Introduction
Imagine a Britain where everyone's height was a measure of their household income...
The Rolex Archipelago
The rich are globalised. They have founded a country made up of millions of small islands scattered all over the world.
Blurb
Why the book exists and what it's about.
Subjects and Themes
What you'll find between the covers.
Facts and figures
Some of the surpising and shocking facts that emerged while the book was being researched.
The Rolex Archipelago
The rich are globalised. They have founded a country made up of millions of small islands scattered all over the world. This archipelago, in all its complexity, was created piece by piece to give the rich the impression of freedom while being hermetically sealed from the rest of the world.
Their houses are gilded cages surrounded by high walls and surveillance systems. Strangers are barred from their clubs, bars, hotels and restaurants by burly doormen and by the astronomical prices charged. They take over entire holiday resorts for winter and summer seasons. At their own kind of sports events the rich parade in enclosures set apart exclusively for their use. They sit in boxes specially designed for them at the theatre and the opera. They shop in separate shops, they are treated by their own doctors in private clinics and hospitals, their children go to separate schools, and they are buried in separate cemeteries.
When they break the law they are defended by an exclusive group of lawyers and, when rarely found guilty, they go to a special type of prison. They island-hop across the archipelago from re-hab clinic to tropical beach and from ski-slope to penthouse nightclub. They move air-conditioned from one island to another in their own range of peculiar vehicles or in compartments reserved for them by the public transport system.