Snow, ice and Shakespeare

I’ve been very much influenced by a book by Jared Diamond, called “Collapse”. In it he discusses the reasons for the complete collapse of some societies (for example, the Mayans, and of course, Easter Island) and the reasons for the survival of others.

One of the things he discusses is the question of what went through the head of the Easter Islander who chopped down the very last tree. Of course, Diamond says, he would not think much about it – he wouldn’t know that the island had been forested, or realise that forest might be important for things other than the supply of wood. Chopping down the last tree – which by that time, probably wouldn’t have been much of a tree anyway - wouldn’t have seemed a big deal at all.

Well, this is what worries me. People of my generation know that there’s something gone badly wrong with the climate, because we can remember what it used to like, and are aware, not just of the degree of change, but of the speed with which it has occurred.  People who deny climate change tend to argue that the earth’s climate varies and changes naturally. Well, of course they are right in that – but can they quote any other time in the earth’s history where the change has been so fast?  I’m quite sure they can’t.

On top of that, we keep being told that the way to economic  recovery  is for us all to go out and spend money (“consumer confidence”) and then we’ll return to growth. Has any one at all thought that we can’t go on growing ad infinitum? We’ll need several more planets to exploit for that to be possible. And has anyone pointed out that spending money, on things we don’t really need – sometimes don’t even want that much – does not make people happy or fulfilled? It depresses the life out of me already, that when we get up early on a Sunday morning to go walking in Derbyshire, which is good for body and soul and costs next to nothing, the only busy spot is the car boot sale as you go into Derby. People can’t get up to take exercise and enjoy peace and beauty, but they damn well can get up to spend money on stuff they don’t need.

That’s my rant over, so now I can tell you about two more Shakespeare plays to tick off. We saw The Winter’s Tale, which actually we’d seen before, but this production included Morris dancing, which we certainly enjoyed. And we saw Hamlet, at Stratford. I’ve seen it twice before, but Phil hadn’t. It was very good – we were both absolutely gripped for the whole three and a half hours. Greg Hicks as Claudius, was wonderful. Slightly less sure about Hamlet, but I always think they choose too old an actor. I can see why, given the demands of the part and the verse speaking alone – but I do think that Hamlet’s predicament is more believable for a young man who doesn’t know himself yet, and whose relationships are still rather immature. He grows up during the play too, and that’s more believable if he’s a young man to start with. Still, a super afternoon.

And to return to my original point, there was ice on the Avon, on March 30^th, and it snowed a little.