through europe

Non aveva avuto il tempo di cambiarsi e il colletto della camicia iniziava a dargli fastidio. Era un colletto di quelli rigidi, da cerimonia. Considerando il prezzo totale della camicia, quella strisciolina di amido e tessuto doveva valere almeno dieci sterline. Più o meno il rimborso spese di un intero giorno passato al ‘lavoro’. E, per stare al ‘lavoro’, quella camicia era d’obbligo. Non c’era una vera e propria divisa, se non il prezzo dell’abbigliamento.

In June of 2000 58 Chinese people died of mass suffocation in the container of a lorry that arrived on a ferry at Dover. They died trying to enter the UK illegally. The direct cause of these deaths was the blocking of the air vents worked into the container by the driver, a Dutchman, Perry Wacker. He is the worst of criminals, a panicker lacking the basic nerve required, in this case, cutting the air supply from a fear of being caught. The reporting of the case by large sections of the British media was either downright callous, or sympathetic in abstract terms only, the horror felt from putting ourselves in the shoes of those who died, presumed to be too much.