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These bottles don't contain fizzy drinks.
They are full of petrol, which people can buy
in small quantities for their mototr bikes.
Health and safety would have a fit. |
This is a tough one, because things change all the time, and
what you write may be out of date by the end of the week. I tend not to put
identifiable dates in fiction, nor do I mention specific sums of money. I think
living through inflation made me think very hard about that! I tend to say that
something would have bought a five bedroom house in Surrey, or cost less than a
litre of milk. I have found the best way to write about issues is to set
something slightly in the future – or in an invented country that bears a
strong resemblance to somewhere else. I was a winner of the South London
Writing competition a long time ago with a story that was set at the height of
Thatcherism. Those that remember will recall Cardboard City on the South Bank, sheltered
by the overhanging walkways, where dozens of homeless congregated. This is an
extract from the story, called
Retrospective:
"...everyone’s heard of the Tower, but it wasn’t quite what I’d expected. The walls
were covered with the most amazing graffiti — words, images, colours, designs,
and the huge expanses of floor were filled with little polystyrene structures,
all different, all individual, each one four square metres of home. They
reminded me of snowflakes — superficially similar, profoundly different, and very,
very White.
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| Fast food outlet. Snakes, rats and egrets. |
‘They’re not all white,’ said Florence, ‘take a look at that
one.’
The owner had torn up little squares of old magazines, stuck
them on to the outside of his computer crate and recreated a sun-lit park. The
trunks of the plane trees were dappled with the distinctive yellow of those diphtheria
leaflets, and the deep-purple shadows were the unmistakable violet of budget condom
packets. It was surprisingly effective, and I stopped to look.
‘There’s a really tremendous one round the corner,’ Florence
told me, so we went to see. The householder had managed to present the illusion
of a window on the side of his box, with a vase of flowers on the sill and
Victorian lace curtains, painstakingly cut from discarded tissue paper. The perspective
of the room’s interior was very clever, and I found myself smiling at a piece
of representational art for the first time in years."
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| The Floating Market. The other side of the houses open onto a river. |
And that all seems remarkably civilised and hygienic, compared to today's topic. Homelessness was a major issue at the time. In the past I’ve
tackled post-menopausal pregnancy, GM crops, and the abuses of the pharmaceutical
companies in the third world. These days it’s global warming and plastic, and
the evidence I have seen with my own eyes whilst travelling abroad has
depressed me so much I can’t summon up the mental reserves to write about them.
Yes, I know I’ve contributed to global warming with my plane travel and car use,
and I wish I could afford an electric vehicle, or the means to travel by solar-powered
boat. I can’t cycle any more due to arthritis, nor can I walk very far at the
moment although hopefully that situation won’t last. I do applaud the
increasing numbers of places, both here and abroad, that arrange facilities for
refilling water bottles. Nevertheless, the rubbish I have seen dumped in Asia
sickens me. I have just got back from Cambodia, a very poor country, and it has
to be the worst example I have ever seen. Here are some photographs, with explanations
of what you are seeing.
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| A road full of rubbish |
I have absolutely no idea how I would write about any of this. And the more I travel throughout Asia, the more despairing I become. The only birds you see are sparrows and pigeons. All the others seem to have been trapped so that they can live in little cages and sing their laments for a more humane world. I have no more immediate plans to travel. Cambodia was also home to the Genocide Museum, The Killing Fields, and the Landmine Museum. Granted, Angkor Wat was the most wonderful temple complex I have ever seen. A major tourist destination, thanks to Tomb Raider, so cleaner than the rest. But it was full of Chinese tour groups, and Cambodia is in hock to China for billions of dollars. And what have the Chinese gained from this relationship? A few islands they can keep in pristine condition, for Chinese holidaymakers. And they've felled 80% of Cambodia's forests in the last ten years, and sent it off to China. Hardwood. The new gold.
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| Sihanoukville - the most depressing city I have ever seen. |
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Note the live electrical cables overhead,
which make good swings for the kiddies. |
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| More rubbish, with motorbike (presumably in working order) |
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