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They made me feel (almost) young.

All week, Central London has been inconvenienced by climate change “protestors”. I saw them everyday “occupying” Oxford Circus and a less threatening bunch of “revolutionaries” would be hard to imagine. They were solidly middle-class but what was most striking about them was how old they were. Most looked like retired polytechnic lecturers – average age about 64. And given their demographic, I’d bet my life they were all Joni Mitchell fans. I half expected the straw-haired old squawker to totter out with her guitar and give us a version of this. The irony of wanting to reduce air pollution by causing monumental traffic jams and making it considerably worse seemed to be lost on them. As one amiable old duffer explained to me, they want to get everyone out of their cars and on to public transport. But it’s all right for them. They’ve all got free bus passes.

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