Gus Carter

I’ve always wanted children. Friends sometimes tease me about my broodiness, apparently uncommon among single 29-year-old men. But unless I’ve accidentally knocked someone up in the past few months, I’m going to be an older parent than mine were by the time they had me. I suppose that’s normal. The average age at which couples start a family has risen consistently since the mid-1970s. I’m told not to worry: look at Mick Jagger, whose youngest child was born when he was 73. Men don’t suffer from the same biological restraints as women. One acquaintance insists rather admirably that she’s going to have children by 25, regardless of the consequences. She also insisted on smelling me to test my pheromones and, therefore, our compatibility.

Pope Francis wants you to have sex. Or at least he wants Italians to have more sex. The country, he says, is facing a ‘Titanic struggle’ against demographic doom. Last year, the population dropped by 179,000 people – and Italy is projected to lose another five million by 2050.  What’s happening in Italy is, to a greater or lesser extent, being repeated across the western world. In the UK in 2020, there were four workers per retiree. By 2041, the ONS projects there will be just three. We’re getting older, there are fewer of us and, all other things being equal, we’ll poorer for it. Either we tax the declining population more to maintain the same level of welfare or we will have to cut back on things like care and pensions.

All hail our pagan King! The time has come to lay down your crosses and take up the bough of oak. Britain is to return to the old ways – at least if you are to believe the conspiracy theorists, who were distressed to see, on the bottom of the coronation invitation sent out last week, the face of a green man staring back at them. His eyes are bright, his mouth exudes fronds of ivy – the green man calls to us. Depending on your particular view of the world, his inclusion is either an affront to Christian decency or a jolly salute to our monarch’s peculiarities. The green man is a playfully sinister envoy of the otherworldly. His face, either made entirely of leaves or a fleshy human screaming forth foliage, is carved into hundreds of parish churches.

Masculinity has been in crisis for as long as anyone can remember. The usual explanation is that post-industrial society doesn’t much care for brawn. We’re all office dwellers now, mutely churning out spreadsheets for other spreadsheet producers. The theory makes sense as far as it goes. But something else has changed much more recently: a rejection of the very concept of masculinity. The polling company YouGov found that just 8 per cent of people have positive views of white men in their twenties, by far the lowest of any ethnicity or age group. Males are routinely presented as inherently dangerous, aggressive and animalistic, incapable of controlling their own instincts. You can see it on public transport, where government adverts announce that staring is sexual harassment.

The Blean is just north of Canterbury. It’s ancient woodland – mentioned by a couple of Chaucer’s pilgrims – now managed by a conglomerate of well-meaning wildlife trusts and charities. Drive through a small industrial estate and past a garage and you’ll reach the visitors’ centre. Beyond that is bison country. Four wild European bison now roam the 50 hectares of woodland and scrub, merrily smashing through young birch trees and tearing up the earth. They have been introduced as part of a rewilding project. The latest, the first male of the herd, was brought over from Germany two days before Christmas. Rewilding is controversial and easily mocked.

There’s an advert for cruise holidays on television at the moment. It’s all dolphins and dining halls and laughing women flashing their teeth. Above the tinkly swelling music is a familiar voice. It's the kind of clear English accent that might remind you of a compelling history teacher or vicar. ‘I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream any dream you wanted to dream,’ he says. ‘You would, I suppose, start out by fulfilling all your wishes, love affairs, banquets, wonderful journeys. And after you’d done that for some time, you’d forget that you were dreaming.’  The voice belongs to Alan Watts. He’s a strange choice for a cruise advertisement.