Fellow travellers, sometimes events or developments that I read about in the media cause me great joy. Others cause me deep consternation. And sometimes I experience both these reactions simultaneously!

Take this article, for example. It describes a new book about how to make your sex life more green and sustainable. Part of me is greatly heartened by this evidence of greater environmental awareness. But another part of me is quite shocked. The phallus is a tool of oppression, after all! Surely more spiritual modes of love-making are to be preferred - like lying together in an isolation tank, for instance.