A Different World?

Just been watching - for the umpteenth time - "The Day After Tomorrow", which is a narrative both prescient and ironic in equal measure. Prescient in its affirmation of the the damage we've incurred on the world's climate and its concomitant effects on the flora and fauna of this world - ourselves included - and ironic on so many damn levels regarding pundit's and politician's views past and present. However, despite the underlying seriousness of the message that the film sought to portray, I was randomly drawn to the brief scene where the preppy rich boy takes the newly-assembled gang of high-school students to his father's pied-à-terre in Manhattan to take stock as the global weather anomaly approaches. His compatriots are somewhat taken aback by the opulence of his father's - very occasional - residence; and I was minded of the time when we, as young teenagers visited a schoolfriend's house in Harborne for the the first time. The house was, for those of us raised in Winson Green, impressive enough, but the reality of the place only struck home when we were given the full run of its contents, at least in terms of fridges full of the then very expensive Löwenbrau Blue label beer, and humidor boxes of hundreds of - I think Sullivan Powell - cigarettes. An eye-opener indeed to how the other half lived. Needless to say, we had our fill of the goodies while we could...