Back in 2018, I edited a short story collection entitled The Petrified World and other stories. It's here if you're interested. Rol's in it too. You'd like it, I think, the book. It's very reasonably priced, any profit goes to charity, all of that. Take a punt, why not?
But anyway, pitch over, back to the point. As I cycled to work this morning along car-choked roads, through yet another spiralling housing estate of identikit rabbit hutches, today's song sprung readily to mind. As did this quote from Sir David Attenborough, that I included in the introduction of the aforementioned book:
All environmental problems become harder - and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people.
Sorry. Downer, I know, but no less true for that. Here's the song, and an appropriately claustrophobic video shot in a rehearsal room, from Blur's Indian summer of 2015.
There are too many of us That's plain to see We all believe in praying For our immortality We've posed these questions to our children That calls them all to stray And live in tiny houses Of the same mistakes we made 'Cause there are too many of us In tiny houses here and there Passing out of somewhere But you won't care There are too many of us That's plain to see And we all believe in praying For our own immortality For a moment, I was dislocated My terror on a loop elsewhere The flashing lights part vacated On the big screens everywhere 'Cause there are too many of us In tiny houses here and there Just passing out of somewhere But you won't care There are too many of us In tiny houses here and there All looking through the windows On everything we share We pose these questions to our children It leads them all to stray And live in tiny houses Of the same mistakes we make 'Cause there are too many of us Oh, that's plain to see All living in tiny houses (passing out of somewhere) Of our own mortality (but you won't care)
