new growth, almost like the first signs of spring. I'm not sure whether this is correct, but not what you would expect to see in late January. No doubt if we do get snow and a really hard frost it will kill off any of this greenery.

The title for this post seemed so appropriate, considering the amount of rain we've been having recently. The line comes from one of my favourite plays by Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, and is one of Feste's songs. The first verse from which the quote comes from is as follows:

When that I was a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

I suppose it's not so surprising that he uses weather so much as a metaphor in his plays because in this country our weather plays such a central part in our day-to-day lives and makes the British what they are. You only have to look at the British landscape to see how the weather has made the scenery what it is.

There are plenty of other references to the weather in his plays. In King Lear, Lear wanders aimlessly on the heath with his companion, The Fool, and the following is another quote which has weather in it:

In Act 2 Scene 7 we have the following:

The storm continues to rage. KENT enters in disguise.

The GENTLEMAN enters from a different direction.

KENT: Who's there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMAN: One minded like the weather,

Most uniquely.

KENT: I know you, where's the king?

FIRST GENTLEMAN: Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,

That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,

Which the impious blasts, with eyeless rage,

Catch in their fury and make nothing of;

Strives in his little world of man to out storm

The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. . . . . 

Then Lear has this speech:

Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ungrateful man!

Then, further on in the scene The Clown has one of his songs which seem very similar to Feste's in Twelfth Night. I never know what function he has. Is he like a chorus, commenting on the action within the play? A lot of his songs have a sort of melancholy about them. As for Lear's Clown, he does have a purpose as he helps Lear and sort of counters his masters madness. It interesting that both plays deal with sanity. Infact, thinking about it, Hamlet is probably the most obvious of Shakespeare's plays to deal with madness. Although, is he really mad or is it feigned? As for madness in Twelfth Night, Malvolio's madness is brought about by Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Maria's treatment of him in the Sir Topaz episode.

The song of Lear's Clown I refer to is this:

He that has a little tiny wit,
With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.

It is interesting that Shakespeare uses the weather as a sort of metaphor for Lear's madness. The descriptions of the weather in the play is very much how I would describe the current weather in Britain. Whether it could be used as a metaphor for the current world situation, whether financial, political, moral or whatever is open to question.

It's interesting to note that in television plays, cinema films, novels and other works of literature or creativity how authors and directors use weather as a sort of metaphor, for example rain clouds rushing past, usually in fast-motion (something of a cliche I know.) to represent something doom-laden is about to happen, such as the build-up to some tragedy, the start of a battle or a war, or a character is going to do something horrible such as a murder. Then, sunshine, brightly-lit scenes of countryside, represents happiness, pleasant happening etc. Never was this more obviously used in books by the Brontes, Wuthering Heights is a good example. Or mystery, suggested by fog, mist rising, bats flitting by a full moon with scudding clouds. All a bit corny and obvious, but we know more or less what is going to happen. If you have a miserable character standing by a window and it's raining and the rain is running down the window panes they can be seen to probably represent tears. Again, dreadfully corny. I could do a whole post of cliches. I think I might just do that.