State of the nation

[nellybeeatch]

"Brits live in hutches on a petrol station forecourt at the edge of a hypermarket car park or an airport. They seem to like it there. They eat a slurry of reclaimed meat. A few hundred yards away it’s possible to see, through the fog of diesel particulates, an eight lane road along which race the nondoms & celebrities in their SUVs, off to view their money in another country. That’s the entertainment. Behaviour is controlled by cctv & peer pressure, mediated by liars who regularly tap phones & supply the results to the police. The rules are simple. Actually, there’s only the one, & when it’s delivered, it’s delivered in a dead but somehow startled tone: if you want anything better you have to pay more. Quality of life-quality of anything-is a feature of the premium package, not the one you signed for. I don’t think you’ll find it says anywhere that you’ll actually get the thing the ad said we were selling."

-The inimitable M. John Harrison.