THEODORE DALRYMPLE
Theodore Dalrymple begins a new column — on globalisation, moronic technology and modernity in general.
The environment is what we all live in, of course, but to judge by their behaviour the British don’t think much of it. They can’t see an open space, or a landscape, without throwing a plastic bottle or a tin can at it. Our trees are like Ophelia in the brook, except that they are not with weedy trophies hung, but with plastic bags.
The main reason for this is that no young Briton is able to go further than 100 yards or longer than ten minutes without refreshing himself. We are a nation of Pooh Bears; it is always time for a little something. I was astonished recently when examining medical students to see them arrive in the examination hall each with a bottle of mineral water, mostly provided with a top that looked uncommonly like a baby’s dummy.
Now I know that the United Nations has warned that whole continents will soon be draught-stricken, at least between floods, but surely medical students — who, after all, have studied physiology — cannot really fear dehydration in the course of a 15minute viva voce in an examination hall in the middle of what, for the moment, remains our damp little island.
What would they do, these students, with their bottles once they had finished with them? If the state of our island is anything to go by — on a recent drive from London to Glasgow I found that the roadside had been strewn with the detritus of light collations almost every yard of the way they would dispose of them in the same way that sheep and cows dispose of their droppings in a field, that is to say unconsciously, carelessly, without thought.
A few of them, no doubt, might have approached a litter bin; but observation of the behaviour of young Britons leads me to conclude that they have only a very vague idea of what such bins are for, in the manner of a name that rings a faint bell but conjures up no concrete imagery. They would, therefore, have approached a litter bin and dropped their bottles on the ground just before reaching it.
Of course, they would all be very worried about global warming, with an ardent desire to save the planet, their attitude to which is that of a child to a bird with a broken wing, or to a soft toy with which its relations are so much more gratifying than with sentient beings, particularly humans.
A few weeks before going to Glasgow, I had visited Eastbourne. The very name conjures up the Zimmer frame, the wheelchairs and the commode. I loved it.
Old people walked along the sea promenade and sat on the benches given in memoriam to their predecessors. They looked out to sea and were content to be alone with their thoughts. They did not pollute their ears with rock music, nor did they eat or drink. They left no litter, though they were numerous. It was unthinkable to them that they should.
They were not saving the plant, they were behaving well. Let us, then, have fewer ideals and more common decency. As for Mr Brown, if he wants to do something for the environment, he could destroy the packaging industry. He knows how, after all.
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