@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Trinity was when I was at my lowest. Thankfully I’ve reached nights since then. (Yes, really!)
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Interesting. I think the "I was at school with XXX" might just have been a good old fashioned name drop but you are nearer the situation. But perhaps you are right. What a numpty.
Heh. Quite. What was it someone was saying last night on here about the narcissism of small differences? I suspect I end up in these conversations all the time because it's fairly obvious from speech/appearance I'm "one of them" so they're trying to establish a pecking order.
I have very mixed feelings about my school days. On the one hand, I studied hard and applied myself, I took advantage of it, it also toughened me up a lot, being bullied will do that for you. As well as make you kinder, as Kinabalu suggests downthread. But I'm still carrying the baggage from those days around with me three decades later. The old school tie turns into a noose very quickly, and it's one I've never quite managed to slip.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
In the West of Scotland and Northern Ireland “what school did you go to?” has an entirely different connotation.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who either asked or volunteered that! Perhaps because I'm a pleb and even my 'posh' mates at uni went to public schools that no one had ever heard of
The only occasion I could imagine it coming up is meeting someone from your home town and then you might get to it eventually in case it turns out you were at the same school and had some of the same teachers etc.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
If you're bored enough to swim with the minnows, you can diagnose me. I'm narcissistic enough to love it when I find out what image I project to others.
I'm aware I haven't offered as much info about myself as others on here with many times more posts, but I'm sure that won't present an obstacle to a towering talent such as your good self.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Personally am keeping ‘em crossed for July, but that’s a hope not a prediction. I don’t know when it will be, but my actual prediction is that the longer he waits the more the public will see him as either frit or a ditherer.
He wants the wedge issue of immigration to be hot so he won't go until he's 100% he can get flights off before or during the campaign. As soon as practicable after that seems likely.
Now, I'm not in the UK. But are there really millions of potential Conservative voters who are desperate to return to the fold just so long as a couple of flights have left for Rwanda?
My gut - and I realize I'm in California - is that voters have now reached that stage where they want a change. Sunak isn't right wing enough to stop defections to Reform. And he isn't centrist enough to avoid losing votes to the LibDems and Labour. He's also screwed by the fact that the Left is likely to vote highly tactically, while the Right will very definitely not.
There's no bogeyman, either. Who - other than @bigjohnowls and @isam - is going to march to the polling station and vote Conservative out of fear of Starmer? (And with Johnson gone, I think bjo will be going green.)
And I don't see an easy way out. There's no popular MP in the wings who can galvanize support and bring the disparate factions together.
It's time for the Conservative Party to accept that the electorate is going to give them a drubbing.
And, if it's any consolation, the problems with the UK economy will still be there in five years time. So you never know, the Conservatives may get another chance sooner rather than later.
I have decided to cast my first ever vote for the Conservatives in this General Election.
The UK has not had a proper Conservative government for too long, and needs one. That certainly won’t be delivered by Labour.
Lol, MoonRabbit has come out, utterly predictably as a proud PBTory. The only surprise is that it took so long.
'When a finger points to the moon only the foolish look at the finger'
True, a finger is not a moon. But it is a way to find the moon.
Havn’t you felt any disenchantment with the progressive politics of the last three decades? Things do not always get better. Human life is dependent upon forces greater than our own selves. There will never be an end to human pain and suffering, but it can be made less. Politics is about hope and great achievements, but it is also about failure and tragedy.
So what I propose is needed is not more of the same as the last three decades, as just about everyone on PB and in UK is blindly walking into. But what matters most to people is their family, relationships, friendships, work as a source of creative value, a cultural inheritance that gives meaning to life, and for some faith. What holds a society together is reciprocity - do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself, the same thing that made ancient tribes work. Go back to remembering about protecting nature and human value from the commodification of capitalism and the transactional culture of the market. The liberalism of the last thirty years has not been progressive, it’s taken us back to the cave man age of cannibalism. To turn the dial back in the right direction needs Conservative hands on the lever.
Labour might win this one, but the future is Conservatism, lots of it.
The politics you are described I think will be popular. It may even be Conservative. But I don't think it will be delivered by the Conservative Party, at least not in it's current incarnation. The reason why you want them to remain in Government is the same reason why I want them to leave: they need to go away for a bit, do some self reflection, and work out how to be proper Conservatives again.
None of what Moonrabbit describes is either deliverable by, or the business of, Westminster government. It’s just a boomer Facebook post.
You want government to be involved in social structures and culture? Then you need either to vote for socialists and central planning, or for radical devolution to the town and village level.
Otherwise, render unto Caesar.
You are an absolute Baldric level thicko if you are saying leave it all to the market, with zero or light touch government planning. We will never get a Conservative society that way. You, and so many others drunk on liberterianitis, need to be educated that the liberty comes from democratic liberty.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
I don’t think you’re searching in the most obvious place, although there is always the Mafia!
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
A bus hit and killed a pedestrian outside the course and the police arrested Scheffler after he tried to cut through the resultant traffic it seems
I think they were separate incidents. Scheffler looks like a minor traffic flow infringement and the cops handcuffed and detained him. He's just returned to the course.
Glad I've not backed him, but knowing him he'll probably still win.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
A friend of mine lives by two theories: 1. The Mr Kipling theory of cakes: why would I bake my own cake when Mr Kipling spends all day doing so and is a specialist. This can be applied to life in general, not just cakes. 2. Life is made better by contrast cf when you flounce off for a few days it makes this place all the more enjoyable for the contrast. Same when you return. Which, in a mangled way, is meant as a genuine compliment.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
How interesting. Nothing to do with the conversation we have been having but very interesting nonetheless. And if it makes you feel valid and valuable and "seen" I believe is the vernacular these days then bravo. Bravo in any case.
You are a fairly standard (travel) writer, standard in that there have been travel writers before and will no doubt be travel writers after you. Actually you a very good writer imo (not a patch on your pa but that is a super-select bunch). And you should rightly be proud of that.
Such writing requires you to believe yourself to be "apart" from what you are experiencing. You wouldn't be able to comment on what you see as an observer if you are an integral part of that experience and I get that and of course it's true to a degree. You are a traveller. Equally, I perfectly understand why you would wish to think that you are as "apart" from, say, High St Ken (let's not start that one again) as you are from Gallipoli. But this latter I am not so sure. You see yourself as above and apart from all you survey but I don't think you really are. And I don't think you think you really are.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
The Nancy Mitford of U know it’s all bollox dontcha
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
I think you romanticise yourself somewhat. There's always been a safety net, hasn't there.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
Every bar in Italy plays lounge chill out versions of popular hits from 1960-2015. They are ubiquitous
Right now - as I sit on the aragonese bastions of Gallipoli staring at the Ionian Sea drinking my third aperol - it’s a soft samba take on Viva La Vida
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
And they queue up for their free bus passes, get free TV licences, get winter fuel allowances etc. These benefits are clearly needed for poorer pensioners but they are so absurdly focused and unaffordable at a time when we have such large deficits and so many better priorities. Eventually, some government is going to have the courage to do something about this.
You are dreaming David, you need to be about a hundred to get a TV licence, winter allowance is a fraction of a % of the tax I pay and I woudl not stoop to use a bus so get zilch. Grandson does make use of the free pass mind you. It would cost significantly more to means test those benefits than it costs. Pensioners with money do not use buses, you have to be really really old to get TV licence and fuel allowance is not that much and again would cost more to means test. Given you are on the cusp I am surprised you ahve fallen into the bash and starve a pensioner brigade because I don't get it brigade.
"Would not stoop to use a bus"
This is the attitude that has basically bankrupted the country. The bus services that young people and poorer people use to get to the workplace have been cut by roughly half since 2010.
That means that you have to live within walking or cycling distance of work, forcing millions of young people into only a few square miles in the city centre (or London), supercharging the housing crisis. Alternatively, they spend years saving up enough money for driving lessons, car insurance and the car itself.
Meanwhile rich pensioners, who have much higher rates of car ownership, get a free bus pass...
Utter bollox, if morons want to live in London in a rabbit hutch that is there choice, they should not be whinging about it. Being a green cheesed arsehole and whining at someone who has grafted for over 50 years rather than going and improving your own loy is symptomatic of today's feckless youth who want everything on a plate for nothing and little effort. Thought you were fecking off to Australia to satisfy your greed anyway.
So the class system is alive and well and a jolly bad thing.
The only thing worse are any serious steps to dismantle it.
All agreed on this?
I'm a believer in John Major's classless society.
To be fair to Major he was a grammar school boy who never even went to university let alone Oxbridge and whose father was a trapeze artist from Brixton and whose career peak was head of PR at Standard Chartered (after previous stints at the London Electricity Board and with his brother's garden knome business). Yet he managed to beat Old Etonian and Oxford Hurd and multi millionaire and former Oxford Union President Heseltine to become Tory leader in 1990. That was his biggest achievement, after that beating Kinnock in 1992 was a relative breeze (even if he eventually lost to public school and Oxford educated Blair in '97)
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
So the class system is alive and well and a jolly bad thing.
The only thing worse are any serious steps to dismantle it.
All agreed on this?
No, it’s not alive and well. It’s actually dying, as we’ve known it since the last major cultural shifts in the 1960s
Who is gonna give a fuck what school you went to in 10 years when society is overturned
I think the proper way to look at this is through the lens of my nephew. Now, I won't say where he went to school because that is irrelevant to this discussion and none of your business but suffice to say it is an anagram of tnoE.
I think he couldn't care less. But then that's probably indicative of a certain class.
So the class system is alive and well and a jolly bad thing.
The only thing worse are any serious steps to dismantle it.
All agreed on this?
I'm a believer in John Major's classless society.
To be fair to Major he was a grammar school boy who never even went to university let alone Oxbridge and whose father was a trapeze artist from Brixton. Yet he managed to beat Old Etonian and Oxford Hurd and multi millionaire and former Oxford Union President Heseltine to become Tory leader in 1990. That was his biggest achievement, after that beating Kinnock in 1992 was a relative breeze (even if he eventually lost to public school and Oxford educated Blair in '97)
Maybe that’s why he seems “one of us” more than any of his successors.
Surprised anyone needs to be told they exist, with GG all over the political news for the last month or two.
(I had no idea who could have called herself Miss Snuffy - quite startled to find out, but perhaps she has some *really* strict punishments for anyone who turns up in a Tiger Tim jumpsuit.)
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
In my experience, "what do you do?" again means just that. It's a boring question in some respects - hopefully I am more interesting than just a function of the way I have chosen to earn a living - but it's a way into a conversation, and again, there might be the Holy Grail of a Person We Know In Common at the end of it. At the very least I will know a bit more about you. The downside of the question is that you might, as happened to me once, receive an answer (in this case "I'm a lecturer in electrical engineering at Nottingham university") that you can think of absolutely no follow up question, leaving the questionee with the impression you think he has the dullest job in the world.
I peaked early. I was super-successful at school, bang average at university and have achieved very little of note in my career. I console myself when I remember that I've done ok in my life outside work.
So the class system is alive and well and a jolly bad thing.
The only thing worse are any serious steps to dismantle it.
All agreed on this?
I'm a believer in John Major's classless society.
To be fair to Major he was a grammar school boy who never even went to university let alone Oxbridge and whose father was a trapeze artist from Brixton. Yet he managed to beat Old Etonian and Oxford Hurd and multi millionaire and former Oxford Union President Heseltine to become Tory leader in 1990. That was his biggest achievement, after that beating Kinnock in 1992 was a relative breeze (even if he eventually lost to public school and Oxford educated Blair in '97)
Maybe that’s why he seems “one of us” more than any of his successors.
Amazing how much importance some people attach to subordinating themselves to the posh and supposedly superior.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
Indeed, put Lord Sugar in a room with an Eton and Balliol educated public school classics teacher or Vicar and who would be the social inferior? Classic clashes of the English class system
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
What’s your view on tech start up types who went to Oxbridge?
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
Indeed, put Lord Sugar in a room with an Eton and Balliol educated public school classics teacher or Vicar and who would be the social inferior? Classic clashes of the English class system
Lord Sugar did me a lot more good than the average Prime Minister manque, that's for sure. I must have worn out about 7-8 PCWs.
Every bar in Italy plays lounge chill out versions of popular hits from 1960-2015. They are ubiquitous
Right now - as I sit on the aragonese bastions of Gallipoli staring at the Ionian Sea drinking my third aperol - it’s a soft samba take on Viva La Vida
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
What’s your view on tech start up types who went to Oxbridge?
"The election is going to be the third or fourth Thursday in November, the autumn fiscal event will be in the first or second week of October for a five week campaign. Expect another 2p off NI and maybe a surprise elsewhere as well as a manifesto commitment to abolish employee NI entirely over the next parliament."
Me, from yesterday evening.
Today Hunt is hinting at another 2p cut in NI in the autumn. This is going to be the election strategy. I have no doubt about it.
This is f-ing ridiculous. The two main parties are effectively launching their election campaigns even though we are told the GE is not until at least November now.
Just the call the bloody thing.
One would have thought with the economy "going gangbusters" he'd call one.
He'll want interest rates to start coming down, which hasn't happened yet
So it isn't "going gangbusters" just yet. On that criteria (and expected to benefit mortgage borrowers markedly) the next election to be somewhere in early 2028 then.
He needs to consider savers too, more of them than mortgage holders. I am quite happy with higher for longer.
Also mortgage rates have been reducing this week.
I think it was pointed out the other day that the average person has £11,000 in savings but the average mortgage is £180k. So savers are pocketing £550 a year at 5% interest rates (otherwise known as "barely as much as stuff is going up in price in the shops") while anyone remortgaging from 2.5% to 5% is out an additional £3k a year in repayments on a 25 year mortgage.
But for savers they would rather have £550 a year at 5% interest rates than £275 a year at 2.5% interest rates.
Truflation estimates that inflation was running at around 16% last year. So all 5% from the bank means is you're losing purchasing power slightly slower.
Aside from that, who is more likely to be more motivated to vote on this as an issue - someone making an extra £275 a year from savings, or someone staring at a £3k a year or (or more - I was conservative in choosing 2.5% as a starting point, many were on sub 2% deals) extra cash they have to find, just to keep the roof over their head?
Truflation is a broad brush measure. My personal inflation level is lower as I am not burdened by some of the higher cost drivers such as housing, transport or alcoholic beverages as I make my own. My insurance costs hardly rose this year too.
On motivation I agree. I think those aggrieved by the ‘Truss Tax’ as it’s been called would be far more motivated to vote.
Every bar in Italy plays lounge chill out versions of popular hits from 1960-2015. They are ubiquitous
Right now - as I sit on the aragonese bastions of Gallipoli staring at the Ionian Sea drinking my third aperol - it’s a soft samba take on Viva La Vida
Is it live or piped?
I just lightly drummed my fingers on my knee, and slightly waggled my head in time
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
Possibly although Musk had a pretty good start in life too, he attended the posh private Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Pretoria Boys High School and his father was a property developer and mother a model
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
What’s your view on tech start up types who went to Oxbridge?
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
To be honest it is pointless polling on this as long as Starmer rejects rejoining and frankly it is years away if ever
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
"I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
What’s your view on tech start up types who went to Oxbridge?
I knew some walloper on here would fall for this. "A remarkable 52mph". In a 20mph zone no less!
For context, Bradley Wiggins averaged 33.9mph in a velodrome during a 1 hour time trial. If this embankment cyclist exists, they are perhaps superhuman.
That's over an hour, the scoffers will scoff.
But the world record sprint over 200 m with a flying start is about 9 s. I make that 50 miles per hour. So technically possible, but not plausible. Especially compared with someone... I dunno... having the app on when they weren't cycling?
The Telegraph really is a bloody awful paper these days.
52 downhill is easily achieved but I can't think of any hills feeding in to that stretch
Not really. You'd have to be flying down a steep hill in full lycra, pedalling hard, with the gear range to allow for it.
I'm sure DA has hit speeds like that but I've only ever managed 40mph.
TdFers have exceeded 100kph. There's one local hill where I max out at 37mph and I think I could go a fair bit faster but for abject fear
The world record for a bicycle is 184mph, one of few outright human performance records held by a woman, Denise Mueller-Korenek
I hit 80kph (55mph) on a fully loaded touring bike on the Andean downhill from Santiago to Mendoza in a stonking tailwind. It was terrifying but I was young and foolhardy at the time.
I think the fastest I have got to since I started cycling again 10 years ago was 30 MPH, going down hill on a main road. It was not an experience I wish to repeat.
I usually manage 12-14MPH on the flat cycling to and from work.
The average speed of people cycling around London is 11mph plus or minus a bit.
That's the TFL researched number, and is the one used in transport planning etc.
I'll comment on the Telegraph's article separately.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
A friend of mine lives by two theories: 1. The Mr Kipling theory of cakes: why would I bake my own cake when Mr Kipling spends all day doing so and is a specialist. This can be applied to life in general, not just cakes. 2. Life is made better by contrast cf when you flounce off for a few days it makes this place all the more enjoyable for the contrast. Same when you return. Which, in a mangled way, is meant as a genuine compliment.
Mr Kipling optimises his production of cakes to minimise costs and maximise shelf-life. You will have much better cakes if you (a) learn to make them yourselves, or, (b) find a baker who optimises for quality.
His mugshot has now been released. 'The World No.1 was led away in handcuffs by Louisville police after a traffic misunderstanding led to Scheffler attempting to drive past a police officer to get into the grounds. He was later charged with four offences including second degree assault of a police officer.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2024/05/17/us-pga-championship-2024-live-scores-day-2-latest-updates/
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
It's interesting hearing my grammar school-educated son's tales about his life as a student at Oxford.
Most of his friends there went to public schools, but he doesn't get the feeling that they look down on him at all. He does think that going to public school helps a lot in making the sort of connections that aid the path to a good job after university, and he tells me that he would certainly want send his own kids to public school, not for the education, but for the connections.
He is constantly surprised at the laziness of many of his public school friends as they struggle to attend tutorials and get essays in on time. When he became treasurer of something or other, he was quite mystified that the public school-educated previous incumbent, though a pleasant chap, had basically done sod all to keep the accounts in order. He'd simply wanted something to put on his CV.
He also mentioned that drug use is far more prevalent among the public school kids than the state schoolers.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
To most people around the world posh means Hugh Grant, and the late Queen. That’s the received definition. Therefore Musk is not posh.
He is, to use the word my daughter deploys instead of posh, “fancy”.
I knew some walloper on here would fall for this. "A remarkable 52mph". In a 20mph zone no less!
For context, Bradley Wiggins averaged 33.9mph in a velodrome during a 1 hour time trial. If this embankment cyclist exists, they are perhaps superhuman.
That's over an hour, the scoffers will scoff.
But the world record sprint over 200 m with a flying start is about 9 s. I make that 50 miles per hour. So technically possible, but not plausible. Especially compared with someone... I dunno... having the app on when they weren't cycling?
The Telegraph really is a bloody awful paper these days.
52 downhill is easily achieved but I can't think of any hills feeding in to that stretch
Not really. You'd have to be flying down a steep hill in full lycra, pedalling hard, with the gear range to allow for it.
I'm sure DA has hit speeds like that but I've only ever managed 40mph.
TdFers have exceeded 100kph. There's one local hill where I max out at 37mph and I think I could go a fair bit faster but for abject fear
The world record for a bicycle is 184mph, one of few outright human performance records held by a woman, Denise Mueller-Korenek
I hit 80kph (55mph) on a fully loaded touring bike on the Andean downhill from Santiago to Mendoza in a stonking tailwind. It was terrifying but I was young and foolhardy at the time.
I think the fastest I have got to since I started cycling again 10 years ago was 30 MPH, going down hill on a main road. It was not an experience I wish to repeat.
I usually manage 12-14MPH on the flat cycling to and from work.
The average speed of people cycling around London is 11mph plus or minus a bit.
That's the TFL researched number, and is the one used in transport planning etc.
I'll comment on the Telegraph's article separately.
I’m cycling around durham, Gateshead and Newcastle.
I don’t feel too bad now. I’ve definitely slowed down as I’m approaching 60. It just amazes me elite marathon runners run faster on the straight than I can cycle.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
It's interesting hearing my grammar school-educated son's tales about his life as a student at Oxford.
Most of his friends there went to public schools, but he doesn't get the feeling that they look down on him at all. He does think that going to public school helps a lot in making the sort of connections that aid the path to a good job after university, and he tells me that he would certainly want send his own kids to public school, not for the education, but for the connections.
He is constantly surprised at the laziness of many of his public school friends as they struggle to attend tutorials and get essays in on time. When he became treasurer of something or other, he was quite mystified that the public school-educated previous incumbent, though a pleasant chap, had basically done sod all to keep the accounts in order. He'd simply wanted something to put on his CV.
He also mentioned that drug use is far more prevalent among the public school kids than the state schoolers.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
To be honest it is pointless polling on this as long as Starmer rejects rejoining and frankly it is years away if ever
Depends what you do with the polling. If you use it to think "must get on with sewing a new set of EU flags", then you're right. It's still a third rail that nobody really wants to touch yet.
But it's a meaningful piece in the jigsaw of understanding the mood of the nation.
"Why is there that unlpeasant smell?"
"Remember when all the sewage leaked into the lounge because someone decided not to pay for a plumber? Which idiot was that?"
And then we all remember which idiot it was.
Bottom line- if the will of the people is that a policy is a mistake, that policy doesn't last indefinitely. Inertia is powerful, but not absolute. That's democracy, isn't it?
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
It's interesting hearing my grammar school-educated son's tales about his life as a student at Oxford.
Most of his friends there went to public schools, but he doesn't get the feeling that they look down on him at all. He does think that going to public school helps a lot in making the sort of connections that aid the path to a good job after university, and he tells me that he would certainly want send his own kids to public school, not for the education, but for the connections.
He is constantly surprised at the laziness of many of his public school friends as they struggle to attend tutorials and get essays in on time. When he became treasurer of something or other, he was quite mystified that the public school-educated previous incumbent, though a pleasant chap, had basically done sod all to keep the accounts in order. He'd simply wanted something to put on his CV.
He also mentioned that drug use is far more prevalent among the public school kids than the state schoolers.
Your son succeeded Boris Johnson?
The general ethos of trying to get the maximum kudos for the minimum amount of effort certainly seems to be one indicator of a public school education.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
To be honest it is pointless polling on this as long as Starmer rejects rejoining and frankly it is years away if ever
I don’t think it is pointless. It will inform policy. Most of the brains trust on here think that SKS is untrustworthy anyway.
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
I hope he enjoys you polishing his dick as much as you enjoy doing it
There are danger signs. Before Boris imploded the Conservative Party in 2021, Starmer wasn't doing too well against him. And much of Labour's polling success is IMV down to the Conservative's implosion, rather than Starmer's brilliance.
All he needs to become PM is the Conservative Party to continue being utter *****s - which I think he will get. But after he's PM, he will need much more.
I'm not sure I agree. I think the polling is a combo of Con implosion and people believing Labour are no longer a) Corbynite or b) soft on antisemitism (I realise sooner might argue these are the same thing).
On the latter Starmer has worked wonders, especially as he was ostensibly a Corbynite. And I suspect in political terms (a) is pretty incompatible with having a strong left of centre vision for the future, so that will have to wait.
Like last time people are thinking , I will go for the lesser of two evils, Tory last time and will be Labour this time.
This is f-ing ridiculous. The two main parties are effectively launching their election campaigns even though we are told the GE is not until at least November now.
Just the call the bloody thing.
One would have thought with the economy "going gangbusters" he'd call one.
He'll want interest rates to start coming down, which hasn't happened yet
So it isn't "going gangbusters" just yet. On that criteria (and expected to benefit mortgage borrowers markedly) the next election to be somewhere in early 2028 then.
He needs to consider savers too, more of them than mortgage holders. I am quite happy with higher for longer.
Also mortgage rates have been reducing this week.
I think it was pointed out the other day that the average person has £11,000 in savings but the average mortgage is £180k. So savers are pocketing £550 a year at 5% interest rates (otherwise known as "barely as much as stuff is going up in price in the shops") while anyone remortgaging from 2.5% to 5% is out an additional £3k a year in repayments on a 25 year mortgage.
But for savers they would rather have £550 a year at 5% interest rates than £275 a year at 2.5% interest rates.
Truflation estimates that inflation was running at around 16% last year. So all 5% from the bank means is you're losing purchasing power slightly slower.
Aside from that, who is more likely to be more motivated to vote on this as an issue - someone making an extra £275 a year from savings, or someone staring at a £3k a year or (or more - I was conservative in choosing 2.5% as a starting point, many were on sub 2% deals) extra cash they have to find, just to keep the roof over their head?
Truflation is a broad brush measure. My personal inflation level is lower as I am not burdened by some of the higher cost drivers such as housing, transport or alcoholic beverages as I make my own. My insurance costs hardly rose this year too.
On motivation I agree. I think those aggrieved by the ‘Truss Tax’ as it’s been called would be far more motivated to vote.
Agree. My booze bill skyrocketed during the cost of living crisis, courtesy of the £7-8 London pint. I tried quitting drinking altogether, but nights out are a necessity for me in terms of making and keeping social connections. So the 'make my own booze' angle wouldn't work for me. So you're right, everyone's personal inflation level will be different.
And of course the Conservatives have already lost all hope of increasing their vote share among mortgage holders. From 2% to 4.5% instead of 4.75!" is not a vote winner. So they might as well go with "high interest rates are good for savers" as their messaging, since it's more likely to resonate with their older demographic.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I'm quite interested in class. Hell, any system of classification or placing things in an order is interesting - who hasn't listed their favourite biscuits or ranked their teachers by who would win in a fight? But I don't get the 'class as an overweening issue' thing, in all probability because I have never encountered it.
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
But judgement based on class still exists in England, its a big reason why rich working class people send their kids to public schools - to give them the lick of social varnish they lacked. That said, it is diminishing speedily - a good thing
Do they though? Or do they just do it to give them what they perceive to be* a much better education and school experience? I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
It's interesting hearing my grammar school-educated son's tales about his life as a student at Oxford.
Most of his friends there went to public schools, but he doesn't get the feeling that they look down on him at all. He does think that going to public school helps a lot in making the sort of connections that aid the path to a good job after university, and he tells me that he would certainly want send his own kids to public school, not for the education, but for the connections.
He is constantly surprised at the laziness of many of his public school friends as they struggle to attend tutorials and get essays in on time. When he became treasurer of something or other, he was quite mystified that the public school-educated previous incumbent, though a pleasant chap, had basically done sod all to keep the accounts in order. He'd simply wanted something to put on his CV.
He also mentioned that drug use is far more prevalent among the public school kids than the state schoolers.
Your son succeeded Boris Johnson?
Oh, it's a real thing, and was so almost half a century ago: I noticed how my public school educated friends and class colleagues had much more mixed results than the ones from state/grammar schools. They included some really hard workers who got excellent degrees and went on to higher things (one or two names would surprise PB), but others who flumped when no longer under the lash of their form masters.
I do wonder if it is still true given how many such institutions seem to have become in part academies for the world commercial schooling market. One of my friends who sent his own children to his alma mater commented on how nowadays the impetus for Oxbridge scholarships from the staff had become much reduced - much more oriented to catering for the mass of pupils: market forces in action from the parents. (Which offers a rather different explanation for the reduction in Oxbridge entrance success, rather than the usual complaint about discrimination.)
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
I agree.
Whichever uni - wherever - get her to go and have a look at a few, and talk to some of the current students. Lots of them have schemes to promote that. Sometimes you can even go and stay for a day or two, I think.
I was lucky - a chap in my school had gone to the uni and degree course I had in mind, and was really helpful/reassuring. But not everyone has that.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
What do you think the results would be for regretting that we did not Brexit if the result had gone the other way?
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
To be honest it is pointless polling on this as long as Starmer rejects rejoining and frankly it is years away if ever
Is it pointless, or explaining why the Conservatives lost so many Red Wall and Blue Wall seats, months before we even vote in the General Election.
Is it pointless, or explaining why, with nearly thirty years now passed since last in government, the Tories havn’t been returned to office.
Is it pointless, or when grandkids forty years from now ask, what was the Conservative Party, what were Tories? It helps explain how they dominated UK politics for a century, then gave the country brexit, owned Brexit, and vanished as a political force, to eventually renamed MUGA (Make UK Great Again) by the Trussites and Faragists.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
To most people around the world posh means Hugh Grant, and the late Queen. That’s the received definition. Therefore Musk is not posh.
He is, to use the word my daughter deploys instead of posh, “fancy”.
That is farcically wrong. Indeed embarrassingly wrong
Most people around the world have never heard of high fucking grant. Do you travel much?
What you’re saying is that most people “in England” and to a much lesser in some other anglophone countries see him as posh but even then. Jeez. Hugh Grant???
By contrast everyone in China and Africa has heard of Elon musk and they know he has enormous social power and is rich beyond imagining
Hm. Perhaps. I agree there is sub-optimality in this.
But I am frequently out and about on roads. I make about 8 trips a day of various sort - on foot, in a car, by bike. With my kids and alone. And I can't remember the last time I had to worry at all about what a cyclist was doing. Whereas you have to look out for cars all the time. Cyclists have a combined bike-and-rider weight of typically around 100kg and travel at about, let's say, 15mph. Cars weigh at least a tonne and travel at about 30mph. Granted, some cyclists might in extremis go twice as fast as that, but so might some cars. Cars have at least 20 times the momentum of cyclists, and are far, far more common. And they take up more space. Citing cyclists as the ones turning cars into death traps seems a little disingenuous.
The roads around here were getting better, in terms of the whole car thing.
The problem with the furious cyclists (and their brethren the furious ebikers) is that they are using infrastructure for pedestrians (pavements) and for more traditional cyclists (the increasing number of segregated cycle lanes).
If you are in a moderately narrow, segregated cycle lane, say, cruising along at 10mph, and someone is coming towards you at 25mph that is really not an enjoyable experience. When you add in the weight of the ebikes, and the very large boxes the delivery guys add on... You are being approached by an aggressive moped rider, in reality.
A lot of the electric bikes the delivery riders are using should really be classified as mopeds, meaning that the riders need insurance, wear a helmet, and stick to the roads.
A lot of the Chinese stuff comes with an easy way to modify them to remove all restrictions, usually by a method as simple as cutting a wire loop.
A lot of the feeling against cyclists is against delivery drivers, often on electrical bikes dodging around pedestrians at speed. Electric bikes should be treated as mopeds in law.
I think it will end up like that. Ultimately they will replace mopeds (and some cars) in cities and towns over the next 10 years. The growth, particularly in Asia, is insane.
And (reluctant hat tip to Leon, who noticed this first) things like electric tuktuks are filling the taxi gap - they were bizarrely popular in New Zealand, buzzing around little mountain towns.
That's the exact opposite of what our Transport Minister is trying to do. Brain-dead from a policy viewpoint, but I think he is of the Susan Hall - Daily Mail mindset of searching for wedge issues to save his backside.
Remember that he has just done a consultation declaring throttle only (ie not pedal assist) 500W mopeds, which typically can do 28mph, to be pedal cycles and allowed on every shared surface in the country with no regulation of supply chain or mechanical condition, no limitations and the current almost complete lack of suitable enforcement.
It is opposed by every safety organisation in the country, and reputable e-cycle delivery companies.
If you want this in the context of the current "Causing Death by Dangerous Cycling" campaign - driven by inflammatory claims about a Regents Park ACCIDENT (that - not Open Verdict - was the Coroner's finding). The cyclist was not charged with anything because the cause of death was the pedestrian stepping into traffic so close no one could do anything.
In 2022 3 deaths were caused by fires relating to "E-Bike" (covering I think EAPCs, mopeds and motorcycles like Surrons, and EAPCs hacked to be the latter) battery charging. In 2023 it was 11 deaths. *
The Govt have failed to regulate the supply or use of such batteries, especially cheap and dangerous Chinese imports sold via eg Ebay.
That's how much Mark Harper and his colleagues give a damn for safety.
Ultimately it doesn't matter, because they are about to be flushed down the toilet of history. It's a question about how much effort they waste on second best or damaging interventions, when they could have done things of benefit.
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
I agree.
Whichever uni - wherever - get her to go and have a look at a few, and talk to some of the current students. Lots of them have schemes to promote that. Sometimes you can even go and stay for a day or two, I think.
I was lucky - a chap in my school had gone to the uni and degree course I had in mind, and was really helpful/reassuring. But not everyone has that.
Thank you, I will do. I’ll offer her support too, if she wants any, as she goes through the application process.
Years ago a friend of a friend ended up at Cambridge, I think it was, reading history. Council estate kid from a scabby little ex-mining town a few miles away from here. Ended up becoming close friends with George Harrison’s son. I might tell her that!
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
I was bought up, largely, in Oxford. The poshness is exaggerated by outsiders and the media. To start with, state school entrants are in the majority.
I would advise her to go on a visit to Oxford and Fenlands Poly - do a few days at each. The admissions people are well aware of the perception issue, and do various meet The Real Students things.
Latest @YouGov@thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
To be honest it is pointless polling on this as long as Starmer rejects rejoining and frankly it is years away if ever
If the EU elections herald a large scale replacement of the moderate right with the hard right, I wonder if this polling will shift back the other way a bit ?
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
Very good. I mean not quite, or indeed at all there but very good and entertaining. By the same token I could say that you take quite anodyne comments of mine and append to them quite the most enormous amount of baggage. Which is why when you go off on these lines my main response is incomprehension.
I suspect it's all more a reflection on you than it is on me but again, I would say that wouldn't I.
Thanks. I’m really good at this - skewering people with their precise status within the English class system - because I realised about 5-10 years ago that I’ve had such an extraordinary life I’ve entirely exited the English class system and indeed risen above it
I look down on everyone. It’s not pleasant but there it is. What it does give me is an ability to observe, objectively
If anyone needs diagnosing Class Doctor @Leon is here all week
I think what you are very good at is identifying areas where you are not as confident as you might be and pronouncing yourself an expert and therefore trying to close down the conversation.
Class has to be the most boring and yet intriguing thing on the planet and will differ to everyone. A bit like pornography perhaps in that regard.
Now, I started the whole thing by naming the class-based ranking of ex-Oxbridge universities. So I have myself to blame and we have had some back and forth on this.
What I find interesting is that certain posters - and you are among this group - take it all so super seriously and try to interpret and examine and unpick and whatnot. Which in itself is a dreadfully bourgeois thing to do (kidding).
I wouldn't worry about it. You say you are outwith the English class system so why worry. I would say that you very well may be. And good for you. Except also sadly for you there is a cohort, perhaps sitting as we speak enjoying lunch at White's, who perhaps who have no time for books or all that nonsense, and perhaps many of whom "run the country", which thinks you are a dreadful oik. And that's probably what is upsetting you.
Mmmmmm
*thinks*
Nah
Very un-Leon-like response = I am totally right.
You can believe it or not but the following is my LIVED EXPERIENCE
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
We are just grateful you stoop to be amongst us.
Well thanks. I don’t get a lot of gratitude on here for my increasingly occasional visits so that’s welcome - and very gracious
A friend of mine lives by two theories: 1. The Mr Kipling theory of cakes: why would I bake my own cake when Mr Kipling spends all 2. day doing so and is a specialist. This can be 3. applied to life in general, not just cakes. 4. 6. Life is made better by contrast cf when you 7. flounce off for a few days it makes this place 8. all the more enjoyable for the contrast. Same 9. when you return. Which, in a mangled way, is 10. meant as a genuine compliment. 11.
Mr Kipling optimises his production of cakes to minimise costs and maximise shelf- life. You will have much better cakes if you (a) learn to make them yourselves, or, (b) find a baker who optimises for quality.
I know that, as does he. It's very much not meant to be taken seriously.
"The election is going to be the third or fourth Thursday in November, the autumn fiscal event will be in the first or second week of October for a five week campaign. Expect another 2p off NI and maybe a surprise elsewhere as well as a manifesto commitment to abolish employee NI entirely over the next parliament."
Me, from yesterday evening.
Today Hunt is hinting at another 2p cut in NI in the autumn. This is going to be the election strategy. I have no doubt about it.
Me. From yesterday evening. “You’re talking Rubbish Max.”
Another 2p off NI ain’t a rabbit from a hat. It wasn’t at the last two.
I think another fiscal event is difficult.
For one thing expectations will be very high for a rabbit from the hat. Where are you saying the money is coming from for the somewhat less than a rabbit from the hat 2p off NI in your post? The two previous cuts have come not from growth nor reduced borrowing, but from fictitious headroom found 5 years down the line, that if that headroom proves a fiction in growth and borrowing movements needed, will actually require tax or NI rises to avoid swingeing cuts to government budgets, Home Office in particular.
Defence increase Sunak boasts is at least £70B and Labour won’t match the pledge - wasn’t in last budget maybe because it had to pass through an OBR. Do you think there can be another fiscal event without that defence promise getting through an OBR? If it’s not put through the OBR, it’s not a serious pledge. Ditto any pledge to eliminate NI, not put through OBR then worthless pledge as not backed up by the money.
Both another fiscal event and another conference promises more risks than rewards to the Sunak’s government.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Same with Oxbridge
I have several acquaintances who have - sadly - achieved fuck all in their lives (relatively speaking) but they will still quite often mention that they went to Trinity or Balliol or whatever. One senses that was when they peaked; it is a little melancholy to witness. These are people in their 40s and 50s
Perhaps they will mention it to God when they die. I can picture @TOPPING at the Gates of Heaven casually remarking to St Peter “you know I have nephews at Eton? But let’s not worry about all that”
Depends how you define 'peaked' if you define it purely in monetary terms then yes a multi millionaire or billionaire would be top but some of those may never even have been to university let alone Oxbridge. So in intellectual terms a Trinity educated criminal barrister or teacher or civil servant may still feel they have peaked in intellectual terms
Yes but they’re so boring
Of course true peaked is someone who went to Oxbridge (or Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from an ordinary background AND became a self made billionaire (or has a net worth of £100 million+) who goes to and hosts interesting parties and has a big yacht and may even have a drink with a world leading travel journo like yourself.
Albeit very few of those around
That’s why I think Elon musk is the poshest person in the world. Went to a top uni but that’s the least interesting about him
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
I hope he enjoys you polishing his dick as much as you enjoy doing it
I think musk is a thin skinned weirdo with often negative social expertise and he can be genuinely nasty. Not the nicest person - but he admits he’s an Aspie
Why are so many of the PB midwits unable to distinguish between an objective assessment - eg Ukraine is not doing well - and a subjective wish - ah, you want Ukraine to lose, you fucking appeaser?!!!
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
I agree.
Whichever uni - wherever - get her to go and have a look at a few, and talk to some of the current students. Lots of them have schemes to promote that. Sometimes you can even go and stay for a day or two, I think.
I was lucky - a chap in my school had gone to the uni and degree course I had in mind, and was really helpful/reassuring. But not everyone has that.
Thank you, I will do. I’ll offer her support too, if she wants any, as she goes through the application process.
Years ago a friend of a friend ended up at Cambridge, I think it was, reading history. Council estate kid from a scabby little ex-mining town a few miles away from here. Ended up becoming close friends with George Harrison’s son. I might tell her that!
I hope it goes well. Some of the nicest news on PB is when posters' children and young relatives do well at college/uni/apprenticeships.
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
The other thing with Oxbridge is that some colleges and courses are much less like that than others. There is a "finishing school for poshos on the make" aspect to them, but it's fairly easy to avoid and ignore if that's what you want to do.
And a bit of the Hogwarts Stuff (which is how I tend to describe it to similarly unconvinced sixth formers) can be fun if you don't take it seriously.
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
Yeah, go with an open mind, treat it on its merits is a good approach.
I interviewed at Oxford and then chose elsewhere, not for any particular anti-oxford feeling (I got on fine with the other people I hung out with over the interview few days - didn't ask which schools they went to!) but simply due to being more impressed by somewhere else (two somewhere else's in fact). But I think that was probably due to Oxford not putting any effort into selling themselves - presumably not feeling the need - rather than really being worse.
Since then I've realised that Oxford as a name would have likely opened some doors and opportunities, but I can't say I have any regrets. I've also met and worked with plenty of Oxford grads, with a range of experiences.
So, go and see, get the vibe, treat it like anywhere else and make what seems like the right choice.
My niece is in the middle of doing her GCSEs, and the sixth form college she’s going to have already had her visit them as a potential Oxbridge candidate. She’d say she’s working class, she’s defiantly anti-Tory. Hates Brexit - what a fine young woman she is.
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
I was bought up, largely, in Oxford. The poshness is exaggerated by outsiders and the media. To start with, state school entrants are in the majority.
I would advise her to go on a visit to Oxford and Fenlands Poly - do a few days at each. The admissions people are well aware of the perception issue, and do various meet The Real Students things.
Thanks, will do. She’s mentioned stuff like that, I think that’s what her college will be offering her.
@TOPPING’s list is for the rather posh but slightly dim
Whereas @boulay's hangover accounted for what seemed like a chippy post to me, you seem genuinely to be chippy. Which is fine, each to their own, etc don't let it upset you.
lol! Bazzzzinggggg!
er whatevs.
You are SO sensitive on anything to do with class. I suspect it’s because it’s all you have. Your solitary claim to fame is that you’re quite high born. @StillWaters reacts similarly to this debate - but we know he is middle class so maybe it’s merely aspirational for him
Yet you like to quietly boast about your social stature - nephews at Eton! - even as you know it is intrinsically absurd and indeed naff. Indeed gauche
So it therefore projects an air of social insecurity all of your own. Which is delightfully ironic
One of my litmus tests of people is how many minutes into a conversation are they capable of getting through without asking "what school did you go to?" before eagerly speaking of their own alma mater.
Understandable when you're 19 and in your first year as an undergrad (particularly if everyone at your uni went to posh school), what I find unfathomable is I know people in their 40s and beyond who are still the same way.
Do people really ask that? That's on the same level as what A levels you did. I can safely say that no one has asked me what school I went to in polite company since, as you say, I was in my early years at university. Weird.
It still happens, and I'm in my 40s. Generally it's done quite subtly, out with a wider group of friends a month or so ago someone I had met five minutes previously mentioned 'I was at the same school as [famous person, who is instantly identifiable as having gone to one of the more famous places]'. It was a clear invite to continue the conversation with 'Oh, you were at [that school]? I was at [insert name of other place full of rich thickoes]. Do you know [Chap with ridiculous name, Boko Fittleworth type], think he was in the year above you?' Which is how these conversations often go.
Might be a reflection of the type of people I hang out with, which is probably sadly a reflection on me as well. The thing about the old school tie is it's more of an old school tattoo, you can travel all your life and never really get away from it.
Yebbut - it's not necessarily one-upmanship. It's just fun to find an acquaintance in common. I did it recently with someone I work with - oh, you grew up in Northwich, you're about my age - where did you go to school? Do you therefore know person x who I know also went to that school? You do! Coo, small world, etc. It's not necessarily impressive to know this person x - he has a job I don't fully understand in IT security - but he's a nice fella and we can collectively revel in the fact we have Made A Connection.
Yes, I think it's probably a reflection on me that I see it as a pecking order thing when it may be entirely innocent. People search for things they have in common. It's just "what school did you go to?" is so much more of a loaded question than "who's your favourite artist?" or even "what do you do?" (which in itself is often a proxy question for "how much do you earn?").
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
In my experience, "what do you do?" again means just that. It's a boring question in some respects - hopefully I am more interesting than just a function of the way I have chosen to earn a living - but it's a way into a conversation, and again, there might be the Holy Grail of a Person We Know In Common at the end of it. At the very least I will know a bit more about you. The downside of the question is that you might, as happened to me once, receive an answer (in this case "I'm a lecturer in electrical engineering at Nottingham university") that you can think of absolutely no follow up question, leaving the questionee with the impression you think he has the dullest job in the world.
I peaked early. I was super-successful at school, bang average at university and have achieved very little of note in my career. I console myself when I remember that I've done ok in my life outside work.
This conversation has made me realise how little I've done with my own life. Bah. I'm not sure I even ever peaked. I've just been different levels of boring. Although my uni days were fantastic - the sun always shone, the weed (and pills) were plentiful and the parties endless - I couldn't be said to have distinguished myself in any way.
I doubt uni is like that today, though. More of a cutthroat competition for graduate roles, rather than a finishing school for nice-but-dims, as it was in my day.
Comments
I've only very rarely come across the super-posh. But I've known a wide variety of people, from public school types to self-described 'council estate thickos'. When I was at uni, my housemates were an ex public schoolboy from Edinburgh, a middle class grammar school boy from the Wirral and a lad from Essex from an apparently borderline criminal background. And similarly, people I've worked with have come from backgrounds ranging from council estates to public schools. But I don't think it's ever been a factor in how people have been treated or thought of. It's just another interesting factor to people's backgrounds, like how many siblings they have or what sports they prefer.
Maybe it's more of a factor if you work in government or in some bank in the south east. But judgement based on schools just isn't something I've ever come across.
The only people I meet these days who are on my social level - and this is worldwide - tend to be self made multi millionaires or billionaires. They need to be self made. Someone born into great riches can be interestingly fucked up and yay your grandfather was a Habsburg and how quaint but that’s different. And if they go on about it then it’s just embarrassing
I’ve managed to spend an entire life getting already rich companies to pay for me to go abroad and have unique experiences - often in insane luxury. And on top of that I’ve sought out the Noom. And turned it into the art of the flint
It’s genuinely hard to find an equivalent. Everyone else is a bit dull. However superb and successful entrepreneurs are often not dull
I hope PB is sympathetic as I continue my search for my social equivalent along the sunburnt Ionian coast of the Italian heel
I have very mixed feelings about my school days. On the one hand, I studied hard and applied myself, I took advantage of it, it also toughened me up a lot, being bullied will do that for you. As well as make you kinder, as Kinabalu suggests downthread. But I'm still carrying the baggage from those days around with me three decades later. The old school tie turns into a noose very quickly, and it's one I've never quite managed to slip.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69027589
The only occasion I could imagine it coming up is meeting someone from your home town and then you might get to it eventually in case it turns out you were at the same school and had some of the same teachers etc.
The only thing worse are any serious steps to dismantle it.
All agreed on this?
I'm aware I haven't offered as much info about myself as others on here with many times more posts, but I'm sure that won't present an obstacle to a towering talent such as your good self.
Glad I've not backed him, but knowing him he'll probably still win.
1. The Mr Kipling theory of cakes: why would I bake my own cake when Mr Kipling spends all day doing so and is a specialist. This can be applied to life in general, not just cakes.
2. Life is made better by contrast cf when you flounce off for a few days it makes this place all the more enjoyable for the contrast. Same when you return. Which, in a mangled way, is meant as a genuine compliment.
You are a fairly standard (travel) writer, standard in that there have been travel writers before and will no doubt be travel writers after you. Actually you a very good writer imo (not a patch on your pa but that is a super-select bunch). And you should rightly be proud of that.
Such writing requires you to believe yourself to be "apart" from what you are experiencing. You wouldn't be able to comment on what you see as an observer if you are an integral part of that experience and I get that and of course it's true to a degree. You are a traveller. Equally, I perfectly understand why you would wish to think that you are as "apart" from, say, High St Ken (let's not start that one again) as you are from Gallipoli. But this latter I am not so sure. You see yourself as above and apart from all you survey but I don't think you really are. And I don't think you think you really are.
Your welcome.
Albeit very few of those around
Who is gonna give a fuck what school you went to in 10 years when society is overturned
I've just been in far too many conversations about school days for my tastes, as a grown up. As Leon says downthread, it speaks of people who peaked early. When people speak so often of their school days as grown ups, there is an element of "I might not be a tech billionaire but at least I went to Charterhouse and not Arsewipe Comprehensive!"
The other thing about school days is you have absolutely no say in them. I'm more interested in the life I've lived as an adult. But, as I say, you never quite get away from your formative years.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2024/05/17/us-pga-championship-2024-live-scores-day-2-latest-updates/
I have never come across a situation where anyone was looked down on because of the school they went to. And in my experience anyone who is clearly doing well for themselves despite transparently being 'a bit rough' tends to get admiration more than anything else.
But while I know a bit about the private school system, the 'public' school system - the likes of Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc - are largely a mystery to me, and I'm wary of reading across too much from one to the other.
As an aside, I heard my oldest daughter (14) and her friends tentatively discussing whether or not they were posh the other day. (They are certainly better off than many - comfortable middle class northern suburbanites - but not really recognisably posh.) I very much enjoyed this opinion:
"We're not posh. But we're not ... [struggles momentarily for an acceptable antithesis] ... Scouse."
*I've said 'what they perceive to be' because I'm still not sure whether it's true or not.
Right now - as I sit on the aragonese bastions of Gallipoli staring at the Ionian Sea drinking my third aperol - it’s a soft samba take on Viva La Vida
https://x.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1790839447350616126
That’s exactly what it is. 95% of the time
Being a green cheesed arsehole and whining at someone who has grafted for over 50 years rather than going and improving your own loy is symptomatic of today's feckless youth who want everything on a plate for nothing and little effort.
Thought you were fecking off to Australia to satisfy your greed anyway.
I think he couldn't care less. But then that's probably indicative of a certain class.
I hope I can continue my lifetime of non involvement with American cops.
(I had no idea who could have called herself Miss Snuffy - quite startled to find out, but perhaps she has some *really* strict punishments for anyone who turns up in a Tiger Tim jumpsuit.)
The downside of the question is that you might, as happened to me once, receive an answer (in this case "I'm a lecturer in electrical engineering at Nottingham university") that you can think of absolutely no follow up question, leaving the questionee with the impression you think he has the dullest job in the world.
I peaked early. I was super-successful at school, bang average at university and have achieved very little of note in my career. I console myself when I remember that I've done ok in my life outside work.
NEW
Plaid leader announces end to cooperation agreement with Labour govt in Wales - with immediate effect.
Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth blames Vaughan Gething's donation row - as well as delays to council tax reform.
Will there be a vote of confidence in the FM?
By sheer dint of what he’s done in life (albeit starting with a handy emerald mine) he is probably the most powerful private citizen on earth and admired by a billion people (and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers)
He can pick up a phone and speak to any world leader at will. That might also be true of mark Zuckerberg but musk has much more power (the combo of Twitter and starlink etc)
If poshness doesn’t mean social esteem and societal power and merely means established blood lines then poshness means virtually nothing at all, you might as well claim you’re posh because you own an antique hoover
Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 31 (n/c); wrong 58 (+3). Fwork 15-16.5 (ch since 30.4-1.5). Record lead of 'wrong' over 'right'.
https://news.sky.com/story/plaid-cymru-pulls-out-of-co-operation-agreement-with-welsh-labour-13137829
Me, from yesterday evening.
Today Hunt is hinting at another 2p cut in NI in the autumn. This is going to be the election strategy. I have no doubt about it.
On motivation I agree. I think those aggrieved by the ‘Truss Tax’ as it’s been called would be far more motivated to vote.
That's the TFL researched number, and is the one used in transport planning etc.
I'll comment on the Telegraph's article separately.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2024/05/17/us-pga-championship-2024-live-scores-day-2-latest-updates/
Most of his friends there went to public schools, but he doesn't get the feeling that they look down on him at all. He does think that going to public school helps a lot in making the sort of connections that aid the path to a good job after university, and he tells me that he would certainly want send his own kids to public school, not for the education, but for the connections.
He is constantly surprised at the laziness of many of his public school friends as they struggle to attend tutorials and get essays in on time. When he became treasurer of something or other, he was quite mystified that the public school-educated previous incumbent, though a pleasant chap, had basically done sod all to keep the accounts in order. He'd simply wanted something to put on his CV.
He also mentioned that drug use is far more prevalent among the public school kids than the state schoolers.
He is, to use the word my daughter deploys instead of posh, “fancy”.
I don’t feel too bad now. I’ve definitely slowed down as I’m approaching 60. It just amazes me elite marathon runners run faster on the straight than I can cycle.
But it's a meaningful piece in the jigsaw of understanding the mood of the nation.
"Why is there that unlpeasant smell?"
"Remember when all the sewage leaked into the lounge because someone decided not to pay for a plumber? Which idiot was that?"
And then we all remember which idiot it was.
Bottom line- if the will of the people is that a policy is a mistake, that policy doesn't last indefinitely. Inertia is powerful, but not absolute. That's democracy, isn't it?
She’s ambivalent about the whole Oxbridge thing - she doesn’t want to go to a uni full of rich, entitled poshos.
I’m trying to gently nudge her in the direction that, if the Oxbridge thing works out she should grasp it with both hands. Yes, there’ll be poshos there but there’ll be a lot of hard-working kinds from ‘normal’ backgrounds there too. These institutions will be enriched by people like her. There’ll be rich posh kids who are wonderful people, there’ll be middle-class kids who are wonderful people. There may even - God forbid - be foreigners there who are wonderful people.
I think she may regret later in life passing it by if she has the opportunity.
I’m not pressuring her (not that she listens to a word her uncle says!) - it’s her life and she’ll be a success whatever she does and wherever she goes - but I just don’t want her to dismiss it out of hand because of how she perceives these unis to be.
And of course the Conservatives have already lost all hope of increasing their vote share among mortgage holders.
From 2% to 4.5% instead of 4.75!" is not a vote winner. So they might as well go with "high interest rates are good for savers" as their messaging, since it's more likely to resonate with their older demographic.
I do wonder if it is still true given how many such institutions seem to have become in part academies for the world commercial schooling market. One of my friends who sent his own children to his alma mater commented on how nowadays the impetus for Oxbridge scholarships from the staff had become much reduced - much more oriented to catering for the mass of pupils: market forces in action from the parents. (Which offers a rather different explanation for the reduction in Oxbridge entrance success, rather than the usual complaint about discrimination.)
Whichever uni - wherever - get her to go and have a look at a few, and talk to some of the current students. Lots of them have schemes to promote that. Sometimes you can even go and stay for a day or two, I think.
I was lucky - a chap in my school had gone to the uni and degree course I had in mind, and was really helpful/reassuring. But not everyone has that.
Is it pointless, or explaining why, with nearly thirty years now passed since last in government, the Tories havn’t been returned to office.
Is it pointless, or when grandkids forty years from now ask, what was the Conservative Party, what were Tories? It helps explain how they dominated UK politics for a century, then gave the country brexit, owned Brexit, and vanished as a political force, to eventually renamed MUGA (Make UK Great Again) by the Trussites and Faragists.
Most people around the world have never heard of high fucking grant. Do you travel much?
What you’re saying is that most people “in England” and to a much lesser in some other anglophone countries see him as posh but even then. Jeez. Hugh Grant???
By contrast everyone in China and Africa has heard of Elon musk and they know he has enormous social power and is rich beyond imagining
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Remember that he has just done a consultation declaring throttle only (ie not pedal assist) 500W mopeds, which typically can do 28mph, to be pedal cycles and allowed on every shared surface in the country with no regulation of supply chain or mechanical condition, no limitations and the current almost complete lack of suitable enforcement.
It is opposed by every safety organisation in the country, and reputable e-cycle delivery companies.
If you want this in the context of the current "Causing Death by Dangerous Cycling" campaign - driven by inflammatory claims about a Regents Park ACCIDENT (that - not Open Verdict - was the Coroner's finding). The cyclist was not charged with anything because the cause of death was the pedestrian stepping into traffic so close no one could do anything.
In 2022 3 deaths were caused by fires relating to "E-Bike" (covering I think EAPCs, mopeds and motorcycles like Surrons, and EAPCs hacked to be the latter) battery charging. In 2023 it was 11 deaths. *
The Govt have failed to regulate the supply or use of such batteries, especially cheap and dangerous Chinese imports sold via eg Ebay.
That's how much Mark Harper and his colleagues give a damn for safety.
Ultimately it doesn't matter, because they are about to be flushed down the toilet of history. It's a question about how much effort they waste on second best or damaging interventions, when they could have done things of benefit.
* https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-02-29/16388/
Years ago a friend of a friend ended up at Cambridge, I think it was, reading history. Council estate kid from a scabby little ex-mining town a few miles away from here. Ended up becoming close friends with George Harrison’s son. I might tell her that!
I would advise her to go on a visit to Oxford and Fenlands Poly - do a few days at each. The admissions people are well aware of the perception issue, and do various meet The Real Students things.
Another 2p off NI ain’t a rabbit from a hat. It wasn’t at the last two.
I think another fiscal event is difficult.
For one thing expectations will be very high for a rabbit from the hat. Where are you saying the money is coming from for the somewhat less than a rabbit from the hat 2p off NI in your post? The two previous cuts have come not from growth nor reduced borrowing, but from fictitious headroom found 5 years down the line, that if that headroom proves a fiction in growth and borrowing movements needed, will actually require tax or NI rises to avoid swingeing cuts to government budgets, Home Office in particular.
Defence increase Sunak boasts is at least £70B and Labour won’t match the pledge - wasn’t in last budget maybe because it had to pass through an OBR. Do you think there can be another fiscal event without that defence promise getting through an OBR? If it’s not put through the OBR, it’s not a serious pledge. Ditto any pledge to eliminate NI, not put through OBR then worthless pledge as not backed up by the money.
Both another fiscal event and another conference promises more risks than rewards to the Sunak’s government.
Why are so many of the PB midwits unable to distinguish between an objective assessment - eg Ukraine is not doing well - and a subjective wish - ah, you want Ukraine to lose, you fucking appeaser?!!!
It’s beyond tiresome. Stop it. Raise your game
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
And a bit of the Hogwarts Stuff (which is how I tend to describe it to similarly unconvinced sixth formers) can be fun if you don't take it seriously.
I interviewed at Oxford and then chose elsewhere, not for any particular anti-oxford feeling (I got on fine with the other people I hung out with over the interview few days - didn't ask which schools they went to!) but simply due to being more impressed by somewhere else (two somewhere else's in fact). But I think that was probably due to Oxford not putting any effort into selling themselves - presumably not feeling the need - rather than really being worse.
Since then I've realised that Oxford as a name would have likely opened some doors and opportunities, but I can't say I have any regrets. I've also met and worked with plenty of Oxford grads, with a range of experiences.
So, go and see, get the vibe, treat it like anywhere else and make what seems like the right choice.
I doubt uni is like that today, though. More of a cutthroat competition for graduate roles, rather than a finishing school for nice-but-dims, as it was in my day.