Bad News

And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!
Shakespeare. King Lear, 3,2

Lear is a study of the breakdown the state, the disruption of social order and the deadly consequences for everyone of unwise and immoral leadership. The idea that disorder in human affairs might be mirrored, or foretold by, unusual events in the natural world was not invented by Shakespeare, but it is a powerful idea that he returned to in many plays. Somehow it seems to be inherent in us to believe that the regular and irregular events of geology, astronomy or meteorology connect with our moods, our relationships or our politics. Kings would not launch wars or fleets until their astrologers told them that success was written in the natural signs

It was an iron rule of my childhood that 'dinner' would be on the table at 1pm - not 5 minutes to or past, or my grandfather's displeasure would be made plain. A cooked meal - meat, veg and potatoes - followed by 'pudding': typically apple pie or fruit crumble/sponge or a large jam tart, cut into slices, always served with custard, made from powder, and our own milk, of course. The custard was made in this Pyrex jug, inherited from my mother's kitchen in 1987

Times, and puddings, change. The jug has always been used regularly, but seldom for custard. At Christmas, though, we bought a tub of powder so we could have it with Xmas pudding. This week we turned the last of the Bramley apples into crumble and last night I made custard once more from muscle-memory. This morning, I washed up the jug and took early morning tea back to bed to catch up with news of human affairs

We (even I!) heard an unusual noise downstairs from our bedroom at the other end of the house, but thought little of it, guessing it probably came from the brewery. Only when I unstacked the draining board after breakfast did I discover this - the source of the noise and explicable only by the truism that infrequent events happen all the time. Unless

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(ceridwen asked for a list of the films we saw at the recent festival. If you are interested, they are in my reply on my blip, here )