This won't make me many friends: but I harbour at times, evil thoughts favouring the banning of lawns. They are not very wildlife-friendly -- adding-up overall, to what must be a great acreage of monocultures of severely-trimmed grass of essentially one kind; plus, mowing and otherwise tending the things takes up a lot of time and effort which might be used for other purposes. Thoughts are prompted of a passage in the book -- published some three-quarters of a century ago -- The Greeks, by the classical scholar H.D.F. Kitto. Gives a witty, and very readable, coverage of Ancient Greek civilisation; the author muses at one point, on how the A.G.s were able to have the amount of time they did, to devote to generally intellectual and artistic issues. He suggests as part of an answer: life in ancient times -- with much stuff having been invented since then, which maybe improves our quality of life, but also complicates one's day, and eats up time and attention -- was simpler, taking less time-and-attention to deal with; plus the factor of a Mediterranean climate landing people with fewer rigours needing to be coped with, than is the case with us who live further north. He mentions -- tongue-in-cheek, I feel; but his thought here has always appealed to me -- lawn-mowing occupying in a mundane way, many British folk for a fair chunk of their time. Says, a propos, something to the effect of "in a climate such as ours, grass proves to be a significant enemy of intellectual activity".
