My dear Oscar,

Really the only safe form of exercise is perambulation – a short walk of a mile or two around the streets, bringing you down to earth and back on to solid ground. You would have no vision of what is to be encountered on such an expedition, so let me explain.

Cars, everywhere there are cars – the modern form of transportation, not dependent upon horses at all! I know in your time it would have been a wonder to see a horseless carriage, but now they are so common that everyone, and everyone’s heterosexual wife (homosexual boyfriend’s too) has one. Speeding from place to place, on errands both urgent and utterly frivolous. It has created an ecological disaster, to the point where now, only a century or so since you left us, we have managed to pollute the very air that we breathe. Yes, Oscar, we have found ways to kill ourselves off, to poison the atmosphere itself, to over-produce all of the nonsense that our modern society seems to desire, to the point of absolute destruction.

There is a level of conscience trying to creep into the argument, and many many people are aware that these are the consequences of our collective action, but very little is done in actual terms to counter it. You see, Oscar, cars have become big business, ensure high profit margins, and literally fuel multifarious industries around the world that provide wages to lift people from poverty, and fat salaries for the fat cats (as they are known) who sit at the top of the tree, fiddling (and here is an allusion that you will recognise) while Rome burns! So, on any walk (and walkers are in the minority) there is a constant encounter with cars, parking, manoeuvring, starting and stopping, slowly choking both the passers by and the occupants of the vehicles themselves.

Then there is litter. Everywhere litter. Packaging discarded on to the roadside, and all of the unwanted and valueless detritus of modern living simply tossed on to grass verges, into gutters, and trodden underfoot. We seem to have so much, and this is argued as the apogee of Western civilisation, that everyone has an endless choice of everything that they could possibly desire, but that in having so much we simply throw away all the excess, all the safeguarding, that brings us food ready made, products as instantly consumable. On any walk you literally have to pick your way along the pavements to avoid treading into what other people have decided to discard. Often small objects, but sometimes furniture, or large boxes, even, as mentioned above, cars! Everything just dumped on the roadside, so that now, in this losing battle, we pay taxes to employ people to make some effort to clear it all up! There are some virtuous souls who go out and pick up the litter of their own accord, not paid to do so, but out of civic responsibility, but not only are they in the minority, they also unwittingly become part of the problem. If I were the sort of person to throw rubbish on to the street then I would continue to do so secure in the knowledge that someone else will pick it up for me.

The real problem is the excesses of capitalism, something in its infancy when you were with us, still glorying as you were in the vestiges of Empire. You see in your day the wealthy and powerful kept themselves to themselves and went into the world feeling that they were rightfully exploiting those whom they encountered; nowadays access to wealth and privilege is there for the taking for everyone (broadly speaking, although the argument is actually more nuanced, which I will no doubt come on to, at a later date). Now everyone is exploited by everyone for profit, and the level of exploitation centres around the most basic of urges: food, sex, survival. Vast fortunes are made by pumping the populace with fat, sugar and salt, in various forms; by offering them sexual excitation and titillation, in various forms; and by playing upon their vacuous attempts to survive as a race, through out of control reproduction rates and population explosion. The overarching philosophy is one of: “things will get better”, but not that “things can be great now”. Humanity seems to be locked in a fruitless cycle of aiming for improvement, for longevity, for betterment, but tomorrow, or in the time of sons and daughters, at some point in the not so distant future. It reminds me of religion: you might suffer on earth but you will be rewarded in heaven, or, only death will bring you release!

In that respect not much has changed since your time, and this is becoming a theme of my letters to you. Nothing changes. Superficially everything seems different, but in actual fact the wealthy and privileged carry on doing as they see fit, exploiting the masses in any way that they can in order to bolster up their positions. Those masses consume everything that is thrown their way, both killing themselves and reproducing to keep the whole edifice in place, and at the fringes, which you will recognise, which I am sure you saw all too keenly, the destitute queue for handouts.

That is what I noticed on my walk today. The affluence of big houses with well kept gardens and polished cars, and down the back streets, a queue of people waiting for the church door to open, so that they could pick up a parcel of food.

I will write again.

Your friend, and mine,

Algernon B. Duffoure.