As you know if you are a regular here, I am an out-and-out card-carrying atheist so I wouldn’t normally go a bundle on stuff from the bible but I do believe that ‘you reap what you sow’ in life.

I seem to recall a parable about seed and how if you sow it widely, some falls on stony ground and some falls on fertile ground. This does all seem like good common sense to me – like many of the so-called bible stories – I think a lot of them are just common-or-garden good sense or good morals.

So, the reason for this preamble is that I’ve been thinking about the sense of scattering seed and seeing what happens. I’ve been doing it since Christmas and while some has definitely fallen on stony ground, some is undoubtedly growing. At long last. Just one or two of the time-investments I’ve made have shown a little tiny bit of return – some green, poking through the soil of my existence. Hurrah.

Today then, while I was driving to a meeting (jeepers, it’s quite surprising how quickly you get out of the habit of driving – it’s scary), I heard a thingy on Radio 4 where a ‘scary scientist’ was talking about how we are in the dark ages compared to other countries with regard to sowing (and therefore reaping what we sow) GM crops.

Bloody marvellous I say. I don’t want to eat GM foods. I don’t want them contaminating my own crops and I certainly don’t want any of my loved ones or animals eating them. Frankly, you can keep it all. You reap what you sow. Remember mad cow disease – yep – you do something against nature, like force-feeding vegetarian animals meat products and you pay the price.

I hope that we stay in the ‘dark ages’ for a long time to come. I hope the will of the people continues to stop the government from granting licences to people who want to produce ‘Frankenstein food’. Every now and again, common sense can prevail.

Last year, I took a portrait of a man with a harp!