Who knew that Australia possesses the last surviving crop seeds of certain varieties of Lebanese chickpea? Sparing us the nightmare scenario of a future devoid of farting hippies, Australian farmer and scientist Dr Tony Gregson has preserved these and other seed samples in the Arctic environs of that mother-of-all spice racks, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway.

But seeds? Snow? Doom? (Okay, doom in the sense of ‘doomsday, prepar­ation for’, but still.)