“She had left a mess of debris, tissues stained with coffee, cream spilt onto the paper cloth. Were bad table manners a quirk of Eden-Olympia’s executive class, a safety valce for corporate tensions?”

“In front of me lay Penrose’s debris, the swamped saucer, soaked tissues and coffee-stained sugar sachets. A passer-by would assume that he had been spoonfeeding a child”

It’s no coincidence that these two remarks take place within such close proximity of on another; thus any chance of them being fleeting critiques of ‘corporate messiness’ are laid to rest. Waste in ‘Super Cannes’ – I just finished it – appears to be the snooty, disregard of democratic ideals (see: Penrose’s self-assured speach) where “the old morality [belongs to a cruder stage of human development.”

Here, waste management is a task of the proletariat.

This article opens up a whole tin of worms.

Regardless, thanks for the insights on High-Rise… I find it odd now that I didn’t notice all that garbage when I last read it — a revelation in itself.