The Somerset Levels flood disaster was hugely exacerbated by the fact that the main drains were heavily silted. That is the result of poor farming practices leading to soil erosion. The taxpayer then has to subsidise farming (again!) by paying for the dredging. You don't have to drive far from here to see fields left bare all winter, ready for the next sowing of maize. Disastrous. Soils lacking organic matter need greater and greater inputs of polluting artificial fertilisers. Monoculture means herbicides. What the farmers round here call blackgrass is a menace that can only be controlled by the most vicious herbicides. It also means a constant war against pests, the latest nuclear option being neonicotinoid insecticides which are systemic, killing bees and working up the food chain. Enjoy your breakfast. Songbird populations are being devastated by bad farming practices. I know one farmer a mile or two from here who has farmed all his life who doesn't know one bird from another nor one wild flower from another. The big farm down the road has built a large cafe with a lake in front of it and calls itself a "wildlife centre" (well, I suppose he has some very nice pictures of wildlife on his walls, most of which wildlife you'll have to get off his farm if you want to see any of it). You can walk across his huge fields in summer if you don't mind labouring through tedious groves of maize, linseed or oilseed rape. At least you can still see the sea in the distance. You won't see a butterfly or hear a bird singing in any of those fields. You might get lucky and see the odd wildflower poking out of one of the few stone walls that are left.

The house I live in is my house. I bought it and I love it. It now has a new roof and better windows than when we moved in and I've transformed my garden from an open field into a tree, shrub and flower-filled paradise for wildlife and a nice place to sit out in summer. I grow tomatoes and cucumbers in my greenhouse and I grow a lot of my own veg. I have occasion to visit people who live in privately-rented houses. The fixtures and fittings are selected for utility and cheapness, aesthetic considerations coming a very poor third. The "gardens" are patches of grass which are seldom cut often enough to keep them looking healthy, and the houses and gardens in the street are all the same. They are houses, not homes. No-one loves them and they are really just there to provide profits for landlords in order to give them "returns on their investment." They charge whatever rent they like and can kick out their tenant at a month's notice. If repairs are need the landlord is generally reluctant to cough up and the tenant, despite paying a thousand a month or more, will generally have a lot of hassle before anything gets done. At the end of the tenancy the landlord will do his level best to find excuses not to return the tensnt's deposit.

If you own your house, or your farm, you will have to love it if you want to make it even better than when you first took it on. The hard work you do will all be on your own behalf. If you're a tenant, and someone you hardly ever see owns the house or land, you won't love it because it will never actually be yours. If you look after it well it will be out of a sense of duty or misplaced loyalty to the squire, or because you're scared that he'll throw you out. This isn't just modern life, it's always been like this and look at the state of the place. If you ever drive on the road that goes past Stonehenge as I sometimes do, force yourself to look at the soulless countryside, run by the barley barons who get enough in subsidies to buy my house once a year. Those ancient Britons, who actually understood the land, if they could see what we've done would certainly have some suggestions, probably stated in very fruity language, as to what we could do with our "progress."