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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Actually, Sherlock, there’s quite a lot of it Credit to the Guardian for discharging their duty to report this story:
Couple who ran Swedish eco-retreat fled leaving behind barrels of human waste
A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.
Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.
Stedsans, formed of 16 wooden cottages looking out on to nature, attracted praise from influencers and reviewers, who described it as “magical” and “enchanting luxury”.
But a few months ago it was discovered that the couple had vanished, leaving multiple animals behind and 158 barrels of human waste, an investigation by newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Politiken has found.
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Anything can be eco-friendly if you have enough barrels.
Whenever we see one of those idyllic resorts in places like Bali and Tahiti, with individual cottages built over the lagoon and connected by walkways, mrs llamas (who has a practical turn of mind) always observes ‘Sure. Your dream vacation, on the back of some poor brown-skinned worker hauling away your s**t.’
Same applies here. Where did these eco-vacationers think it was going?
These uber-woke lefties, who no doubt believe that everything should be provided by the state through taxation, apparently stopped short of paying any actual taxes themselves, to anybody. If I were the Guatemalan tax authority, I think I’d put them on monthly payments right quick, before they skip town owing them millions.
llater,
llamas
There’s an entire book in les mis about the sewers of paris and how valuable human excrement is. Hugo is a fun writer, but I’m not sure how accurate his information is, I would take that book with a grain of salt.
george,
Nightsoil Men (aka gong farmers) would clear out the outhouses to sell the contents to tanneries. Now if you think that is the lowest rung of society there were also toshers who would crawl through the tunnels looking for valuables that had somehow got there. It’s where we get the word “tosh” meaning “rubbish” or “nonsense”. Toshing was illegal in England because they’d use candles on their quests and if they hit a pocket of methane…
Anyway, couldn’t this Danish couple have sold the shit? It has been done before as an artistic endeavour.
Llamas, on Libertarian principle, I am going to say that so long as the workers hauling away the shit are not coerced, and the customers whose shit is being hauled away are not deceived, it’s perfectly OK for that job to exist. If said worker is well enough paid for the job to make its unpleasant nature worthwhile, his or her choice to take the position should be respected. I rejoice that societies where free markets exist have become so rich that shit-hauling has to be fairly well paid for it to happen at all.
Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk perpetrated a fraud on their customers by presenting their resort as “eco-friendly” when it was no such thing.
A grey area with those idyllic resorts in Bali and Tahiti is that the owners of the resorts undoubtedly keep very quiet about the role shit-haulers play in keeping them idyllic. They don’t lie about it, but they are happy that the rich Westerners who visit such a place do not often share Mrs Llamas’ practical turn of mind.
Does that count as deception? Or is it just “sausage making”, such as is practised in practically every field of life?
What about these composting toilets that are supposed to be so amazing?
Even palaces sometimes neglected the basic problem of human waste.
For example Versailles originally had no toilets – and no pipes for human waste. Romans (and even the Minoan civilization a thousand years before the Romans) would have said that King Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, was a barbarian – all show, and no plumbing.
“Look at all the gold and silver I have got – and do not ask what that smell is”.
As for “Eco” types – they should know that, properly dealt with, human waste can be used as fertilizer, it used to be called “night soil”.
Natalie,
At the other end of the spectrum oddly enough the Burj Khalifa (as originally built) didn’t have proper sanitation and they trucked the effluent out at night. Now Dubai, of coursem is a slave state.
Paul,
I wrote my reply to Natalie before I saw your comment. I think the Burj Khalifa and Versailles had a lot in common. All front and no drainage but then you can get away with all of that if you have underlings – serfs or slaves or whatever…
I have always thought that Sir Joseph Bazalgette deserves at least as much fame as Sir Christopher Wren. As an aside it is curious that parliament only did something about the dreadful state of London’s sewers when the Great Stink of 1858 actually reached the Palace of Westminster itself.
@Natalie Solent – all true, no argument whatsoever. But the comment was not about the socio-political impcts so much as it was about the faint hypocrisy of those who indulge themselves in a fantasy of a dreamy eco-paradise, all gauzy sunsets and swimming with dolphins and gaily-coloured parrotfish, and all made possible by poor brown people doing a job they would recoil from in disgust. But modern plumbing would spoil the unspoilt beauty, I guess . . . .
llater,
llamas
Actually some resorts simply pump the shit far enough out to sea that it doesn’t make it back on the tide. Mostly. As Bill Hicks used to say, the ocean is best appreciated from a shaded beach bar with a cold beer. Safer, too.
I’m an analytical type so when I read “16 wooden cottages” and “158 barrels”, I did the math. Math so easy even a Portlander could do it: about 10 barrels per cottage.
10 barrels!? Are these the 55 gallon variety? If so, that’s a lot of waste for one cottage.
How long was this scam in operation and how crowded were those cottages.
Something doesn’t smell right here.
NickM – to be fair to Louis XIV in France itself he did not have slaves (the colonies were a different matter – very different), and serfs were rare in France (and were not be found in Royal estates).
None of his, Louis XIVs, doing of course – it was Louis X back in the Middle Ages who ended slavery in France, and, by and large, ended serfdom as well.
And let Jewish people back into France. And produced most of the town and city charters that were in force right up to 1789.
I believe he was only King for two years and died at the age of 26.
This would serve as an allegory for the fatuous, superficial, stupidity of eco hyphenated projects in general.
Dodger, a rather weak take on the Artful Dodger and Fagin with Dickens featuring as himself to add to the confusion, was definitely one of Terry Pratchett’s lesser efforts.
It was centred around a Tosher, albeit in a way which made that trade appear considerably more appealing than was likely in real life.