I managed to catch the news bulletins yesterday about the fact that Swedish teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg had arrived in Bristol, meaning that the centre of the city was taken over by a reported 30,000 people, mainly schoolchildren and their adoring parents.  I imagine the event came under the heading of `peaceful protest` leaving the police to observe from a discreet distance.  A pretty chaotic day for `ordinary life` in that fair city, I imagine.

As for the sainted Greta herself, she arrived - as you do - in a Nissan Leaf to rapturous applause, took to the front of the march, took to the stage, took the microphone and addressed her assembled disciples.   In her short life she has become something of a phenomenon, ranting away at world leaders, inciting school strikes and in the process being showered with awards from organisations, including the UN, and others who felt it right to recognise what she has achieved and so climb aboard the accelerating bandwagon.

Now what I have said so far might well and understandably be taken to mean that I might not approve of Greta and all her works and there might be a grain of truth in that.  However, I accept that there might be an issue that world leaders need to address, if they are not doing so already, before the Gaia principle - that the earth will look after itself - kicks in and that the world will evolve as it should.

But what troubles me in all of this is the probability that whilst Greta may well be genuine in her beliefs and her anxieties for the future, her followers are running the risk of being more in awe and adulation of the person rather than the message she is giving out.   It`s all turning into a classic example of listening to the singer not the song, in which case I might l have some sympathy for Greta after all if she becomes the story rather than the issues that concern her.  Even so, I might be more persuaded by listening to the considered and more moderate messages from the likes of Sir David Attenborough - a real life grown-up.