If the drones don't get you, the fine print or the wildfires surely will. Iran and Ukraine are busy playing aerial hopscotch with civilian infrastructure, whilst Shell merrily pumps poison through Nigeria with all the care of a toddler with a leaky sippy cup. The UK has successfully dodged a £100m bill to Rwanda—a rare win for the taxpayer that still manages to smell faintly of failure—and the US has decided Kenya is the perfect storage locker for Ebola, because why handle a crisis at home when you can export the panic? It's a bloody marvellous time to be alive, assuming you aren't gay in Ghana or a foreigner in South Africa.
Iranian drone strike on Kuwait airport
Ukrainian drones attack St Petersburg
Shell Nigeria pipeline pollution documents
Dark Industrial Northern Soul
🎵 (s)Hit of the Day 🎵
Version 1
Version 2
📜 Lyrics 📜
[Intro]
[Industrial percussion builds with metallic crashes]
[Analogue synthesiser bass pulses in]
[Verse 1]
Skies are darkening with bargain-basement diplomacy
Drones are cheaper than a conversation, apparently
Tehran hits Kuwait airport for a statement
St Petersburg's elite enjoy their oil-soaked arrangement
Eight dead on a bus in Donetsk region
Every journey's Russian roulette this season
[Chorus]
It's the operating environment
That's what the report said
Too complex to care, too profitable to mend
It's the operating environment
Just business as usual
The perfect excuse for the corporately clinical
[Verse 2]
Shell knew the pipeline leaked for years on end
But Nigeria's too complex for them to comprehend
Pump it through the cracks, the profits still flow
Then blame the locals for the mess below
Uncle Sam wants an Ebola quarantine in Kenya
For citizens they'd rather not have nearer
No cases there, but why let facts interfere
When there's African real estate to clear?
[Chorus]
It's the operating environment
That's what the report said
Too complex to care, too profitable to mend
It's the operating environment
Just business as usual
The perfect excuse for the corporately clinical
[Bridge]
[Harmonica solo wails over mechanical beat]
Ghana queues up ten years for who you love
South African streets run red for being from
Above
Delhi burns behind a hospital door
Twenty-one souls who won't be needing more
The megafires come for the wealthy at last
Climate change finds a new demographic to blast
We're all in the operating environment now
[Muted trumpet section]
[Verse 3]
Britain doesn't owe Rwanda a hundred million quid
The court said no, so that's a fortune hid
But scrapping one scheme doesn't wash the stain
When the moral victory's the only thing you gain
Putin's friends pretend the smoke's not rising
While Ukrainian drones rewrite the pricing
Everyone's machining their own truth
And the operating environment's the proof
[Chorus]
It's the operating environment
That's what the report said
Too complex to care, too profitable to mend
It's the operating environment
Just business as usual
The perfect excuse for the corporately clinical
[Outro]
[Industrial percussion fades]
The operating environment...
[Spoken] It's just the cost of doing business.
[Metallic crash]
[End]