Stopped reading here. Apparently our conceptions of what words such as "relatively modest" mean are so far apart as to render communication impossible.
Almost. Just different spectrum of realization of the broader reality.
Before I came to live here (Spain) I had no idea how poor I really was. A brief walk through the marina, which I do every day, not out of a love of masochism or simple pursuit of photographic subjects (which
may be a manifestation of masochism), but for circulatory system problems, shows me more millions of pounds tied up in tiny spaces than I ever imagined existed outwith a bank...
and there's a waiting list: costs you £ 23,000 to join the club, and then a subscription every year. Berths were once available to purchase on long-lease, but now these exchange hands for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Multiply that demand by all the full marinas everywhere along the Med coast, as well as in the Caribbean, the US coast etc. and you can hardly avoid the conclusion that there is a huge number of wealthy people in this world. Branding them all corrupt or charlatan does very little to make the rest of us, the poor or pretty poor seem wonderful. Rather does it make me think we screwed up the opportunities life presented to us.
Irony: when this club was being built, I was offered life membership for £ 240. I turned it down because I had realised I wasn't buying any boat: anything I could afford was too small to be of any earthly use to me. A ski boat is the last place in which you want to spend a day in the Med sunshine. Buying a berth, which I could have done, boat owner or not, would now be providing me with a decent pension. Instead, I thought I'd remain true to my job, and keep my pension hopes in photographic images. Idiot. Digital did for me exactly what it did for Kodak et al.
So don't let personal perspectives of what wealth means blind you to the greater reality out there. But of course, you'll have stopped reading, won't you? Which is a pity, because now you won't be able to tell me why the lower common denomination is supposedly holder of the moral high ground.
Ah well...
Rob C
P.S.
For those of you who have seen
The Night Watchman: parts are shot up here in Puerto Pollensa in a place called La Fortaleza, a beautiful little peninsula on the northern edge of the town. It was built years ago by an Argentinian; taken over and ransacked by troops during the Civil War; once owned by an English guy who runs a waste company, and recently bought by another Brit, to the tune of €40,000.000. Yes, forty million euros, according to the Spanish press. You can find all this if you google
The Night Watchman. So measuring others by one's own bank balance is pretty daft.
