Walking Past the Killing Ground.

I took another little train trip to Derby today. The walk up to the city centre from the station is only about half a mile, and part of it used to pass through an avenue of trees. Not any more.  Every single one of them has been razed with indecent precision to within a foot of the ground by a chain saw. I counted forty stumps.

To somebody who loves trees the way I do, it was a scene of mass execution of the innocents. There were men erecting supports for hoardings to be nailed onto, and I wondered whether the reason for such carnage was justified. To somebody who has as little regard for the material preoccupations of western man as I do, I very much doubt it.