An acquaintance worked for Inland Revenue and in times gone by he would not have met this
particular chap because he would have become a CofE cleric, what with the old expression of the first inherits and looks after the family affairs, the next does something in the military but the CofE raised its standards and the nice but dim ones from old money were no longer allowed.

The story, the IR colleagues were enjoying a drink in Kensington public house and these colleagues come from a wide variety of social backgrounds. They were discussing films and a recently released film was the loose biopic, Nil By Mouth. One of the workers said that they enjoyed the film but mainly because it was shot on location on his estate. At which point the young, nice, dim, old money with title says "Oh, how marvellous! How many acres?"
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 11:32, Reply)

Class
The area I grew up in while officially Surrey was on the cusp of Saaaaf Lahndaaahn, at my school it was acceptable for your family to have money as long as you were academically stunted and spoke like Ray Winstone. The mouth breathers I went to school with (described above) invented what can only be described as a caste system for the different social groups in our year: The Whispas – money and/or looks and/or sporting ability, big surprise for them when they entered the real world after secondary school (I hope). The pussy posse – identikit football obsessed YSL shirts and pinstripe trousers latent homosexuality bubbling just under the surface bless’em. The foreign legion – All the ethnic minorities who hung around in a large group together, possibly plotting the overthrow of Western society but who knows eh they’re inscrutable that lot Daily Star Princess Diana Eastenders and so on and so forth. The geeks – timid, conformist and took schoolwork seriously. The freaks – everyone else who they couldn’t readily pigeonhole, this included the mentally/behaviourally subnormal. One day a ‘freak’ was sent out of PE after being repeatedly punched by one of the ‘pussy posse’, he took advantage of being in the changing room alone to relieve himself over the school uniform of the pussy in question and leave for the day. The pussy saw out the end of the day in his PE kit. Rather than being hailed for breaking down the caste system and showing that he had a voice and feelings etc, they jumped the freak before school started, denuded him and wedged him into one of the plastic bins on the rec ground behind the school. With only his feet and head showing out of the bin and his arms firmly wedged behind him he could neither climb out, nor work up enough momentum to tip the bin and escape. This being a blisteringly hot day in June, by the early afternoon he had become terribly dehydrated. Luckily the way he had been wedged, with some careful angling did allow for one extreme solution. Long story short he pissed in his own mouth.
(Oooh_cuntroversial Where have I been?, Tue 25 Mar 2014, 15:22, 11 replies)

There's a shop next door to my house with a car park round the back.
The entrance road is a couple of feet higher than my garden and there's no wall along the side. Accident waiting to happen.

The other night it did happen: a couple of guys had run out of petrol and were pushing their car along the road past my house. The traffic behind them was getting impatient so they backed it onto the shop's drive. They misjudged it and the two offside wheels slipped over the edge. The car was now precariously balanced - left hand wheels on the road, right hand wheels hanging in space. The whole thing was threatening to roll over sideways into my garden.

I went out, thinking, "There's nothing we can do, we'll have to call out a crane or something. At least I can offer them a cup of tea while they wait - it's a cold night."

It was quickly apparent that they wouldn't be calling any assistance at all. From the way they dressed, spoke, etc. it was clear they were in quite a lower income bracket to me. Probably from the somewhat dodgy estate just up the road. I hate the word chav (it's prejudiced discrimination in my opinion), but I imagine some would be willing to apply it to these two. They were a couple of great guys as it turned out though. Book/cover and all that.

They'd topped up the tank (the petrol station was only another 100 yards up the road), but in their efforts to drive on two wheels had run the battery flat. They had a car jack (sans handle), which clearly wasn't enough to get the car back into place, so I went to see what I could find in the shed.

Inventory: Two car jacks, four bricks, one massive breeze block, two lengths of two-by-four, three old pine book shelves, one steel wheelchair ramp. Edge of road is tatty tarmac on crumbly brick; two-foot drop to muddy grass beneath.

It was like a flipping physics puzzle game! We built precarious towers with jacks on top. We chiseled crumbled brick to make a solid flat surface. We shoved and heaved. We scraped suspension across tarmac. We let down tyres and removed wheels. We panicked ("Let the jack down! Let the jack down! It's sliding - I can't hold it!")

After two hours of hard thought and hard labour we eventually got it back onto the road. We cheered, shook hands. I jump-started their engine and they were good to go.

"Do you drink, mate? Can I buy you anything to say thanks?"

"Ah well, I don't mind a drop of whisky..."

"Nice bottle of Bells then?"

I opened my mouth to say, "well, I'm more a single malt man really" but realised just in time that would have been churlish. "Yeah, that would be great," I smiled instead.

Now I feel awful. This probably wasn't cheap for him but it's wasted on me. But then, it would have been ungracious to refuse a token of gratitude, so I couldn't have done otherwise. I just don't know what to do with this stuff. I've opened it (just to check it's as bad as I remember: it is) so I can't even off-load it as a tombola donation.

Crap. When did I become such a snob?
( teedyay, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 22:08, 15 replies)

one of my friends, who is terribly posh herself, has a group of terribly posh friends
i go out with them occasionally. they are nice girls, but it's like being in the middle of "made in chelsea" (literally, as she lives on one of the streets where they film it, not that i've ever seen it). they sit around places like amuse bouche in fulham, and bray about how men need to buy all the fucking drinks, and it better be fucking good fizz, because they're fucking rich.

going out for dinner with them is hilarious, because they don't eat. not a mouthful. the fondue goes cold, the mountain of potatoes and bread sits forlornly on the table, as they toy with one piece of vegetable. but boy, do the wine bottles mount up and up. mostly i just laugh with/at them, but occasionally i can't resist tweaking one. last time we went out, i turned to felicity (or fliss, as she calls herself), and said, "oooh, we've got the same coat." i knew full well that mine was an £80 m&s fake, whereas hers was probably inherited from her great grandmother. sure enough, she winced palpably, and then said painfully,

"oh yah. but i think the difference will be noticeable when we step outside. real fur does so much better in the rain."

serves her right, she was so bloody rude to the coat-girl about her manky bit of mink skin, i hope she enjoyed hearing that it looked like an m&s knock-off.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 18:37, 20 replies)

I honestly don't know what class I fit into
On the one hand, I had an alcoholic stepfather who beat me, ending up in care as a total fuckup at the age of 14, having first attempted suicide at the age of about 8. I've been on benefits most of my life due to the fact that my education was utterly fucked over by aforementioned childhood, having to make do with a spectacularly low income and live in some extremely dodgy places. I'm now permanently signed off work because my health is utterly fucked, so not much chance of getting off benefits any time soon. I live in a one room flat with a dodgy landlord, and when my kids come to stay (divorced, of course) one sleeps on a z-bed, one on the sofa and one on a mattress on the floor.

I got snaffled up by a very culty church in my teens and spent a lot of years thinking Jesus was the best thing since.. well Jehovah I suppose. The only good thing about that is it got me off the enormous quantity of MASSIVE DRUGS I was into beforehand, which I am convinced would have resulted in an early death otherwise. All pointing to being very working class I'd say.

On the other hand, Both my mother and father's family are extremely middle class, verging on upper class. My Parents met at Camberwell art college.

On my father's side, some distant rellie was the archbishop of Capetown, another was Brahms's muse and the first to sing most of his music. My cousin's godfather was Gerry Anderson, and my aunt had a fling with the Dalai Llama's PA.
My Father lives in Hong Kong, and my Grandmother lived in Paris and had an MBA.

On my Mother's side, my Uncle wrote the Penguin Book of Fishing, which was illustrated by my Mum. In fact both uncles on that side are published authors (Uncle Bob's first book was one of the first warnings about the environmental impact of western civilisation, back in 1980) and we're all descended from Charles Lamb - he of the rather shite 'Tales From Shakespeare'and other trite crap. Once when my uncle phoned me, my ex thought it was someone doing a silly posh voice.

My children are all spectacularly intelligent. My youngest is going away to a school for kids who are amazing at maths in September. My daughter loves sailing and plans to spend most of her life at sea, and my eldest wants to be a medical researcher or something like that.

I own a yacht piano and I've just bought a beaureu. I have something in the region of 500 books, and I actually genuinely read them. I have a tendency to wear corduroy. I love art, have a few pieces of original art around my flat (OK so it's all by my family and friends but it's still the real deal) I get excited about spices and teas and even have different teapots for different teas. I went to London once for the express purpose of buying spices for myself. I live in Cornwall. I want to run a teashop, with a samovar in it. I have a spa membership for fuck's sake! It's actually one of the few things that eases a lot of my pain, but still...
I'm a graphic designer at the moment, but thinking of going into writing and proofreading instead. I think in long words. In fact, when I'm drunk I use a lot more of them than when I'm sober. I go to poetry evenings and join in with local amdram. I am in the process of writing a novel.

So then, very middle class too, verging on posh, it would appear.

Quite a living contradiction, me. I sort of fit in in both worlds but also neither. People definitely find me confusing. I tend to mostly fit in with hedonistic hippy types, but I am quite happy with my little internal dichotomy. It means I get to be who the fuck I want to be!

TLDR I'm a bit odd. And this is really long! Still, being laughed at on the internets for being odd is a lot cheaper than therapy!
(teasus likes tea, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 16:10, 41 replies)

Taking care to ensure my little finger points upwards,
I use a pair of sterling silver tongs hallmarked with the family crest to direct the stream into my own mouth.
( .Yeti., Mon 24 Mar 2014, 15:48, 7 replies)

On a lazy Sunday morning,
I was lounging around in bed, listening to Donna Summer's classic Love To Love You Baby through my brand new set of headphones (excellent quality audio, put the old ear buds to shame). As young, virulent men are wont to do, I was lazily tugging on Mr Happy, when the moment took me and I shut my eyes and went for it. Utter bliss, as Donna and I came together, this was swiftly shattered as I opened my eyes and saw an envelope on the night stand. Inside was a note from mother, letting me know that she'd witnessed me pissing in the butler's mouth.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 8:34, 1 reply)

Spag Bollocks
This is neither acting down nor up but when I was about eighteen I trained as a croupier in a Manchester casino. As is standard in such establishments, there was a restaurant on site and our staff meals were cooked by the chef. During my first day, I was given a meal break, went to the staff room and responded enthusiastically on being told there was spaghetti bolognaise on todays menu. Except that it never crossed my mind that it wouldn't be Heinz' finest out of a tin. Mr council house kid from the wild suburbs of Wythenshawe had never even seen spaghetti as long as that, let alone ever eaten it. I had no idea what to do with it and was far too embarrassed to let on so just sat there and stared at it for half an hour, picking bits of meat out with a fork. Fucking starving when I got out - straight to the chippy for pie and chips. Always been a class act, me.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 27 Mar 2014, 0:28, 8 replies)

Putting my pound into the trolley at Morrisons when two women (who obviously had loyalty cards with McDonalds) had a three year oldish girl between them hand in hand , an idyllic scene until one of the lardees says to the girl "Say , `Auntie Jean is a fucking slag` , go on , say it" , followed by the poor child having a go at the Auntie Jean based abuse . I tutted until I felt dizzy .
(Helikaon, Sun 23 Mar 2014, 12:40, 8 replies)

mummy?
"yes?"
" what does 'fork' mean"
" well darling, its something you eat your dinner with"
" no, no that fork, I meant as in: 'fork off'"
oh.
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 21:28, 3 replies)

Papal Knighthoods
I used to work for a large professional firm where part of my role was looking after trainees (I looked after one so well that I married her but that is another story). The trainees all came from good universities with top academic qualifications but there was a fair mix of backgrounds but there were quite a few poshos.

One in particular, let's call him Tarquin, was a twat. Questionable social skills, questionable any skills, questionable intelligence. I fear that his poshness got him further than his abilities would otherwise have allowed.

Anyone, at one event at a corporate evening event at the firm's main client (Lloyd's of London) Tarquin got a bit drunk. That's OK in principle - everyone was having a good time. Lloyd's brokers often come from modest Essex backgrounds and work their way up so and so might have an Essex accent and not have been university educated. This had not escaped Tarquin's notice in his conversation with one such broker. It was obviously getting heated which brought the situation to my attention. I hastened over there just in time to hear, "Well your family are scum. You come from scum. My grandfather has two papal knighthoods!".

tl;dr: posh boy abuses working class bloke.

(Just realised slightly off topic too)
(Gusofnavarone always makes a map of france from sarnies, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 10:43, 6 replies)

Albert’s Infallible Guide to Class
Working class, middle class, upper class – makes no damn difference. Class is imbued in only certain people - you can tell by the way they carry themselves, their manners and their style. Those that are possessed with true class are rare, very rare.

People harp on about a ‘classless society’ as if it is something to strive for. I cannot think of anything worse. There is very little by way of class on display in this country. Only a tiny fraction of the population can claim to have the slightest idea of how to conduct themselves in a manner befitting their age or station in life.

As someone who simply exudes class, I will try and assist the rest of you with a simple guide. Now, I understand that in times past – and I myself am guilty of a great many indiscretions – one may have indulged in truly classless behaviour, but a decent person understands, that for example, when you lived in student hovel, smoked roll-ups and made meals from tinned food, that this was simply class tourism - an exercise, if you will, in how not to live. If however, you find yourself out of your early 20’s and still doing any of the above, then you my friend, are a classless embarrassment. As are the rest of you, if you:

Eat in Subway
Commute by bus
Still have a bad credit rating
Play fruit machines in pubs
Smoke outside huddled by the office doorway
Wear any kind of sports clothing when not participating in sport
Still smoke weed
Buy anything from non-British supermarkets whilst in the UK
Purchase lottery tickets
Smoke roll up cigarettes
Go to nightclubs when over 35yrs old
Do not own a car
Still keep jewellery in your piercings (other than ears)
Visit KFC
Still high-five people
Believe that 1% of people have all the money
‘Like’ brands on Facebook
Don’t yet own a property
Have never been upgraded without asking
Need to know what the above point means
Go camping
Vote anything other than Tory
Have a visible tattoo
Read the Guardian
Like new music
Buy anything from Greggs
Think that the state will provide
Watch Coronation Street
Buy wine under £10 a bottle
Drink ‘energy’ beverages
Think your choice of coffee defines you
Don’t have an Amex Card
Holiday in Centre Parcs
Never read the small-print
Call people ‘dude’
Voted Livingstone
Pay retail
Eat Pringles
Haven’t got private healthcare
Give public displays of affection
Don’t visit the hygienist at least twice a year
Carry a rucksack on your commute
Especially if it has a bottle of water in an outside pocket
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Thu 20 Mar 2014, 22:58, 166 replies)

I'm rather chameleon like about it all.
I'm def working class stock. My dad was a copper and my Mum was a nurse.

My Dad died when I was a kid, and my Mum remarried when I was 18, to a wealthy guy who had 2 kids of his own.

So me and my brother, both with strictly comprehensive education became step siblings to two privately educated sloane rangers (my stepsister shortly afterwards got a first from Oxford, and ended up at a Japanese bank in the city earning 250k a year).

I shared a flat in Fulham with my stepbrother for 4 years, so my social life was wierd - one weekend out with my plumber / builder / despatch rider mates, getting into punchups in dodgy pubs in South London, the next weekend in a pengiun suit going to some posh birds 21st Birthday party at her parents 24 bedroom pile in Herefordshire with 100 hooray henries.

This all required a certain flexibility in both behaviour and speech.

I found it a useful education. I work in a job that brings me into contact with a whole lot of people, from stevedores loading ships, to members of the house of Lords, who in my professional capacity I am working with as an equal.

It's good to be able to drink from a hosepipe in the morning while trying to sort out why someone took a shit in the hold of a ship we're loading, then throw on a suit and chat to the CEO of a fortune 500 company after lunch.

All rather jolly, innit?
(username failed moderation, Thu 20 Mar 2014, 16:22, 19 replies)

Saying 'first' is for povvos.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 20 Mar 2014, 15:31, 1 reply)

My family get out the Lambrini for Xmas lunch.
Sigh.
(McChinaman banned, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 19:47, 7 replies)

Long story short
I have a man piss in his own mouth for me.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 10:42, Reply)

shifting accents
Being brought up in the Black Country by a mum who was the product of an Irish and Mackem union (but a prolific linguist so schooled in most European tongues), and a dad of Irish lineage but raised by a Londoner family you would expect that my resultant accent would be a bit fucked up.

Yes it was true, I would go to schools and mingle With the local kids and therefore come home and express the desire "Ooor roight, woss on the tellay ternoight?" But I was not remonstrated and told "Oi begorrah you wankarrr, y' canna tark leek that to be sure wahey the the lads up the apples and pears" but because my mum wanted to improve herself and get on in life above her roots (postman and a dinner lady) she insisted on correcting my diction with Received Pronunciation as popularly disseminated by the Home Service radio announcers.

So now with my vaguely accentless diction it seems that no matter where I live (Warwickshire, Birmingham, Cheshire, Cornwall, London) or where ever I visit, people think I'm middle class immediately on hearing my voice. But I'm not.

5 minutes on site at manufacturing in Solihull and talking with the workforce who regard all engineers as wankers from the ivory tower who have never worked a hard day in their life, it's instinctively back to "Oor roight oor kid". All of a sudden we're all old muckers.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sun 23 Mar 2014, 21:34, 3 replies)

It's so middle class round here that all the racists vote UKIP.

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Sun 23 Mar 2014, 10:50, 3 replies)

I once saw Alexei Sayle in the northbound car park of Keele Services on the M6.
He used to do jokes about the class system in the 80s.
( brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sat 22 Mar 2014, 2:06, 2 replies)

Something about Prydonians
and Arcalians and Patrexes, and Shobogans, I shouldn't wonder.

Cos I am a Lord of Time, you know.

So imagine I have written 3000 words about that, you little imps.

(Sorry fans, got house guests: King Yrcanos, Count Grendel of Gracht, the Graff Vynda-K, the Draconian Emperor, Broton (War Lord of the Zygons) and a squadron of pissed-up Sontarans, so as you can imagine it's fucking chaos round here)
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 22:22, Reply)

Aged 16, sitting with my first real (and quite posh) girlfriend during break time at school.
She: What's that on your jeans?
Me (bending and sniffing): Cow poo.
She: *shock, horror, gasp*
Me: What?

I dunno, growing up on the farm, it's just another substance that tends to be around the place a lot. Having it on your jeans didn't seem any more shocking to me than had I replied "water", "oil" or "blood". No big deal as far as I could see.
( teedyay, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 22:16, 6 replies)

also, my friend sam and i were at alton towers one day last summer. now i love alton towers, but you do see quite a lot of rank sights there
we were just climbing into the very front seats on "rita! queen of speed!" when i clocked the worst of them all. a girl who looked about 10-12 years old, wearing a t-shirt that announced in massive letters:

I LOVE JIS.

i pointed it out to sam, and we were both horrorstruck. as the camera on rita gets you on the 0-100mph take-off, the pictures were classic. only on the way back did we realise... it said "i love jls".

which, frankly, is even less classy than our original reading.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 10:08, 14 replies)

one of my friends is terribly posh. let's call her clarabelle.
i bought a new winter coat, which was rather nice, but had some fake fur on it. belle looked at it and her patrician nose wrinkled up even further. then she said,

"it's not that you don't look lovely, darling. it's just that - I'm morally opposed to fur that isn't real."
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 21 Mar 2014, 10:02, 4 replies)

Can't any of you see what has happened here?
The dog-fingering classes have conspired to turn us hardworking, posting-class internetters against each other so they can carry on molesting canines. RISE UP, MY BROTHERS, AND JOIN ME IN REVOLUTION AGAINST THE OPPRESSIVE BOURGEOISIE!
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Thu 20 Mar 2014, 23:53, 12 replies)

It does seem to be that those lacking it tend to be proud of their class.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 20 Mar 2014, 19:55, Reply)