Every morning as I go to work, I pass by an ancient failure of mine, which never does anything to perk me up. If you are going to be an environmentalist in a city, it is important to have a short memory. 20 years ago, I was part of a fight to save the last old meadowland in the heart of the city, a few acres of lovely ground right on the edge of a ravine. As with many of these places, it was owned by a school, and they needed to sell it to build new facililties -- my own university is in the process of selling off all its remaining downtown green space for the same reason. We fought it all the way to the final hurdle, and then lost to a man who owned the Minister in charge. Where there was once meadown is now a truly ugly grey condominium. When I pass by, I often remember the sound of the wind in the late summer as it passed over the meadow. And I remember in particular one winter day when I had just been at an exhibition of Van Gogh's brown pen and ink drawings, and found myself walking in the snow surrounded by sketches of dead wildflowers, high meadowweeds, withered thorns poking out through the white. I am fond of the city: but this scene always reminds me of the natural ghosts that lie whispering under the miles of concrete, only recollected, if at all, by someone who was there before the new foundations were poured.