I'M not sure that being green is all its cracked up to be.Everywhere you go you're bombarded with messages about “the environment” and “being green”.

I'M not sure that being green is all its cracked up to be.

Everywhere you go you're bombarded with messages about “the environment” and “being green”.

Well I've just about had enough of it, so today I am taking a (rarely-serious) look at eco issues.

Anyone with a smattering of knowledge about world history will know that temperatures rise and fall. Our human story is one of a few leaps forward and a few steps back; the Stone Age, the Iron Age the Bronze Age - the Oil Age. All represented great leaps forward in the history of mankind.

But it seems to me that our total and utter reliance on oil as the basis for our civilisation ,is somewhat rash.

The oil will one day run out, it won't last forever. Indeed, I think we are already beginning to realise this and we are already invading other countries to secure supplies of the resource.

It's not something that keeps me up at night, but it occurred to me this week that once the oil has run out, once this precious resource has gone then, without the introduction of a new technology, our way of live will no longer exist.

History shows us that civilisations come and go and it would be highly arrogant to think that our civilisation will last and develop indefinitely. We are now too reliant on one resource that backs it all up.

So if this assumption is the case and assuming the oil does run out before a new technology is developed to replace it, then we will have little choice but to return to the middle ages.

Selfishly I admit I'd dead by then - hopefully.

In the meantime I'm not going to lose too much sleep either about the environment nor the war in Iraq.

In fact, I have no trouble going to war to secure a resource. It's what mankind has done throughout its history, and it's useless to deny it won't happen again.

So I'm going to ignore all this advice about begin green, recycling a bottle of wine, reducing one's carbon footprint - whatever that is.

I don't recycle anyway as I don't have a selection of different coloured bins and even if I did I know the human race has survived ice ages and global warming in the past so why shouldn't future generations?

Sitting in my little Ipswich sitting room, pondering over this question, I made a few decisions.

I'm going to:

Take as many cheap flights as I can - I want to see the world and mine is the first generation that is really able to at a mass level.

Drive in my comfortable blue car that takes me direct to my destination with radio and heater - if the oil is there I shall use it.

Ignore the hypocritical musings of politicians, at all levels who travel all over the world in luxury at the drop of a hat. Even the mayor of Ipswich has quite one of the biggest cars in town at his disposal. Does he take the bus? I don't know but I doubt it.

Leave my lights on if I want to - everywhere you go there are street lights so why shouldn't I light up my house?

Buy some sun cream.

What will you do? Will you stop driving or flying abroad? Will you stop using electricity to heat your home? Will you sort your rubbish in the vain hope we won't be subject to a hosepipe ban?

Will you write to me? at 30, Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, Suffolk IP4 1AN.

ISN'T Woodbridge a lovely place?

I went there on Saturday to escape the hoards that now descend on Ipswich town centre every weekend making it intolerably unpleasant and impossibly ghastly.

I perused the charity shops, bought an antique candelabra and managed to pick up a book on Charles and Camilla.

As regular readers well know I think she's a nice lady. I like all the royals.

So I'm learning about her and her family at the moment. She was related to Charles II apparently.

IT'S frightfully fraught at the moment at the Ipswich horribly Operatic and fearfully Dramatic Society.

On Sunday we rehearsed our forthcoming production Titanic, on the stage of The Regent.

I can't pitch my high notes

I forgot to take my sandwiches.

Helen my Evening Star colleague isn't happy about her costume

James the affable director has stopped being affable and is cracking the whip.

At the moment, act one takes longer than it took the great ship of dreams to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.

I'm sure it will be all right on the night though.

PS Why is Helen Mirren winning everything all the time? I want a BAFTA.