Money isn't class and class isn't money
Class is something you may be born into but that may not mean your loaded. In my experience the people born into class tend to treat everyone better than people born into money.
I've worked in Manor houses, spoken to landowners who's trousers have been held up with bailing twine and they drive a 25 year old Range Rover...because it hasn't worn out yet. And for the most part they have spoken to me and taken (or a lest feighned) a interest in my work. These faded gentry for the most part are ok people, they know they have a responsibility to their tenants. They are a little 1950's in their views but I believe that is because they have been isolated from a lot of 'real' life. If you took one to the inner city and showed them the problems the people there face....they may at least understand.
Compared those to the Moneied generation, same sized houses but that's where the similarites end. They think money solves every single problem and if money can't then just ignore the problem. Now where the aristos may be a little removed from everyday life the new wealthy who may have come from these roots treat them with contempt.

I've seen into both of these worlds and you know what...the new wealthy don't behave any better than the average Jeremy Kyle guest...Affairs, drug use, fighting over wills and probate, gambling anything that happens on social housing happens behind those electric gates too. It is like Jeremy Kyle just with Botox and better dentists. Not to mention the ass kissers and hangers on who can often be worse than those with the money.

I no longer what that big house and fleet of cars because I've seen the underside of if all and the price is just too high. I'm a happy to treat everyone eaqually people with true class respect that.
(Gru being trolled since 1998, Thu 27 Mar 2014, 10:11, 26 replies)

Family myth.
My family's exciting line of business is shoe-shops. My grandfather, who took over the business from his father, was notoriously right-wing.

There is a story - how true it is I don't know, but it has the whiff of plausibility at the very least - that at some point in the 50s, one of the people he employed as a shop assistant finally managed to scrape together the money to buy himself his first car. It was second-hand, and nothing special, but it was still a car.

According to the story, my grandfather's response was to cut his pay, on the grounds that shop assistants who can afford a car are clearly paid too much. We can't have the proles getting above themselves, can we?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 27 Mar 2014, 9:40, 6 replies)

I say, Tarquin
Your mother is so appallingly bereft of class, she could pass for a Marxist Utopia.
(DarkLite swallowed my entire undercarriage, Thu 27 Mar 2014, 1:42, 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)

To quote former Archbishop of Westminster Basil Hume
"To the Christian there is no class distinction - that idea was largely concocted by the working classes".
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 19:48, 30 replies)

Albert Marshmallow lacks class to the extent that he's deleted posts which exposed his lack of understanding of property investment.
How ghastly.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 18:26, 59 replies)

The Prodigal son only stopped off for a nightcap
My childhood was a rough and tumble one with parents who squandered money. Teenage years were spent dodging the occasional flying milkbottle and hiding from the gangs. I left home at 20, lived local then moved 400 miles away. Worked, played had a summer of love in a Travellers convoy. Returned to society, got in with a bike gang. Became a play-thing for a Hells Angels moll (very scary), fought with Skinheads, fought with Police. Worked again - got laid off. Decided to meet with my parents and posho Cousins for the first time in 20 years. I wore a suit and never told them anything about the past, they had just come back from a holiday that cost £33,000 for a week in Wales.
The atmosphere was strained with me being well dressed and behaved but veeerrry tough and them with what appeared to be their only pleasure - dining out. My cousin 'J' was in the SAS for two years and knows Colonel This and Brigadier That, whereas I was hardened by street fighting and didn't flinch much when faced with the steely gaze. "Oh, this conservatory cost £60,000" and "We just like the BMW 840" but all their wealth can't buy them health eh?. An amusing few days.
(luckylife , 0 guests and 3 bots are online, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 16:50, 11 replies)

I have a sneaking suspicion that I may be better than all of you

( 2 Can Chunder Word to your mums, I came to prod bums, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 14:23, 10 replies)

Class lead to the break up of a marriage this week.
Paltrow couldn't tolerate Chris's dad's brother, a siamese twin who had made a fortune as a rapper, and wasn't ashamed to flaunt it. That was his conjoined uncle bling.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 12:06, 25 replies)

Being an Agent
I represented a rather talented girl from my hometown in Norfolk for a number of years. She was a classically trained pianist and enjoyed success on the West End for a time.

After I've admittedly made a few bad decisions about putting her on crap TV shows and the like, she only ever seems to pop up now on shitty TV ads for just about anyone and everyone.

That's how I 'lowered Klass'.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 11:04, 12 replies)

The eggs cost John £1.50, the jam £1, one loaf of bread went through at 69p, but the other was priced at £450.

“It ended up being the most expensive grocery shop I have ever done in my entire life,” he added.

A spokeswoman for ASDA said the store would be offering John a full refund.

“A system glitch meant that the bread was scanned at the wrong price,” she said.

“It goes without saying that we’re sorry for any inconvenience caused to Mr Brown. We have offered him a gesture of goodwill to treat himself on his next visit.”

Tldr - mini1/2fvmxw/doodah/007/ooh!
OR Special Aero-bread Services were deployed. Threatening bill was taken down with no loss of yeast. MoD have no comment.Great British Bread.
(Howland C. Pousiccat sailed away, Wed 26 Mar 2014, 6:04, 11 replies)

Politics
So, as some of You know, I used to work on Wall Street. Made a great deal of money, but ended up returning my feet to the earth before I burned out.

So, now I am assisting a local candidate for Governor of my State...and he requested I attend a lunch last Thursday with him and some other folks.

I showed up and was sat at a table with SEVERAL multi-multi-multi-millionaires. I have never in my life felt quite THAT poor. Middle Class? Absolutely. But that day, I DEFINITELY felt as much a commoner as I have ever felt. It was the campaign finance committee...and now, I am a member. On the way home I picked up a six pack of Wifebeater and a couple of McDonalds gift certificates for myself. :)
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Tue 25 Mar 2014, 23:54, 3 replies)

Middle class
Yeah, I'm middle class. I own my own house, run my own business and have a nice German car parked on the driveway (which I also own outright).

That doesn't mean that I don't like to rough it with the chavs, err, sorry, "commoners", sometimes. I remember a friend who was a bit, shall we say, working class, who took me into her local pub. Spit and sawdust. But to be fair, the atmosphere was great. Then we got a kebab from a dodgy burger van on the way home.

Next time we went out, I picked the venue. We went to a fairly classy restaurant followed by a film at the multiplex. She was bored stupid.

I think it's safe to say that I enjoyed the commoner's night far more than she enjoyed the middle-class night. It takes all sorts I guess.
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Tue 25 Mar 2014, 20:30, 28 replies)

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)

Class, I have a couple of high rated lasers.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 25 Mar 2014, 14:30, Reply)

i never went to class

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Tue 25 Mar 2014, 13:20, 1 reply)

arf
I'm happy here,
(Master_Slob UK minister for cultural appropriation., Tue 25 Mar 2014, 11:18, 3 replies)

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

those wot lack class
Compose tiresome lists of perceived 'common' behaviours, then when called out in it, delete their thread.

How utterly ghastly.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 17:56, 21 replies)

"Working class" means you have to work for a living.
Discuss.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 17:47, 8 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. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 15:48, 7 replies)

Living in a place where the bronze age lasted from 1890 to 1891
The usual trajectory for old money is 'rags to riches to rags in three generations'. I have had several pals point out the palaces that used to be grandpa's house, and then in short order ask me to 'loan' them a ten.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 15:24, 6 replies)

Middle-class homeless
I was fired from a job that provided my accommodation, and spent a few months homeless - not sleeping rough, but kipping on mates' sofas, in their caravans, etc.

I'm quite a softy middle-class chap really - but at that time, I had pretensions to underground culture, so I knew all sorts of dealers and prostitutes - but very much at arms length.
I'd never really mixed properly beyond picking up my gear and thinking how cool and street that made me.

So I found myself kipping - or I should say, trying to kip - on the sofa of a caravan while the other occupant was shooting up and stashing his kilo in the VCR...
And borrowing a quid off a mate to feed myself for the week (Value beans and a loaf)...

Lesson learned: my middle-class comforts are worth earning.
( Invisible Wizard - 10th Level Nerf-herder, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 15:01, 6 replies)

I once witnessed some unconscionable oaf...
use his fish fork instead of his salad fork, then insist that his waiter put his Château Lafite Rothschild into a water goblet.

I smiled genially at him as he walked past on his way to the bathroom, then asked the Maître D to put him on the blacklist.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 14:26, 2 replies)

These stories have made me realise just how working class I am.
I drank a bottle of wine once, that's the classiest thing I've done. I even used a glass.
(Thor McLegend FUCK SHITPANTS PAC MAN, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 13:52, 5 replies)

Oxymoron
Why, only this afternoon, I disembarked from a plane in a provincial Australian airport, and the young lady in front of me, waiting at the baggage carousal was wearing a T-Shirt, emblazoned with the words "Classy As Fuck".
( Ken Oath, Mon 24 Mar 2014, 12:05, 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)