Greta

George Orwell said, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.” Greta Thunberg and her near constant presence in the news often feels like being repeatedly stamped in the face. She’s so devoid of humour that if she went on a TV panel show it would like watching Richard Hammond drive Lady Diana.

Her steely gaze and silent judgment have recently been emblazoned across buildings in San Francisco and Bristol, to remind us if we choose to disobey her will, we’ll all be dead. They project into my mind a future where schoolchildren are incinerated for littering by her laser vision.

Presumably, money for the murals was raised by ‘uncooperative crusties’ wearing abrasive hemp-based garments and dreadlocks. Typically left-leaning people who genuinely believe that a large painting can make any meaningful contribution to tackling the climate crisis. Notably, the San Francisco project was drawn by Enrique Iglesias’ relative, Andres Iglesias, a man who has the haircut and facial topiary of someone who manages a grooming gang – not the hero we need now.

Daily Mail readers haven’t been won over by the murals. They’d rather have their faces spray-painted with acid, or have petroleum forcefully piped into their arseholes, or worse, watch the all-female remake of Ghostbusters. One man wearing aviators in his thumbnail and holding a racist Jack Russell was allegedly heard saying if they didn’t scrap the mural then he’d be forced to send a strongly worded tweet to the local council.

I am worried that putting so much expectation on one girl can only end in disappointment. The pressure she feels must only matched by her fear of ecological collapse. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Has she done enough in your view to deserve it?

Eventually, every town in the country will have a mural. Once we have all been submerged by rising glacial sea levels, the only thing left watching the irradiated fish mutants will be the dead-eyed glare of our future queen. She has become the last vestige of our hope and a symbol of our collective power to change the world. Instead we’ve let her be interviewed by Ellen DeGeneres.