Nobody does it better

During Terence Stamp's summing up speech at Live Earth, I very nearly lost the will to live - a self-defeating performance by the actor, given that the whole point of the concert was to rev up our collective instinct for survival. Five minutes in to Terry's oration, we were longing for a nearby glacier to melt, become a tidal wave and put us out of our misery. How did Michael Caine put up with him as a flatmate for so long? How did they bear it on the set of Superman 2? Just as it seemed that climatic catastrophe could not come too soon, he at last handed over to Madonna, rather in the manner of a pier-end compere well past his best introducing the Krankies. But it takes more than a dreary thespian knight to put the dampeners on Madge who was in sparkling form. After a run-through of her official Live Earth song, she launched into a flawless medley: 'Ray of Light', 'La Isla Bonita' and 'Hung up on You'. Nobody does this particular hi-energy act quite as well: she remains unsurpassed and inimitable. Tonight, in the city that has claimed her as its own, she was the unchallenged Queen of Green. We had started, she said, an 'avalanche of awareness'. Well, we'll see. But these concerts will certainly leave behind a very respectable global snowdrift.