Bring me my spears

ROUGH winds do shake the darling buds of May.’ Never were Shakespeare’s words more apt, as warm H. E. Bates bucolia is replaced by chill J. G. Ballard dystopia. This should be the month of hope, happiness and soft breezes, when, in Thomas Malory’s eternal words, ‘every lusty heart beginneth to blossom’ and the meagre months are put behind us. When sweet buds explode into bloom, green shoots become succulent