The fields have taken on a complex shade of dark brown interleaved with the even more sombre looking trees. What a contrast from the long sunlight of the summer but beautiful in its own way.

Snowdrops and so far just one crocus testify to the slowly lengthening days and the oddly unseasonal warmth after last week's snow. The rooks have taken to moving around in great parliaments as they examine each freshly plowed field in minute detail. It is a time for reflection and for not straying too far from home.

Why I wonder is the human race seemingly so hell bent on its own destruction? Amongst the latest threats, and it is a very real one, is avian flu, similar to the one that at the end of WWI killed millions of people all over the world.

After AIDS and SARS and Anthrax and Ricin and inummerable plagues, you would think that we could have developed sufficient defenses, as well as practical measures to prevent these threats. Apparently not. This latest genetic hybrid between human and bird DNA, generated yet again in South East Asia where there seem to be more chickens than people, is set to rampage around the globe, aided and abetted by cheap air travel and the usual human propensity for passing the worst things onto our neighbours.

Increasing populations, increasing disparity between the 'rich' and 'poor', and a desparate rush to some biological, biochemical or bioterrorist armageddon are all contributing to a situation where sooner or later some plague of epic proportions will wipe the slate clean and whatever is left can start again.

To cap it all, the news this week that Pakistan has happily pardoned its chief nuclear scientist who has been gaily selling off the secrets of how to make a nuclear bomb to anyone daft enough to pay him for them, comes as no surprise whatsoever. Of course the Pakistani military were (are) still up to their eyes in the affair and does that surprise us? I don't think so. Is it any wonder we can't catch old Bin Liner in a country apparently run like a twopenny bazaar? But America won't kick up a big fuss, nor will Britain, and South Korea will probably send the chap a medal.

Let's face it folks, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. I remember in the not too distant past when a mathematician friend of mine used to joke that the only really safe way to travel by air was to take your own bomb along with you, since the probability of there being one bomb on an aeroplane was already tiny, the probability of there being two was vanishingly small! Nowadays even joking about such things would probably be enough to get you locked up in Miami for a whole week!

And finally I come to the fascinating spectacle of the American Democrats sorting out who Bush is going to beat to get re-elected.

So far, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it looks like a case of the improbable in pursuit of the impossible, or perhaps vice versa? The best thing that can be said of politicians is that they are incredible, which my version of the dictionary defines with the one word - unbelievable.