Congratulations Bordeaux Quay – the “revolutionary project” to serve wealthy people food for inflated prices in a minimalist Harbourside location – you’re the inaugural winners of The Blogger’s prestigious ‘Middle Class Wankers of the Week Award’.
At an event at the ego-eaterie (surely eco? ed.) last week, The Blogger learns, the food was not prepared by a lowly cook or even a run-of-the-mill chef. Oh no. The food was prepared by nothing less than an “artiste-cuisiniere” who, prior to serving the food, performed a mime representing the meal for a fawning audience of gullible twats!
Pass the biodegradeable sickbag…
Middle Class wankery beyond the call of duty says The Blogger. A free subscription is yours.
Ha! Blogger, you’re the Middle Class Wanker of every week!
I’m afraid the comment I wrote couldn’t be posted, and this topic seemed semi-relevant
I was making two points. The first is you STILL haven’t argued why people who are well off should be thought less of. The second is that wealth is relative, and you a relatively wealthy.
As for your statement that “Oxford is not proof of intelligence. It is proof of wealth, priveledge and elitism.” you cannot make that claim without some backing up. The majority of people who consider oxford believe that you need to be intelligent to get in. I applied to oxford, and wasn’t even interviewed even though I was predicted AAB. They accepted my brother who got AAAA. Maybe oxford decided that my family lost its elite status when my brother graduated. I think it’s more likely that they accepted my brother because he did better than me.
Can you send me your e-mail so that I don’t have to worry about not being able to post on your pages again?
Is your failure to find the (somewhat easily located) TBB email addy, together with your spelling and grammatical errors, and coupled with your own rejection from Oxford University, perhaps an oblique attempt to support your supposition that such institutions are blind to privilege and are instead entirely egalitarian and meritocratic?
😉
The existence of extreme poverty in Africa is of no relevance whatsoever as to whether or not an elite is runs this country.
The arguments about Oxbridge and wealthy elitism are easy enough to locate, such as Oxbridge universities currently take 40% of their students from private schools, which account for just 7% of the nation’s student population.
Out of 24 Cabinet members, 12 went to OXBRIDGE and 11 to public schools. So out of 24 there are 16 who went to public school and/or Oxford/Cambridge universities.
Cabinet members David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, James Purnell, Ruth Kelly, Jacqui Smith and John Hutton all did the same PPE degree at Oxford.
And as for this crap about A level grades. David Miliband got into Oxford with two D grades.
Where Oxford’s concerned we’re all equal but clearly the offspring of leading academics with a home in Primrose Hill are more equal than others.
“Oxford is not proof of intelligence. It is proof of wealth, priveledge and elitism.” Yes you can make this claim without backing it up!, this is like saying I have to show evidence that the growth of plants is aided by adding water (not a terribly good anaology, but it seems ridiculous to me, the only people wanting to defend the prestige of an institution such as oxford would be someone who has had their ego stroked from their time at oxford and their qualifications gained therein, I’m glad it makes you feel so superior to the rest of us you elitist scumbag), for goodness sake, It’s natural that the middle-classes will argue this till they’re blue in the face because they feel they’re being attacked personally because of their socio-economic background. The plain truth remains that while the above mentioned middle-classes continue to live in their little happy surreal bubbles they fail to see the reality of people in a lower social standing than themselves, how the fuck could they even begin to imagine life for people from an economic spectrum as that of my own? a person grown up in a northern working-class industrial town both parents factory workers… GROW UP! it’s so painful to have to to put up with isn’t it? It’s almost as if you have some form of middle-class guilt and don’t want to hear it (yet another thing no doubt will be used by the middle-class owned media will paint us as being prejudiced bigots). I went to a special needs school for children with learning difficulties, I had to work my way up to university through my talent as an artist on foundation programs, the likelihood is I would never be accepted to somewhere like Oxford because of my background or the plain fact that I would never be able to afford it! I feel alienated enough as it is because I’m concious of the backgrounds these people come from, I cannot begin to relate to them because they have experienced a completely different life to my own, as a result their behaviour is much different, to add to this… Has it never dawned on you that education is designed to fulfill a paid duty in society? and is not a testament to your intellect or potential as a human being? so why the inflated ego? try to see it from other perspectives mate, from people less fortunate as yourself, then maybe there won’t be such a divide as their already is in this backward, outmoded way of life this country has. Fucking oxford and public schools for fuck sake you think we were still living in pre-victorian britain, thank fuck for oxford graduates like richard dawkins who are more polite and open-minded than you twats. Oxford boys feel free to comment on obvious grammatical or spelling errors of this little missive 😀 it’s all you motherfuckers are good for in your fucking tory boy bubble you socialites.
I have to say that I tend to agree with the general content, (if not necessarily the delivery), put forward by k.
A little background, perhaps, (It being a sad tale, for which I make no apology – it ends happily);
My parents grew up in the post-war slums of Liverpool. They came from very large and very impoverished families who barely had enough to go around. In time, my parents met and got married and eventually yours truly appeared; the youngest of four. Dad was a gambler and Mum was depressed from all the beatings and doing without she had to endure when he came home drunk having frittered away his wages as soon as he got them, (not a very good advertisement for the working classes, but you can’t tell me that this doesn’t happen elsewhere).
Eventually, dad ran away and left us behind. I clearly recall the day we were evicted; I can still see my Mother, still with flour on her apron from cooking dinner, standing there wringing her hands as we were ejected from the house with no warning by two very unpleasant bailiffs. That’s right; at four years old I was officially homeless.
We ended up living on one of the roughest council estates the North of England has to offer. We were, pretty much, destitute. I had to go to school in charity shop clothes and got free school meals, for which I will always be grateful, as this was often the only proper meal I had.
Because of the shabby, but I hasten to add; clean, condition of my clothing and the fact that I had free school meals, I was mercilessly bullied from day one, by those more fortunate than myself. This continued up until the age of 13 when “the worm turned” and I ended up in trouble with the police for venting my rage at my oppressors, resulting in hospital for one and dental treatment for another. The school decided I was a trouble maker and I was punished accordingly. By 14 I had given up on school and never put a full week in. I left with zero qualifications.
Not once did we receive any help from those more fortunate than ourselves. Not once did my mother claim a penny – she worked three jobs. Not once did we steal, defraud or turn to crime of any sort.
I eventually went to college as a mature student and scraped through the entrance interview – through the instilled work ethic I had learned, I passed with distinction and gained a BA(hons).
Here’s the good part – I am currently sitting in the very pleasant garden of my exceedingly large house and thinking about the welfare of my employees. I have just bought a very nice new car and am looking forward to three weeks in the Seychelles. My Mother is living in a beautiful home in the Lake District and couldn’t be happier.
Do I eat at nice restaurants? Yes, if they offer good value for money and the “ambiance” is worth paying that little bit extra for. Do I wear nice clothes? Oh, yes! Do I look down on people who haven’t got as much material wealth as myself? No way! Do I challenge those that have had it all handed to them on a plate, yet still criticise those who have actually had to claw their way out of poverty, or feel that they can’t manage to do so? Every single time I meet them!
In short; I earn considerably more in a year than some Oxford Graduates will earn in five and I’ve done it all through hard work, good manners and a keen concern for the people who work within my company. People don’t work “for” me; they work “with” me.
I can’t stand the class system we have inb this country and refuse to be a part of it. If I DID have to class myself, it would be as working class; that is – I’ve had to work for what I enjoy and continue to do so. I am sick to death of rubbing shoulders with “champagne socialists” who believe that they understand what it is to be poor because they have read about it somewhere. My work used to involve a large Arts establishment on the banks of the Tyne and the place was an absolute bloody hive of these self assured, pompous and patronising people who talked a good talk but had no substantive personal and direct experience of life actually on the breadline. They float about the place like they are on a mission, with their mock expressions of “empathy” and “knowing”. One of them even used to arrive for meetings in African dress, as if to show solidarity with people she had never actually lived with and had only read about, whilst conveniently forgetting that there was poverty and desperation not more than a quarter of a mile away and then spending an absolute bloody fortune on her taxpayer funded expense account for lunch in a nearby art gallery.
Hard work and decency will get you further than an Oxford education ever will – and you won’t have that nagging feeling of faking it like the child who wins the egg and spoon race because Daddy put some Blu-Tak on the spoon.
Sorry for the length of this post – but I felt it was worthwhile.
Ya get paid by the word, Andy?
Yep. Want to buy some?
I read on fridge once
‘Being a person of success is not as good as being someone of value, as people of success take alot fom people around them, while people of value give ‘ or similar – Albert Einstein