A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! More like a garden is a lovesome thing – not! I’ve spent far too much of today cutting grass – with a pair of secateurs. I can’t begin to tell you how much I have loathed the whole experience, and I would like to take this opportunity to tell Poldark what he can do with his scythe…. I always suspected that gardening is not for me, and now I have proof. A more singularly pointless exercise, I cannot imagine. Having previously lived in flats, I have not had to deal with all this palaver before. Parks, woods, huge landscaped Capability-Brown-fests, I love them – as long as some other poor fool is doing the grunt work. Faffing around with garden plans, flower pots, herb gardens, all excellent. Weeding and cutting grass, not so much. The whole enterprise is that most awful worst of both worlds: time-consuming and boring. I would have gladly kept on ignoring the wretched plot but it was beginning to look a little ‘Day of the Triffids’. It was only a matter of time before my neighbours started a petition. If I’d had a tree in the blasted garden, I would have contemplated hanging myself from it. But no, all there is is blasted grass as far as the eye can see. To paraphrase Sir Thomas Beecham, “You should try everything once except incest, morris dancing, and gardening.”

I now have a new theory that it was cutting the grass that tipped Adam and Eve over the edge, although selling the whole of humankind down the river just for a bit of novelty is a bit much. What I like is cities, pavements, bars, restaurants, manicured gardens maintained by people who are not me. You get the idea, I’m sure. Maximum kudos to all farmers everywhere. I know they have machines etc to help, but it’s still my idea of a living hell, with extra dust. I am definitely a town mouse, no doubt about it.

It reminds me of one of my favourite Talking Heads songs, Nothing (But Flowers):

There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
You got it, you got it
We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
We got it, we got it
There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
You've got it, you've got it
If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
You've got it, you've got it

Years ago I was an angry young man
I'd pretend that I was a billboard
Standing tall by the side of the road
I fell in love with a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers

   The highways and cars
   Were sacrificed for agriculture
   I thought that we'd start over
   But I guess I was wrong

That song always makes me laugh. It’s the ultimate anti-eco song. I used to love planting stuff as a child but I now realise that it’s the biology I like – the magic of germination, creating a plant from seed. I planted a thriving orange tree and a thriving mango tree when I was a kid. I also grew some maize but my father made me cut it all down as growing maize was not comme il faut. No, me neither; all parents are crazy. Still, now the wretched grass has been cut, I am looking forward to the bit I like – flowers, planters, herbs. I’m considering a mini apothecary garden. It’ll be awesome. In the meantime, here are some of my favourite builldings, with nary a blade of grass in sight. As for smokable grass, just say no. That stuff will make you psychotic. Only if you are unlucky, you say? Tell me this, have you won the lottery even once? How lucky do you think you are, really? Exactly. In the meantime, I will be looking for plants that smell of diesel fumes and nitrogen oxides; all the lovely stuff that makes London so great to live in. Just kidding 🙂 As penance, I leave you with Thomas Edward Brown:

A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,

Ferned grot,

The veriest school of Peace; and yet the fool contends that God is not—

Not God! in Gardens! when the eve is cool?

Nay, but I have a sign:

‘Tis very sure God walks in mine.

Wishing you all a cool, scented arbour when the going gets tough. Pip pip.

(Photos: Wolof Building, Senegal; Church of St George, Lalibela;  Chrysler Building, NY; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Guggenheim Museum, NY)

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

In a week remarkable for its examples of human perfidy and treachery, I have been cheered up immensely by my scientific friends. Yep, eggheads to the rescue once again. Step forward,  Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria who discovered that the Greater Wax Moth loves nothing better than to chomp on polyethylene. This opens up the possibility that scientists can isolate the chemical/enzyme that the moth employs, thereby helping us to consume the Everest of plastic rubbish that we so carelessly dump all over our planet. The ridiculous idea perpetrated in the media that it takes 100 years (or is a 1000?) for one plastic carrier bag to be degraded is of course laughable as anyone with eyes can see. Walking around London, I have often seen carrier bags doing their American Beauty thing in the parks, and they are reduced to debris in much less than 100 years. Furthermore, a little experiment of your own will prove me right. Put one of these bags in a very dry and warm environment (say a kitchen drawer!) and the little suckers are reduced to friable dust in no time.

Next is Richard Browning who is a scientist in the old sense of the word — an inventor who dabbles privately in the mould of Faraday, Newton, Curie  and the other guys and gals in the band. He has finally invented the jet boots I’ve been waiting for all my life. We’ve been promised boots that will help us to fly for aeons, and the scientists have badly let us down, concentrating on trifles like curing disease and providing heating, water and avocado on toast. Pah! What we want is the jet boots promised in renowned scientific journals such as DC and Marvel Comics. Mr Browning comes from the long line of nutters who will blow themselves up just to see if their crazy gadget works, and I salute him for it. From Pasteur testing penicillin on himself and his unsuspecting nearest and dearest, to Jenner and his dodgy smallpox trials, not leaving out Marie Curie who sadly died of radiation poisoning, these are the people who advance the human race in leaps and bounds, often taking their lives in their hands. The Guardian is needless to say very unhappy about this kind of thing, preferring their Malthusian doom and gloom version, informing us that these moths will take over the world and kill every bee and insect. Woe, woe, and thrice woe! Er, no not really. I’m pretty sure that if the tests work, the plan isn’t to release millions of them into the wild, devouring all plastic as they move across the earth. Perhaps we may try using them in recycling plants instead assuming the enzymes/chemicals can’t be isolated – just a thought, geniuses.

So, science to the rescue. That’s my boys, and gals. Pure science doesn’t lie or cheat, although scientists may do so, finessing those figures a little bit…..That is the whole point of science, to rescue us from as much chaos as it can, and leave the stuff it can’t sort to God. Of course at least half the problems threatening the earth are caused by misapplied knowledge, and doubtless the greatest threat to the planet will probably be due to some maniac who decides to build a doomsday machine, just to see what will happen 🙂 Still I think we can all agree that Armageddon is a small price to pay for jet-propulsion boots. No? Well, please yourselves 🙂 Have a terrific, supersonic weekend.