Classy Quotes Part Seven

Where's the balsamic vinegar?

The Princess's early life was the stuff of a Waugh novel. She once recalled that during the Season there were 68 staff in residence at the London home of her father, the Duke of Buccleuch. She recalled: 'Looking back, I was somewhat starved in my affections. I prayed every night for my teddy bear to come to life.' The Guardian on Princess Alice, July 2000

Lady Pam Hicks left to babysit daughter India's son; India complains to Ma on return "Felix is outside screaming" Ma "I thought it was a partridge"! via @ladyofmisrule

I see a new development: a children's playground is at its centre in all its garish plasticky naffness. What's happened to public space? @christianharrup (christianharrup.com)

Told the kids that we are having middle class fireworks this year. Ones that are very discreet and quiet and don't clash with the night sky. @TheRealJackDee

Outdoor clothes-drying is seen by many of the world’s middle and upper classes to be distasteful and unsightly, from North America, where hundreds of communities ban the practice, to Hong Kong, where affluent people cling very tightly to symbols of affluence and class identity, perhaps because they are only a generation or two removed from poverty. urbanphoto.net/blog

A friend writes re Downton Abbey: I think viewers like the close contact between the classes in the programme; while we might think we are a more equal society, we are actually quite stratified.

I took my wife and sons there today to visit a "wood fair", which was as worthy and middle class as it sounds, but not quite as dull… we met a couple whose son was in the same [school] class as ours. They had recently moved down from Stoke Newington and I found myself wondering if I would ever meet anyone in Lewes who didn't come from north London. I'm convinced that there is some sort of Stargate-style portal in Hackney that sucks middle-class people in once they have children and sends them off to Lewes, Southwold, North Norfolk and Brighton. Blogger Steerforth (ageofuncertainty.blogspot.com)

It's almost a mile from the car park to the Victorian coastal defence at the southwestern tip of [the Isle of Wight] - not a huge distance, but enough to deter the hoi polloi from ruining the tranquil atmosphere… The IoW is almost entirely white working class (I struggled in vain to find my favourite brand of balsamic vinegar), with very few of those annoying, Guardian-reading London types like me who push the property prices up with their art galleries and organic cafes. Steerforth again.

More here, here, here, here and here. And here.