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.
Hm, yes, I was ambivalent about the Oxbridge thing when I was that age - couldn't really see past 'boring towns' and 'hard work'. On one hand I do regret it a bit now. There was never really any doubt that I would get the grades. On the other hand, it's hard to see how life would have been better if I'd gone there, even in the long term. I have friends who I was cleverer than at school who went on to Oxbridge and then giddy success. But are they any happier than me? It's hard to say that they are. Giddy success also comes with massively long hours and hardly seeing your family, it would seem. That said, I was quite unprepared for the sheer lack of expectations on me to do almost any work at all at my Russell Group university, and actually the sheer undemandingness of it made me sad after an enjoyably acedmically vigorous two years of A Levels.
Basically, I think we're a million miles from getting tertiary education right in this country. It should be possible to get an academically rigorous and rewarding and relevant experience which will lead on to a fulfilling life without confining yourself to one of two small cities in the outer South East. And it should be possible to have a be a success without having to start from one of those two universities, and without having to get on a 40 year treadmill of long hours and London and misery.
Which isn't necessarily much help to your niece, nor to my oldest daughter in four years time, who is also potential Oxbridge material and whom I'm also unsure how to advise.
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 eldest was in exactly the same boat. Definitely capable of Oxbridge - her sixth form college advised her to try - she thought it would be too elite for her - against my firm advice - and she’s plumped for.. St Andrews and Edinburgh as her main choices
I hesitate to tell her they will be even more cliquey and posh but with slightly dimmer people - but what can you do
Tbf to her I also think she wants to get as far away from her family as possible. Which is quite healthy at that age. I felt it at 18
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.
Do keep selling it! I was a little worried on that front too, but I didn't need to be. While of course all people are different, my own lad is having the time of his life at Oxford and doesn't seem to be remotely worried about being an oik among poshos.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
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.
Thanks very much, she’ll smash it whatever she chooses to do. I wish I had her determination and self-discipline when I was her age. God knows where she gets it from.
@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?!!!
It’s beyond tiresome. Stop it. Raise your game
It’s not your love of Musk, he’s successful in his chosen field, and he has power and money which does give many like you the raging horn, so fair enough. I get snarky when you come out with steaming bullshit like “… and hated by quite a few as well; nearly always total losers…” which makes me disregard nearly everything you say as hyperbolic, primary school, crap.
For obvious reasons I can’t give details but I’ve acted for and against various tech startup types. A lot of them get into some basic, entry level, legal shit that belies their obvious intelligence. My judgment is coloured accordingly.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use. Ask an American.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Or that chap who lives in Downton Abbey with Paddington Bear.
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.
Hm, yes, I was ambivalent about the Oxbridge thing when I was that age - couldn't really see past 'boring towns' and 'hard work'. On one hand I do regret it a bit now. There was never really any doubt that I would get the grades. On the other hand, it's hard to see how life would have been better if I'd gone there, even in the long term. I have friends who I was cleverer than at school who went on to Oxbridge and then giddy success. But are they any happier than me? It's hard to say that they are. Giddy success also comes with massively long hours and hardly seeing your family, it would seem. That said, I was quite unprepared for the sheer lack of expectations on me to do almost any work at all at my Russell Group university, and actually the sheer undemandingness of it made me sad after an enjoyably acedmically vigorous two years of A Levels.
Basically, I think we're a million miles from getting tertiary education right in this country. It should be possible to get an academically rigorous and rewarding and relevant experience which will lead on to a fulfilling life without confining yourself to one of two small cities in the outer South East. And it should be possible to have a be a success without having to start from one of those two universities, and without having to get on a 40 year treadmill of long hours and London and misery.
Which isn't necessarily much help to your niece, nor to my oldest daughter in four years time, who is also potential Oxbridge material and whom I'm also unsure how to advise.
It’s bonkers to say you can only succeed if you’re from Oxbridge. I went to UCL (and made friends for life). Imperial and LSE are also great. They have the great advantage over Oxbridge of london
By the time the Oxbridge people come down all the kids at the london unis have a social network and an established life in and knowledge of london. A world city
That’s big
And Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, Durham, St Andrews, etc aren’t exactly BAD
Multiple people have told me that accidentally addressing American police officers as Constable, in a UK accent, seems to put them in an almost jovial mood.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
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
Yes, nothing more is required. No need to make an exhibition of things. It's all about the ambience and the quality of the music.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
Well then you’re just tediously blithering on about linguistics. Yawn. Most Americans don’t use the word posh and it doesn’t exist outside the Anglophone world yet you said “around the world” so you’re a fucking idiot and unworthy of debate
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
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.
Hm, yes, I was ambivalent about the Oxbridge thing when I was that age - couldn't really see past 'boring towns' and 'hard work'. On one hand I do regret it a bit now. There was never really any doubt that I would get the grades. On the other hand, it's hard to see how life would have been better if I'd gone there, even in the long term. I have friends who I was cleverer than at school who went on to Oxbridge and then giddy success. But are they any happier than me? It's hard to say that they are. Giddy success also comes with massively long hours and hardly seeing your family, it would seem. That said, I was quite unprepared for the sheer lack of expectations on me to do almost any work at all at my Russell Group university, and actually the sheer undemandingness of it made me sad after an enjoyably acedmically vigorous two years of A Levels.
Basically, I think we're a million miles from getting tertiary education right in this country. It should be possible to get an academically rigorous and rewarding and relevant experience which will lead on to a fulfilling life without confining yourself to one of two small cities in the outer South East. And it should be possible to have a be a success without having to start from one of those two universities, and without having to get on a 40 year treadmill of long hours and London and misery.
Which isn't necessarily much help to your niece, nor to my oldest daughter in four years time, who is also potential Oxbridge material and whom I'm also unsure how to advise.
It’s bonkers to say you can only succeed if you’re from Oxbridge. I went to UCL (and made friends for life). Imperial and LSE are also great. They have the great advantage over Oxbridge of london
By the time the Oxbridge people come down all the kids at the london unis have a social network and an established life in and knowledge of london. A world city
That’s big
And Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, Durham, St Andrews, etc aren’t exactly BAD
Oh, sure. I'm exaggerating wildly. I just think we'd be better off with a slightly broader base of universities. To be fair it's slightly different now in Manchester. Manchester is now so successful that if you go to university in Manchester you can do so with a fair expectation of staying there in whatever your career of choice is. That certainly wasn't the case 30 years ago.
@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.
That's certainly my impression. It's not even a "work smarter, not harder" attitude - it's often just an "I deserve it" front with nothing to back it up. And relying on that as an adult seems a bit scammy to me.
I don't have a problem in theory with people paying for education privately, but as a relative outsider I think the current public school system does England much more harm than good.
Having comprehensively dissed Paula Vennels and her work as head of the PO, Alisdair Campbell (her former CFO) was shown his hand-written note to her on learning of her resignation. It was a glowing tribute.
How embarrassing!
Jason Beer then says he will go in with a lighter touch on the next bit because of Cameron's "What Went Wrong" document.
Effectively saying I would have run you through you horrible toad but because, belatedly, you tried to make amends having accepted what happened, I'm going to take it easier. Count yourself very, very lucky.
Yes, I very much have the impression that Campbell figured what way the wind was blowing and switched sides as far as he was able.
It will be fascinating to see if Vennels tries to do the same when she appears next week.
She's sure going to be box office.
I am currently pondering spending £25 on the Fury-Usyk fight (underwhelming undercard tbh apart from Opetaia Briedis). I would, however, sign up to Beer-Vennells in a heartbeat. Someone said it should be a national holiday.
Beer has so far been mostly up against no-hopers, and it wasn't surprising he made short work of them. Today however he came up against a real pro in Alisdair Campbell and for a while the former PO CFO and Chief Exec handled his opponent confidently. Just before the morning break however Beer caught him with a beauty. You virtually saw the eyes of the ex Andersen Partner roll, the knees sagged, and you half expected the ref (Sir Wyn Nice-Oldthing) to step in. He was saved by the bell and managed to carry on but he was visibly shaken and pummelled senseless by the merciless Beer until time was finally called.
Campbell looked to have aged ten years during the contest. I wonder if Usyk will suffer the same fate?
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.
Thanks very much, she’ll smash it whatever she chooses to do. I wish I had her determination and self-discipline when I was her age. God knows where she gets it from.
Granddaughter Two is heading for Melbourne Uni, assuming IB results are as expected. Taking the exams at the moment, school seem quietly confident.
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 eldest was in exactly the same boat. Definitely capable of Oxbridge - her sixth form college advised her to try - she thought it would be too elite for her - against my firm advice - and she’s plumped for.. St Andrews and Edinburgh as her main choices
I hesitate to tell her they will be even more cliquey and posh but with slightly dimmer people - but what can you do
Tbf to her I also think she wants to get as far away from her family as possible. Which is quite healthy at that age. I felt it at 18
Good for her. Sure she’ll be fine wherever she ends up. I bet she’s like her old man and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
My niece has mentioned UCL, London seems to be attracting her at the mo.
@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.
Your final paragraph is me to a T. Thank you so much for establishing that it's ok to say.
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.
Hm, yes, I was ambivalent about the Oxbridge thing when I was that age - couldn't really see past 'boring towns' and 'hard work'. On one hand I do regret it a bit now. There was never really any doubt that I would get the grades. On the other hand, it's hard to see how life would have been better if I'd gone there, even in the long term. I have friends who I was cleverer than at school who went on to Oxbridge and then giddy success. But are they any happier than me? It's hard to say that they are. Giddy success also comes with massively long hours and hardly seeing your family, it would seem. That said, I was quite unprepared for the sheer lack of expectations on me to do almost any work at all at my Russell Group university, and actually the sheer undemandingness of it made me sad after an enjoyably acedmically vigorous two years of A Levels.
Basically, I think we're a million miles from getting tertiary education right in this country. It should be possible to get an academically rigorous and rewarding and relevant experience which will lead on to a fulfilling life without confining yourself to one of two small cities in the outer South East. And it should be possible to have a be a success without having to start from one of those two universities, and without having to get on a 40 year treadmill of long hours and London and misery.
Which isn't necessarily much help to your niece, nor to my oldest daughter in four years time, who is also potential Oxbridge material and whom I'm also unsure how to advise.
It’s bonkers to say you can only succeed if you’re from Oxbridge. I went to UCL (and made friends for life). Imperial and LSE are also great. They have the great advantage over Oxbridge of london
By the time the Oxbridge people come down all the kids at the london unis have a social network and an established life in and knowledge of london. A world city
That’s big
And Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, Durham, St Andrews, etc aren’t exactly BAD
This is two and a bit decades out of date, but the people I grew up with who went to Durham were rugger buggers, Exeter for the tim-nice-but-dims, Bristol for trustafarian druggies, Agricultural College for the ones expecting to inherit the family farm (and actually work the land). Nobody went to Manchester or Edinburgh. Surprisingly few plumped for St Andrews but it was before it was known as Prince William College.
Interestingly enough it was always said that Durham was where you went to find someone from a similar cultural cachet to get married to, which appears to still hold true - https://www.palatinate.org.uk/meeting-the-real-70/
@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.
That's certainly my impression. It's not even a "work smarter, not harder" attitude - it's often just an "I deserve it" front with nothing to back it up. And relying on that as an adult seems a bit scammy to me.
I don't have a problem in theory with people paying for education privately, but as a relative outsider I think the current public school system does England much more harm than good.
Yet wealthy parents from all over the world send their children to public schools precisely because of the outstanding facilities and good academic results they get and the confidence they give.
Indeed you are now as likely to find English boarding school pupils from Singapore, China, Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and even Russia and Poland as the UK
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.
As an indicator of the benefits of such regulation to ensure safe batteries, and how much difference it would make - including around the larger batteries that Mark Harper wishes to promote as will be used by the more powerful e-bikes he wishes to categorise as "pedal cycles", consider this:
Brompton - a reputable manufacturer - have now sold 50,000+ electric bicycles, and the have NEVER had a case of a battery fire.
Here is a link to Julian Skiffin from Brompton discussing the issue, and briefly his company (one million bikes sold in 49 years) at the Walking and Cycling APPG.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
Well then you’re just tediously blithering on about linguistics. Yawn. Most Americans don’t use the word posh and it doesn’t exist outside the Anglophone world yet you said “around the world” so you’re a fucking idiot and unworthy of debate
Posh has a meaning which is easily looked up in any number of online dictionaries. The most common description being “elegant and refined”. And I agree, it scarcely exists outside the Anglophone world.
So applying it to Musk just doesn’t make sense. He’s tremendously powerful, and not particularly posh, though given his family background he’s posher than - say - Jim Ratcliffe.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
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.
The cyclist concerned in Regents Park was certainly over the 20mph limit and could certainly have been charged with at least the new death by careless cycling law the government is bringing in if not death by dangerous cycling.
If motorists and motorcyclists and lorry drivers can get charged with careless driving or dangerous driving causing death or serious injury then no reason cyclists cannot be too.
The Sale of Goods Act already enables manufacturers to be held liable for faulty products
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.
Thanks very much, she’ll smash it whatever she chooses to do. I wish I had her determination and self-discipline when I was her age. God knows where she gets it from.
Granddaughter Two is heading for Melbourne Uni, assuming IB results are as expected. Taking the exams at the moment, school seem quietly confident.
Our 21 year old granddaughter is at Turin University and is attending this weekend's Italian grand prix with a special invite into the pit lane no less
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
Vulgar and common are terms that you would certainly apply to Boris Johnson, though.
But I think one or two people look on him as a success. No idea why.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
Nobody in China or Djibouti or Venezuela or anyone else thinks Elon Musk is “posh”. That’s simply not the word anyone would use.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
Well then you’re just tediously blithering on about linguistics. Yawn. Most Americans don’t use the word posh and it doesn’t exist outside the Anglophone world yet you said “around the world” so you’re a fucking idiot and unworthy of debate
Posh has a meaning which is easily looked up in any number of online dictionaries. The most common description being “elegant and refined”. And I agree, it scarcely exists outside the Anglophone world.
So applying it to Musk just doesn’t make sense. He’s tremendously powerful, and not particularly posh, though given his family background he’s posher than - say - Jim Ratcliffe.
I was trying to broaden the PB hive mind. Maybe a winless task
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Surely the man who created the global hit word “noom” can create a new word for the likes of Musk combining power, influence and success?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk 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
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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
Who's with me?
Cucumber: any organic form of dildo?
Cucumber: a salad courgette.
Courgettes are nice raw in salad anyway, in ribbons with lemon juice.
Even nicer in ratatouille. It’s ratatouille season soon. With gigot d’agneau and herbes de Provence, and a rosé.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
That's not "the world" so much as your world. Social structures is either India or China are rather different, aren't they ?
Kinship clans still exist in China despite the cultural revolution; caste in India. That's half the world right there.
What Leon is inventing, with his journalistic eye for a Speccie headline, is the “nu-posh”. Like the NU10k. Fair enough.
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
That’s because Leon is so noom. I know noom used to mean atmosphere but I’ve decided that it should be applied to something different.
He's trying frantically to bail out of the earlier argument about "posh" where he was caught out and hence, being Leon, is trying to redefine the word posh so that he can win an argument about 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
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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
Who's with me?
Cucumber: any organic form of dildo?
Cucumber: a salad courgette.
Courgettes are nice raw in salad anyway, in ribbons with lemon juice.
Even nicer in ratatouille. It’s ratatouille season soon. With gigot d’agneau and herbes de Provence, and a rosé.
I love ratatouille- they do nice big jars of the stuff in French supermarkets which removes the effort. I sometimes add them to a ragu instead of tinned tomatoes for a better texture, but I’m a bit noom like that.
Well well well. Who could have guessed. Looks like it came from the lab. I mean. What are the chances??
BREAKING🚨
Today, based on evidence uncovered in @COVIDSelect's recent report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commenced formal debarment proceedings against EcoHealth Alliance.
EcoHealth will now face an immediate, government-wide suspension of taxpayer funds — including a hold on all active grants.
Breaking: @HHSGov has recommended that @EcoHealthNYC - the U.S. science nonprofit that helped fund risky coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology - be debarred from further federal research funding. Why does this matter? A look back at some key moments.🧵👇/1
People need to go to JAIL for this. 20m died. Start with Fauci, Daszak, Farrar, Anderson. They need to go to jail for a long long time just for the cover up - remember for a year you weren’t even allowed to DISCUSS the lab leak hypothesis on social media - it was a “racist conspiracy theory”
What Leon is inventing, with his journalistic eye for a Speccie headline, is the “nu-posh”. Like the NU10k. Fair enough.
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
That’s because Leon is so noom. I know noom used to mean atmosphere but I’ve decided that it should be applied to something different.
He's trying frantically to bail out of the earlier argument about "posh" where he was caught out and hence, being Leon, is trying to redefine the word posh so that he can win an argument about it.
“When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
What Leon is inventing, with his journalistic eye for a Speccie headline, is the “nu-posh”. Like the NU10k. Fair enough.
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
That’s because Leon is so noom. I know noom used to mean atmosphere but I’ve decided that it should be applied to something different.
He's trying frantically to bail out of the earlier argument about "posh" where he was caught out and hence, being Leon, is trying to redefine the word posh so that he can win an argument about it.
People often call me the Lionel Messi of Leon-esque-ness
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Yeah good to know. I would like to forge a more interesting definition of the word "cucumber" that goes beyond the tired fruito-vegetablist perceptions.
Who's with me?
Cucumber: any organic form of dildo?
Cucumber: a salad courgette.
Courgettes are nice raw in salad anyway, in ribbons with lemon juice.
Even nicer in ratatouille. It’s ratatouille season soon. With gigot d’agneau and herbes de Provence, and a rosé.
Sautéed, thinly sliced, with lemon juice and rosemary.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Surely the man who created the global hit word “noom” can create a new word for the likes of Musk combining power, influence and success?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk isn’t it.
Indeed. When we have a word which describes a thing, it's unhelpful for those who want to describe that thing if it's suddenly then used to mean a different thing? cf 'Disinterested'.
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)
Wait: winning a Conservative leadership contest, where he was Thatcher's chosen heir, was a greater achievement than pulling off a from behind General Election victory after the Conservatives had already been in power for 13 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
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.
What Leon is inventing, with his journalistic eye for a Speccie headline, is the “nu-posh”. Like the NU10k. Fair enough.
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
He is just confusing Poshness with Power.
The nouveau riche aren't exactly new, either. But they are today an order of magnitude richer, and technology further leverages the influence of that wealth. Whatever the word for that is, though, an updated 'posh' doesn't really get close to it..
"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.
And yet it's the Chancellor hinting at another fiscal event in the autumn and another NI cut. You may think it's difficult but the the calculation has been made that they are going to lose and they want cutting working people's tax as the legacy of the Tory government. Halving NI is something they can point to and when Labour try and raise it in government the Tories can accuse them of hurting working age people.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
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.
The cyclist concerned in Regents Park was certainly over the 20mph limit and could certainly have been charged with at least the new death by careless cycling law the government is bringing in if not death by dangerous cycling.
If motorists and motorcyclists and lorry drivers can get charged with careless driving or dangerous driving causing death or serious injury then no reason cyclists cannot be too.
The Sale of Goods Act already enables manufacturers to be held liable for faulty products
That is, they have been in law since 1992, and a lot of people are charged with these per annum. I have a number of 100+ in my head, but I'm not sure which offence it relates to.
They use the below and far below "the standard of a careful and competent cyclist" as the definition, the same as the driving offences.
The Coroner determined that the cause of death was "Accident". The police determined that no criminal offences could be charged, despite those offences already being available for use. One has to assume the cyclist was charged not with the offences available, because he was not cycling carelessly or dangerously to a chargeable standard.
The IDS amendments do not change the definition of Careless or Dangerous, except for the 'maintenance' bit (whatever that means).
So the claim that "they could certainly be charged ..." is just false. The police have determined that there is no possibility of such a charge, I take it because of the low likelihood of a conviction.
Motorists or lorry drivers do not get charged with careless or dangerous driving for going 9mph over the speed limit.
Mr Harper and his colleagues do not seem to be doing very much to prevent the sale of dangerous batteries under the Sale of Goods Act. There are 14 people dead in the last 2 years.
In fact people often call me the Marquess of Making Sure You’re All Talking About Me, that’s when they’re not calling me the Jay Rayner of Place and the Noel Gallagher of Noom and the Lionel Messi of Leon or just plain old “Napoleon Bonaparte, Imperator, Redux” which is what I ask friends to call me in private when I let my hair down and don’t want airs and graces getting in the way
AND I was right about tuk tuks. And I’ve only been back on the site for a day
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
That's not "the world" so much as your world. Social structures is either India or China are rather different, aren't they ?
Kinship clans still exist in China despite the cultural revolution; caste in India. That's half the world right there.
I would have thought The Leopard was the definitive text on poshness so Italy is not a great place from which to argue for its Anglo Saxon obscurity. See also bcbg in France
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Surely the man who created the global hit word “noom” can create a new word for the likes of Musk combining power, influence and success?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk isn’t it.
Indeed. When we have a word which describes a thing, it's unhelpful for those who want to describe that thing if it's suddenly then used to mean a different thing? cf 'Disinterested'.
Boswell uses disinterested to mean uninterested in the intro to loj
What Leon is inventing, with his journalistic eye for a Speccie headline, is the “nu-posh”. Like the NU10k. Fair enough.
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
That’s because Leon is so noom. I know noom used to mean atmosphere but I’ve decided that it should be applied to something different.
He's trying frantically to bail out of the earlier argument about "posh" where he was caught out and hence, being Leon, is trying to redefine the word posh so that he can win an argument about it.
People often call me the Lionel Messi of Leon-esque-ness
Actually I suggest that from now on we should regard Lionel Messi as the #1 ranked golfer on the PGA tour if that's ok.
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.
The cyclist concerned in Regents Park was certainly over the 20mph limit and could certainly have been charged with at least the new death by careless cycling law the government is bringing in if not death by dangerous cycling.
If motorists and motorcyclists and lorry drivers can get charged with careless driving or dangerous driving causing death or serious injury then no reason cyclists cannot be too.
The Sale of Goods Act already enables manufacturers to be held liable for faulty products
That is, they have been in law since 1992, and a lot of people are charged with these per annum. I have a number of 100+ in my head, but I'm not sure which offence it relates to.
They use the below and far below "the standard of a careful and competent cyclist" as the definition, the same as the driving offences.
The Coroner determined that the cause of death was "Accident". The police determined that no criminal offences could be charged, despite those offences already being available for use. One has to assume the cyclist was charged not with the offences available, because he was not cycling carelessly or dangerously to a chargeable standard.
The IDS amendments do not change the definition of Careless or Dangerous, except for the 'maintenance' bit (whatever that means).
So the claim that "they could certainly be charged ..." is just false. The police have determined that there is no possibility of such a charge, I take it because of the low likelihood of a conviction.
Motorists or lorry drivers do not get charged with careless or dangerous driving for going 9mph over the speed limit.
Mr Harper and his colleagues do not seem to be doing very much to prevent the sale of dangerous batteries under the Sale of Goods Act. There are 14 people dead in the last 2 years.
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.
The cyclist concerned in Regents Park was certainly over the 20mph limit and could certainly have been charged with at least the new death by careless cycling law the government is bringing in if not death by dangerous cycling.
If motorists and motorcyclists and lorry drivers can get charged with careless driving or dangerous driving causing death or serious injury then no reason cyclists cannot be too.
The Sale of Goods Act already enables manufacturers to be held liable for faulty products
That is, they have been in law since 1992, and a lot of people are charged with these per annum. I have a number of 100+ in my head, but I'm not sure which offence it relates to.
They use the below and far below "the standard of a careful and competent cyclist" as the definition, the same as the driving offences.
The Coroner determined that the cause of death was "Accident". The police determined that no criminal offences could be charged, despite those offences already being available for use. One has to assume the cyclist was charged not with the offences available, because he was not cycling carelessly or dangerously to a chargeable standard.
The IDS amendments do not change the definition of Careless or Dangerous, except for the 'maintenance' bit (whatever that means).
So the claim that "they could certainly be charged ..." is just false. The police have determined that there is no possibility of such a charge, I take it because of the low likelihood of a conviction.
Motorists or lorry drivers do not get charged with careless or dangerous driving for going 9mph over the speed limit.
Mr Harper and his colleagues do not seem to be doing very much to prevent the sale of dangerous batteries under the Sale of Goods Act. There are 14 people dead in the last 2 years.
It's worth bearing in mind that if cyclists grow overly concerned that they could fall foul of a badly drafted law that leaves a wide scope for subjective judgement then they're likely to drive instead - where they are far more likely to hurt or kill a pedestrian. So the net effect could be to lead to more pedestrian deaths. Hopefully this new offence will be carefully worded and well understood.
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.
As an indicator of the benefits of such regulation to ensure safe batteries, and how much difference it would make - including around the larger batteries that Mark Harper wishes to promote as will be used by the more powerful e-bikes he wishes to categorise as "pedal cycles", consider this:
Brompton - a reputable manufacturer - have now sold 50,000+ electric bicycles, and the have NEVER had a case of a battery fire.
Here is a link to Julian Skiffin from Brompton discussing the issue, and briefly his company (one million bikes sold in 49 years) at the Walking and Cycling APPG.
The issue isn’t Brompton’s expensive high-quality batteries and chargers, it’s the cheap Chinese crap that is responsible for an increase an house fires.
"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.
And yet it's the Chancellor hinting at another fiscal event in the autumn and another NI cut. You may think it's difficult but the the calculation has been made that they are going to lose and they want cutting working people's tax as the legacy of the Tory government. Halving NI is something they can point to and when Labour try and raise it in government the Tories can accuse them of hurting working age people.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
Why would Labour reverse the NI cuts - were it me the increase would be to 3 or 5p on Income Tax very early on with the blame pinned on Hunt and the unspecified spending cuts that were not identified and cannot be found.
Yes it would upset Pensioners but it’s the best of a very bad set of options
In fact people often call me the Marquess of Making Sure You’re All Talking About Me, that’s when they’re not calling me the Jay Rayner of Place and the Noel Gallagher of Noom and the Lionel Messi of Leon or just plain old “Napoleon Bonaparte, Imperator, Redux” which is what I ask friends to call me in private when I let my hair down and don’t want airs and graces getting in the way
AND I was right about tuk tuks. And I’ve only been back on the site for a day
In fact people often call me the Marquess of Making Sure You’re All Talking About Me, that’s when they’re not calling me the Jay Rayner of Place and the Noel Gallagher of Noom and the Lionel Messi of Leon or just plain old “Napoleon Bonaparte, Imperator, Redux” which is what I ask friends to call me in private when I let my hair down and don’t want airs and graces getting in the way
AND I was right about tuk tuks. And I’ve only been back on the site for a day
And solar will be looking pretty grim by midnight.
Why the sarcastic reply?
Coz I think solar is a waste of time in the UK.
I was not intending anything against you, so apologies if it came across that way.
5% of our total generation last year, so it's some way from irrelevant.
It must have the worst return on energy generated per billion spent.
Remember when you and I were virtually the only people on PB willing to say “er, it quite likely came from the lab? The bat virus lab just down the road from the bat virus outbreak?”
Now read this:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide" - Chairman Wenstrup, Committee on Oversight and Accountability - COVID-19.
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/
Presumably a driver or 3-wood would be first degree assault?
"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.
And yet it's the Chancellor hinting at another fiscal event in the autumn and another NI cut. You may think it's difficult but the the calculation has been made that they are going to lose and they want cutting working people's tax as the legacy of the Tory government. Halving NI is something they can point to and when Labour try and raise it in government the Tories can accuse them of hurting working age people.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
Why would Labour reverse the NI cuts - were it me the increase would be to 3 or 5p on Income Tax very early on with the blame pinned on Hunt and the unspecified spending cuts that were not identified and cannot be found.
Yes it would upset Pensioners but it’s the best of a very bad set of options
If they put income tax up by anywhere near that much they've lost the 2029 election on day one. NI and extending fiscal drag to 2029 is the obvious target.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Surely the man who created the global hit word “noom” can create a new word for the likes of Musk combining power, influence and success?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk isn’t it.
Posh is a thing, but there is more than one tree, and multiple transferred epithetical meanings of posh.
Re: Scottie Scottie Scheffler, note that there was apparently scope for misunderstanding of situation on his part.
However, when cops indicate you need to stop, in general you NEED to stop.
This is especially true methinks in traffic-control situations. Recall about a year ago, local police were directing traffic at a working stoplight. A driver became VERY irate at having their progress temporarily curtailed.
Turned out that an armed fugitive was being apprehended a block away.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
With 'posh', resort to that occasional usefulness of Wittgenstein. To know what it means, consider carefully its uses.
"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.
And yet it's the Chancellor hinting at another fiscal event in the autumn and another NI cut. You may think it's difficult but the the calculation has been made that they are going to lose and they want cutting working people's tax as the legacy of the Tory government. Halving NI is something they can point to and when Labour try and raise it in government the Tories can accuse them of hurting working age people.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
Would Hunt and Sunak really be looking that far ahead? The record of this government so far doesn't suggest to me any long term plan, let alone one that they will almost certainly have left the top of the party before it is tested.
@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
He’s like a Sun King of our time. THAT is posh
I'm with TimS here. What we understand by posh in this country is more accent, attitude, appearing to be related to the Queen*, than any sort of power/connectedness.
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring and pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines in
We already have a word for the concept you were talking about. It's "power".
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
I got cut off by shite Italian wifi
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Surely the man who created the global hit word “noom” can create a new word for the likes of Musk combining power, influence and success?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk isn’t it.
Posh is a thing, but there is more than one tree, and multiple transferred epithetical meanings of posh.
True, I guess using it to mean “best” where Bob Cratchet tells tiny Tim to bring his posh crutch when meeting Mr Scrooge or when hyacinth Bucket gets out the “posh” crockery for some visitor.
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.
As an indicator of the benefits of such regulation to ensure safe batteries, and how much difference it would make - including around the larger batteries that Mark Harper wishes to promote as will be used by the more powerful e-bikes he wishes to categorise as "pedal cycles", consider this:
Brompton - a reputable manufacturer - have now sold 50,000+ electric bicycles, and the have NEVER had a case of a battery fire.
Here is a link to Julian Skiffin from Brompton discussing the issue, and briefly his company (one million bikes sold in 49 years) at the Walking and Cycling APPG.
The issue isn’t Brompton’s expensive high-quality batteries and chargers, it’s the cheap Chinese crap that is responsible for an increase an house fires.
A supply chain which requires to be regulated for reasons of public safety, and has not been.
There are a number of parallel issues, in all of which cases action is straightforward which has not been done - and genies are being let out of bottles. Motorbikes capable of 50mph sold as "E-bikes" are another case, which in law require type approval, insurance, registration and full safety gear for use on the public highway. Not regulated, nor generally enforced upon.
One that has come onto my radar this week has been deregulation of "cable charging protectors" to be placed across pavements, the size of which makes "as of right" use by wheelchairs or small wheel cycles (on shared pavements) impossible because the things are the size of traffic calming humps.
Piccie below is a £20 one delivered to me yesterday, compared to a house brick. It is 2 inches high. If embedding works "!
Here, for example, is the policy statement from Warwickshire County Council, which explicitly pretends that several of their legal responsibilities do not exist, such as those under Equality Act 2010, and their Duty to prevent obstruction of the public highway (various under HWA 1980). https://api.warwickshire.gov.uk/documents/WCCC-1615347118-1185
And solar will be looking pretty grim by midnight.
Why the sarcastic reply?
Coz I think solar is a waste of time in the UK.
I was not intending anything against you, so apologies if it came across that way.
5% of our total generation last year, so it's some way from irrelevant.
It must have the worst return on energy generated per billion spent.
Remember when you and I were virtually the only people on PB willing to say “er, it quite likely came from the lab? The bat virus lab just down the road from the bat virus outbreak?”
Now read this:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide" - Chairman Wenstrup, Committee on Oversight and Accountability - COVID-19.
Indeed. Yet there's still some die hards even on here who want to cling to the idea that they weren't being lied to by the "good" side and the "bad" team were right about it all.
We had a uni mates reunion a couple of weekends ago that I was graciously allowed to attend for a few hours by my wife juggling a relative newborn and a toddler. The subject came up (unsurprising given that we all studied chemistry, biochemistry and/or medicine) and the consensus around the room was unanimous that it was a lab leak and that it was likely covered up by the Americans because senior people in their health regulatory infrastructure were implicated. They all work in research and know how easy it is for political pressure to change decisions by journals.
I reckon Daszak will now go to jail and many others must be crapping themselves. Fauci, Farrar, Richard Horton, Krisitian Anderson, Holmes - dozens of people who conspired to cover this up
"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.
And yet it's the Chancellor hinting at another fiscal event in the autumn and another NI cut. You may think it's difficult but the the calculation has been made that they are going to lose and they want cutting working people's tax as the legacy of the Tory government. Halving NI is something they can point to and when Labour try and raise it in government the Tories can accuse them of hurting working age people.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
Would Hunt and Sunak really be looking that far ahead? The record of this government so far doesn't suggest to me any long term plan, let alone one that they will almost certainly have left the top of the party before it is tested.
I think the men in grey suits that run the party are very much looking that far forwards and position for 2029 rather than 2024 which everyone accepts is lost.
And solar will be looking pretty grim by midnight.
Why the sarcastic reply?
Coz I think solar is a waste of time in the UK.
I was not intending anything against you, so apologies if it came across that way.
5% of our total generation last year, so it's some way from irrelevant.
It must have the worst return on energy generated per billion spent.
Remember when you and I were virtually the only people on PB willing to say “er, it quite likely came from the lab? The bat virus lab just down the road from the bat virus outbreak?”
Now read this:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide" - Chairman Wenstrup, Committee on Oversight and Accountability - COVID-19.
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.
As an indicator of the benefits of such regulation to ensure safe batteries, and how much difference it would make - including around the larger batteries that Mark Harper wishes to promote as will be used by the more powerful e-bikes he wishes to categorise as "pedal cycles", consider this:
Brompton - a reputable manufacturer - have now sold 50,000+ electric bicycles, and the have NEVER had a case of a battery fire.
Here is a link to Julian Skiffin from Brompton discussing the issue, and briefly his company (one million bikes sold in 49 years) at the Walking and Cycling APPG.
The issue isn’t Brompton’s expensive high-quality batteries and chargers, it’s the cheap Chinese crap that is responsible for an increase an house fires.
A supply chain which requires to be regulated for reasons of public safety, and has not been.
There are a number of parallel issues, in all of which cases action is straightforward which has not been done - and genies are being let out of bottles. Unregistered motobikes sold as "E-bikes" are another case.
One that has come onto my radar this week has been deregulation of "cable charging protectors" to be placed across pavements, the size of which makes "as of right" use by wheelchairs or small wheel cycles (on shared pavements) impossible because the things are the size of traffic calming humps.
Piccie below is a £20 one delivered to me yesterday, compared to a house brick. It is 2 inches high. If embedding works "!
Here, for example, is the policy statement from Warwickshire County Council, which explicitly pretends that several of their legal responsibilities do not exist, such as user Equality Act 2010, and their Duty to prevent obstruction of the public highway. https://api.warwickshire.gov.uk/documents/WCCC-1615347118-1185
I recall the push, before modern EVs came out, to grant the impossibly flimsy early electric mini-cars exemptions from safety standards. Apparently the quadracyle loophole they used wasn't enough.
And solar will be looking pretty grim by midnight.
Why the sarcastic reply?
Coz I think solar is a waste of time in the UK.
I was not intending anything against you, so apologies if it came across that way.
5% of our total generation last year, so it's some way from irrelevant.
It must have the worst return on energy generated per billion spent.
Remember when you and I were virtually the only people on PB willing to say “er, it quite likely came from the lab? The bat virus lab just down the road from the bat virus outbreak?”
Now read this:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide" - Chairman Wenstrup, Committee on Oversight and Accountability - COVID-19.
Indeed. Yet there's still some die hards even on here who want to cling to the idea that they weren't being lied to by the "good" side and the "bad" team were right about it all.
We had a uni mates reunion a couple of weekends ago that I was graciously allowed to attend for a few hours by my wife juggling a relative newborn and a toddler. The subject came up (unsurprising given that we all studied chemistry, biochemistry and/or medicine) and the consensus around the room was unanimous that it was a lab leak and that it was likely covered up by the Americans because senior people in their health regulatory infrastructure were implicated. They all work in research and know how easy it is for political pressure to change decisions by journals.
Quite so, quite so. And for a long time it was just you and me willing to say this on PB. And sometimes @Gardenwalker as well
Pitiful
Anyway we now need a reckoning. Science itself needs to be severely scrutinised - from the labs to the journals
I reckon Daszak will now go to jail and many others must be crapping themselves. Fauci, Farrar, Richard Horton, Krisitian Anderson, Holmes - dozens of people who conspired to cover this up
Science itself was corrupted; 20 million are dead
Limited bet (only because I am poor) but I would bet 50 pounds to a charity of your choice that Daszak does not go to jail.
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/
Presumably a driver or 3-wood would be first degree assault?
Guidelines needed for sentencing, along the lines of:
Putter: fine Sand iron: suspended custodial Driver: immediate custodial
It's never going to be a huge amount of the UK power mix because if our our latitude (unless we import via long distance HVDC cable - which is not economically unrealistic), but it will grow as a % of the market simply because it will pay for itself.
I reckon Daszak will now go to jail and many others must be crapping themselves. Fauci, Farrar, Richard Horton, Krisitian Anderson, Holmes - dozens of people who conspired to cover this up
Science itself was corrupted; 20 million are dead
Limited bet (only because I am poor) but I would bet 50 pounds to a charity of your choice that Daszak does not go to jail.
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 went to Cambridge in the mid-1990s, from a Scottish comprehensive school. There were times when I wasn't happy there but I suspect that had more to do with me than with the place itself. There were certainly aspects that were quite culturally alien to me - and I am far from working class - but you can mostly ignore it. And since then the intake at Oxbridge has become a lot more "normal". I met some wonderful people including my lovely wife (the latter obviously has done more to improve my life than anything else - I don't want to sound all Jane Austen but the opportunity to meet like minded people you might want to marry one day isn't to be sniffed at). The teaching is often (but certainly not always) very good. And they work you pretty hard, which is a good thing. It opens a lot of doors too. I actually think the main thing to bear in mind about both Oxford and Cambridge, but maybe particularly Cambridge, is that they are both rather small places. There isn't much going on outside of the university itself. In particular, the nightlife is crap. Mind you, the same is true of some other places, like St Andrews.
Comments
That said, I was quite unprepared for the sheer lack of expectations on me to do almost any work at all at my Russell Group university, and actually the sheer undemandingness of it made me sad after an enjoyably acedmically vigorous two years of A Levels.
Basically, I think we're a million miles from getting tertiary education right in this country. It should be possible to get an academically rigorous and rewarding and relevant experience which will lead on to a fulfilling life without confining yourself to one of two small cities in the outer South East. And it should be possible to have a be a success without having to start from one of those two universities, and without having to get on a 40 year treadmill of long hours and London and misery.
Which isn't necessarily much help to your niece, nor to my oldest daughter in four years time, who is also potential Oxbridge material and whom I'm also unsure how to advise.
I hesitate to tell her they will be even more cliquey and posh but with slightly dimmer people - but what can you do
Tbf to her I also think she wants to get as far away from her family as possible. Which is quite healthy at that age. I felt it at 18
I hope you said “Sorry officer I’m English”
And he said, “no, I AM Officer English”
“Why the pullover, officer?”
“Well it’s a bit chilly today Mr Seal”
It would have been a better story.
Posh, insofar as it has meaning, signifies a way of speaking and acting, an accent, or (in continental Europe) a certain aristocratic pallor and a degree of inbreeding. It doesn’t signify either power or wealth or prestige.
Ask an American to name someone posh and they’ll probably say either the Queen or Hugh Grant, or possibly even Boris Johnson.
Ask a Venezuelan and they’ll almost certainly say “what does posh mean”? It’s a very Anglo-Saxon expression, like “vulgar” or “common”.
For obvious reasons I can’t give details but I’ve acted for and against various tech startup types. A lot of them get into some basic, entry level, legal shit that belies their obvious intelligence. My judgment is coloured accordingly.
By the time the Oxbridge people come down all the kids at the london unis have a social network and an established life in and knowledge of london. A world city
That’s big
And Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol, Durham, St Andrews, etc aren’t exactly BAD
Poshness is hard to define but you know it when you see it. And it's not what I think when I look at Elon Musk.
Clearly what Elon Musk has in being able to pick up the phone to anyone in the world is more impressive. But he can't do effortless disdain like Hugh Grant or be charming and tiny like the queen.
We're not arguing about who is more important or powerful or well known. We're arguing about what we understand by the word 'posh'.
*By whom, obviously, I mean Queen Elizabeth II, who to me is still THE Queen. Any other Queens need names or countries to explain which queen they are.
The character of Bond is a snob, invented by a social climber.
To be fair it's slightly different now in Manchester. Manchester is now so successful that if you go to university in Manchester you can do so with a fair expectation of staying there in whatever your career of choice is. That certainly wasn't the case 30 years ago.
I don't have a problem in theory with people paying for education privately, but as a relative outsider I think the current public school system does England much more harm than good.
Campbell looked to have aged ten years during the contest. I wonder if Usyk will suffer the same fate?
My niece has mentioned UCL, London seems to be attracting her at the mo.
Interestingly enough it was always said that Durham was where you went to find someone from a similar cultural cachet to get married to, which appears to still hold true - https://www.palatinate.org.uk/meeting-the-real-70/
Indeed you are now as likely to find English boarding school pupils from Singapore, China, Hong Kong, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and even Russia and Poland as the UK
Brompton - a reputable manufacturer - have now sold 50,000+ electric bicycles, and the have NEVER had a case of a battery fire.
Here is a link to Julian Skiffin from Brompton discussing the issue, and briefly his company (one million bikes sold in 49 years) at the Walking and Cycling APPG.
https://youtu.be/m7zee72mZ88?t=101
So applying it to Musk just doesn’t make sense. He’s tremendously powerful, and not particularly posh, though given his family background he’s posher than - say - Jim Ratcliffe.
If motorists and motorcyclists and lorry drivers can get charged with careless driving or dangerous driving causing death or serious injury then no reason cyclists cannot be too.
The Sale of Goods Act already enables manufacturers to be held liable for faulty products
Trying to change another word to have the meaning of a word that already exists is bizarre and fruitless. Unless you're a teenager, in which case it succeeds due to annoying your parents.
But I think one or two people look on him as a success. No idea why.
Here’s my full answer. Which explains it
I was trying to forge a more interesting definition of “posh” that goes beyond tired Anglocentric perceptions. Coz I find the English class system simultaneously boring, pointless and parochial these days. I might as well fret out the Guelphs vs the Ghibellines
But being English you find it hard to think outside this box
Let’s try another tactic. What is a social influencer? That - in olden days - was the definition of poshness. Social influence. The marquise du froufrou is wearing cerise! We must all wear cerise
Oh, the Lady Arabella Cholmondely-Peverell has been seen at Skindles!
The posh had unspoken but real SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Societal and therefore cultural power, just by being who they are
The average aristocrat is now replaced by a YouTuber/tiktokker with 2m subscribers. And Tech bros are the new royals of the world in their private jets. They combine serious power with intense social influence. In Musk’s case he actually OWNS a major social medium and he talks on it to his 120m followers. That is global “poshness” - he is like the king of France
Who's with me?
Posh is what it is and it doesn’t make sense to change its application because those who are posh aren’t necessarily the movers and the shakers anymore.
Posh is a set of signals from what you wear, your manners (more mannerisms than etiquette as really posh people don’t really give a fig for etiquette),pastimes, education, even where you live and what you drive.
Posh no longer equals the top of the tree but it’s still a thing and Musk isn’t it.
https://insideevs.com/news/719821/biden-vs-trump-chinese-car-tariffs/
The “you’re all fucking small minded idiots” thing is just frustration at this not being immediately embraced.
Even nicer in ratatouille. It’s ratatouille season soon. With gigot d’agneau and herbes de Provence, and a rosé.
Social structures is either India or China are rather different, aren't they ?
Kinship clans still exist in China despite the cultural revolution; caste in India. That's half the world right there.
BREAKING🚨
Today, based on evidence uncovered in @COVIDSelect's recent report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commenced formal debarment proceedings against EcoHealth Alliance.
EcoHealth will now face an immediate, government-wide suspension of taxpayer funds — including a hold on all active grants.
Breaking: @HHSGov has recommended that @EcoHealthNYC - the U.S. science nonprofit that helped fund risky coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology - be debarred from further federal research funding. Why does this matter? A look back at some key moments.🧵👇/1
https://x.com/katherineeban/status/1790801572047282446?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
People need to go to JAIL for this. 20m died. Start with Fauci, Daszak, Farrar, Anderson. They need to go to jail for a long long time just for the cover up - remember for a year you weren’t even allowed to DISCUSS the lab leak hypothesis on social media - it was a “racist conspiracy theory”
cf 'Disinterested'.
"Magnets, they're fucking magic, no?"
But they are today an order of magnitude richer, and technology further leverages the influence of that wealth. Whatever the word for that is, though, an updated 'posh' doesn't really get close to it..
He apparently ignore order to stop.
Personally don't give a damn IF he's allegedly #1 pro golfer in the world.
I can already see the election after this one is going to be a battle of working people vs non working people and the Tories are trying to make sure they have a legacy of helping working people before they get kicked out. That's the strategy, the Tories are putting together a winning coalition for 2029, not 2024 which is already lost. Having something very concrete to campaign on like halving the NI rate vs Labour pushing it up and having a 4 week campaign where the myth that NI funds pensions or the NHS can be broken helps the Tories in 2029.
There is clearly an acceptance that 2024 is lost and at best a damage limitation exercise. Any probable actions should be interpreted as moving the party in the direction of putting together a winning coalition for 2029 because the next 5 years are going to be absolute shit for Labour. They've got £40-50bn in welfare cuts to make or £40-50bn in tax raises. Labour will never cut welfare so the Tories are banking on Labour reversing the NI cuts.
I was not intending anything against you, so apologies if it came across that way.
The offences of Careless Cycling and Dangerous Cycling are in sections 28 and 29 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as amended by the RTA 1991.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/part/I/crossheading/cycling-offences-and-cycle-racing
That is, they have been in law since 1992, and a lot of people are charged with these per annum. I have a number of 100+ in my head, but I'm not sure which offence it relates to.
They use the below and far below "the standard of a careful and competent cyclist" as the definition, the same as the driving offences.
The Coroner determined that the cause of death was "Accident". The police determined that no criminal offences could be charged, despite those offences already being available for use. One has to assume the cyclist was charged not with the offences available, because he was not cycling carelessly or dangerously to a chargeable standard.
The IDS amendments do not change the definition of Careless or Dangerous, except for the 'maintenance' bit (whatever that means).
So the claim that "they could certainly be charged ..." is just false. The police have determined that there is no possibility of such a charge, I take it because of the low likelihood of a conviction.
Motorists or lorry drivers do not get charged with careless or dangerous driving for going 9mph over the speed limit.
If you really want to dig into this, there is an interview with Martin Porter, known as the Cycling KC, here:
https://road.cc/content/news/martin-porter-kc-cycling-law-mental-health-awareness-roadcc-podcast-308409
Mr Harper and his colleagues do not seem to be doing very much to prevent the sale of dangerous batteries under the Sale of Goods Act. There are 14 people dead in the last 2 years.
AND I was right about tuk tuks. And I’ve only been back on the site for a day
Perhaps while planting a Keir Starmer voodoo doll . . . with a pin for every constituency!
IDS amendment:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-05-15/debates/70FB3786-C2A3-4CFE-90EA-CC2CB5AE5CCE/CriminalJusticeBill
In my part of the world, electric scooters got banned from the Metro trains after one caught fire and caused delays. https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/transport/dubai-e-scooters-banned-inside-metro-tram-from-tomorrow
Yes it would upset Pensioners but it’s the best of a very bad set of options
Of course, one day batteries will be so cheap we won't need them. But for now, they're great.
Now read this:
“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide"
- Chairman Wenstrup, Committee on Oversight and Accountability - COVID-19.
https://x.com/rwmalonemd/status/1790848520921981004?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
However, when cops indicate you need to stop, in general you NEED to stop.
This is especially true methinks in traffic-control situations. Recall about a year ago, local police were directing traffic at a working stoplight. A driver became VERY irate at having their progress temporarily curtailed.
Turned out that an armed fugitive was being apprehended a block away.
And there’s Peterborough Utd FC, they’re Posh.
A supply chain which requires to be regulated for reasons of public safety, and has not been.
There are a number of parallel issues, in all of which cases action is straightforward which has not been done - and genies are being let out of bottles. Motorbikes capable of 50mph sold as "E-bikes" are another case, which in law require type approval, insurance, registration and full safety gear for use on the public highway. Not regulated, nor generally enforced upon.
One that has come onto my radar this week has been deregulation of "cable charging protectors" to be placed across pavements, the size of which makes "as of right" use by wheelchairs or small wheel cycles (on shared pavements) impossible because the things are the size of traffic calming humps.
Piccie below is a £20 one delivered to me yesterday, compared to a house brick. It is 2 inches high. If embedding works "!
Here, for example, is the policy statement from Warwickshire County Council, which explicitly pretends that several of their legal responsibilities do not exist, such as those under Equality Act 2010, and their Duty to prevent obstruction of the public highway (various under HWA 1980).
https://api.warwickshire.gov.uk/documents/WCCC-1615347118-1185
We had a uni mates reunion a couple of weekends ago that I was graciously allowed to attend for a few hours by my wife juggling a relative newborn and a toddler. The subject came up (unsurprising given that we all studied chemistry, biochemistry and/or medicine) and the consensus around the room was unanimous that it was a lab leak and that it was likely covered up by the Americans because senior people in their health regulatory infrastructure were implicated. They all work in research and know how easy it is for political pressure to change decisions by journals.
So Elon Musk as Poster Child makes perfect sense!
Science itself was corrupted; 20 million are dead
Pitiful
Anyway we now need a reckoning. Science itself needs to be severely scrutinised - from the labs to the journals
Putter: fine
Sand iron: suspended custodial
Driver: immediate custodial
And looking ahead, solar looks quite cheap in LCOE terms:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666389923000752
It's never going to be a huge amount of the UK power mix because if our our latitude (unless we import via long distance HVDC cable - which is not economically unrealistic), but it will grow as a % of the market simply because it will pay for itself.
NEW THREAD
I actually think the main thing to bear in mind about both Oxford and Cambridge, but maybe particularly Cambridge, is that they are both rather small places. There isn't much going on outside of the university itself. In particular, the nightlife is crap. Mind you, the same is true of some other places, like St Andrews.