The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

her footsteps. You’re the ones who brought us up to be these consumerist zombies. You chucked all the other values out of the window, didn’t you? Christianity? Don’t need that. Collective responsibility? Where’s that ever got us. Manufacturing? Making things? That’s for losers. Yeah, let’s get those losers over in the Far East to make everything for us and we can just sit on our backsides in front of the TV, watching the world go to hell in a handcart – in widescreen and HD, of course.’ She sat back, looking faintly embarrassed for having spoken so passionately. ‘So, anyway – that’s what I said to Clive, when he told me I shouldn’t be doing this job.’

Well, I lost my temper with him,’ Poppy said, ‘which I very rarely do with Clive. I said to him: Do you realize that, if there’s one thing people of my age cannot stand hearing, it’s people of your age giving us lectures on morality. Look at the world around you. The world you’ve bequeathed to us. D’you think it allows us any scope to do things on principle? I’m sick of hearing about how my generation has no values. How materialist we are. How lacking in any political sense. Do you know why that is? Take a wild guess. That’s right – because that’s how you brought us up! We may be Mrs Thatcher’s children, as far as you’re concerned, but you were the ones who voted for her, again and again, and then carried on voting for all the people who came after her, and followed exactly in