Here in the UK...

some rich people drive enormous vehicles. Machines designed to be driven through jungles and deserts, over glaciers, across the dark side of the moon. In driving terms UK roads are average, bland, safe, uninteresting, one might even say dull. By European standards the country is fairly flat yet these wankers insist on paying thousands and thousands of pounds (I gather between £30,000 and £150,000) to own one. The UK is also a relatively clean place, no dust storms, typhoons, tornados, monsoons, mudslides, or any other catastrophe that might lead one to think, my family is so much safer with that 4 by 4 parked in the drive. The latest must have for 4 by 4's is spray on dirt. I kid you not. For the princely sum of £7:50p you can buy a aerosol of dirt to spray on your car, sort of to make it look like its been used properly. Only the rich are stupid enough to buy dirt, they haven't cottoned on to what the rest of us know, that dirt is free and exists in abundance, you've only to look behind my sofa to see that. What an odd world capitalism makes for us. Prior to the 1930's the rich hated tans because only the poor had them, a tan was a sign you worked out of doors. Wealthy people displayed pale skin as a mark that they did not need to work. That changed as holidays in hot areas became an exclusive of the rich, so tans became a sign of wealth. Once dirty cars symbolised a form of poverty now they symbolise wealth. Actually this is not strictly true, because beneath the new dirt are new cars, expensive cars, phenomenally expensive cars. The rich are so rich they buy camouflage to make it look like they really use these vehicles as designed. I imagine driving round most neighbourhoods on a Sunday morning and men (why is it always men!) are out washing cars clean, drift into the richer suburbs and they're spraying them dirty. Honest, they'd starve if left to themselves.