As some of the pictures that people have posted for
Thematic Photographic 301: "Dirty" have already shown, "dirty" is in the eye of the beholder - or the person behind the camera.
A couple of years ago an old friend of Mr A's and his lady friend came to stay with us for a while. He is Austrian and lives in Klagenfurt, she is Chinese and lives in Shanghai. They borrowed Mr A's car and set off on a road trip to see New Zealand.
Some of you will know that the majority of our small country consists of two narrow islands which run north to south (ish). Generally speaking, the beaches on the east coasts of both islands are calm, smooth, sweeping, with light, often golden, sands. Those on the west coasts have black sands, wild surf, rugged cliffs and lots of driftwood.
When our visitors returned, all Ms Shanghai could talk about were the 'dirty beaches' - how nasty and unpleasant they were, and how they needed 'cleaning up'. Needless to say, they had spent most of their trip driving along the west coasts.
These are examples of what Ms S was criticising: