Of course, CS, I think you're a really cool person! I bet your grass and pond are cool too!

Don't worry - you know I'm a curmudgeonly, argumentative old git. It's just that I'm completely obsessed by plants and wildlife (yes, as well as trad. song).

A couple of hours ago I was fossicking about in one of my favourite local haunts. When I first knew it, about 30 years ago, it was a, more or less, open space. But now it is covered in self-seeded Oak, Ash, Silver Birch, Alder, various Willows, Hawthorn, Rowan, Holly etc., etc. To be honest, it could actually do with a jolly good thinning out to let some light in. Sadly, it will be permanently thinned out when the Metrolink tram system is driven through it as part of a mad scheme to make Manchester Airport the 'Heathrow of the North!' (God help us!). The Metrolink people are promising to plant two trees for every one that they cut down (or is it 5 trees?). They, of course, couldn't give a toss about the environment but think that they have come up with a cheap, simple, glib formula to get them off the 'hook' of their duty to conserve biodiversity. It was things like this which made me begin to suspect that tree planting is not really a solution for anything - but actually a part of the problem.