All The World's A Stage

A tray of newly picked lettuce leaves ready for bagging up

In the first two minutes of sitting down at my computer on Monday evening I discovered that (1) Shell had decided to quit drilling for oil in the Arctic, (2) evidence for liquid water had been found on Mars, and (3) Facebook was down again, so I couldn't share any of the first two exciting bits of news on my favoured social media network. I thought instead I'd let you all know via the medium of this blog which has the advantage of allowing me to write the news in my very own words rather than simply posting links, but with the slight drawback that I'm not publishing the blogpost till Wednesday (official Mattswanoffgrid policy I'm afraid.) So that's why I'm so excited about what by now is two-day-old news.

However what you will be hearing for the first time here is the shocking truth that these two news articles are in fact linked. Shell only has so much budget to spend on damaging pristine environments but up till now was quite happy with its strategy of permanently scarring the northern icy cap of our planet. But suddenly the news broke in Nature Geoscience that there is water flowing on Mars. The top brass at Shell were unanimous. This was where they should be focusing their efforts. Imagine being in sole control of the supply of Martian spring water! Forget dirty oil, it'll all be gone soon enough anyway. Shell must get themselves into the extraterrestrial mineral water business to see its future into the 22nd century assured. The Greenpeace activists are going to have to get in some spacewalk training.

These are probably the only four of my red cabbages which will come to anything

In a way I was doing my own bit of activism last Wednesday on the windswept streets of Machynlleth. It was an “anti-austerity” event that had a slightly impromptu feel to it. A chap with a guitar was belting out protest songs into a microphone, a lady next to him was blowing huge bubbles that drifted ungainly over the heads of the shoppers before hitting a tree and popping. And then, at 11, a piece of street theatre materialised next to them. I was in it wearing a white robe.

The drama was a re-imagining of the story of the Good Samaritan from the Bible. In short, two people ignore a beaten-up man by the side of the road, and a third helps him. The twist is that the first two are both religious types whereas the third is a despised foreigner (a Samaritan) who the original audience would never have expected to have helped one of them, a Jew, under any circumstance. The re-enactment went further than the Bible story and gave the characters a chance to defend their actions to Jesus (who was played by, guess who.) They poured scorn on the “Love your neighbour as yourself” message. The Samaritan flew into a rage at their “me first” philosophy and their fear of stepping out of comfort zones. Jesus didn't condemn but opened his arms to each of them.

A female squash flower waiting to be pollinated by a male flower. Sadly none of the male flowers have opened up at the same time.

In these times of government spending cuts many people are struggling to make ends meet. At the same time refugees are desperately trying to escape war and starvation. I've met people in Machynlleth who have cycled to Calais and given refugees their bicycles. Another friend gave up part of her holiday in Bupaest to help with handing out provisions to migrants. Surely these are the modern-day Samaritans.

Stop press! Crab apples found on Mars.