World of Interiors 7 (in Quotes)

The Times recently ran a whole spread on the “new snobbery”. Here’s a paraphrase.

Avoid:
a Buddha head from Homebase in your garden
scented candles that aren’t Diptyque
mirrored furniture
modular sofas
pot plants unless they’re orchids
trailing plants indoors
“One of those disturbingly American professional family portraits”
“Anything that is over-complicated, over-designed or oversized” – they’re all “intrinsically vulgar”
Overfinch Range Rovers (apparently the company adds luxury customisation to the utility vehicle)

Hilary Rose agrees that wide-screen TVs are “common”. Also scatter cushions, and giving your child crisps in public (has to be rice cakes).

Style guru Peter York says he’s going to get a wide-screen TV “whether it’s couth or uncouth”. But he’s tired of Scandinavian knock-off interiors. He has a good word for Eames chairs “They were meant for the masses”. Don’t be too immaculate, he admonishes, but avoid the opposite “exposed brick walls and bashed floors”.

Designer Sophie Rogerson regrets that surface-mounted sinks and mosaic tiles have gone downmarket “Now it’s about more characterful, artisanal styles” (what can she mean?). And avoid fake shagreen: “It’s one small step from generic to vulgar.” She doesn’t like “high-gloss” kitchens with “subway” tiles. (I think she means the ones that make your kitchen look like a prison or public lavatory.)

Like huge ringroad supermarkets, they often seek to disguise their warehouse proportions by affecting tiled roofs and little vernacular clocktowers, whispering reassuring messages about being 'in keeping' to dense middle-Englanders. (subtoptian.blogspot.co.uk)

They had smothered it with trumpery ornament and scrapbook art, with strange excrescences and bunchy draperies, with gimcracks that might have been keepsakes for maid-servants... There was in the elder lady’s [bedroom] a set of comic water-colors, a family joke by a family genius, and in the younger’s a souvenir from some centennial or other Exhibition, that they shudderingly alluded to. The house was perversely full of souvenirs of places even more ugly than itself and of things it would have been a pious duty to forget. The worst horror was the acres of varnish, something advertised and smelly, with which everything was smeared; it was Fleda Vetch’s conviction that the application of it, by their own hands and hilariously shoving each other, was the amusement of the Brigstocks on rainy days. (Henry James, The Spoils of Poynton describes two middle-class ladies visiting a nouveau riche family)

People aren’t buying ornaments as much as they were. (Christina Trevanion)

Rubbishing modern architecture is a default setting for much of the British bourgeoisie. (Jeremy Paxman)

You can immediately spot the newcomers’ houses. They are the ones who have done away with the turquoise striped curtains and hung up the rattan blinds instead. They have removed the fringed lampshades and put up Habitat fixtures. They have ripped out the neon-patterned carpet and polished up the wooden floorboards. They have painted the orange geometric wallpaper white. They have moved out the lime green Dralon armchairs and put in the bent cane. They have replaced the black Naugahyde sofa with a pine framed double convertible bed and the tin bath with a stainless steel sink... They have left enough room to walk round the tables and chairs rather than trip over them. (Hackney in the early 80s, Glenys Roberts, Metropolitan Myths. She goes on to say that the Hackney residents wait for the incomers to bring in the ”furry lilac pouffes, plastic chandeliers, maroon and gilded china knick-knacks” and paint the front door “the regulation savage purple, hot pink or chrome yellow”. Working-class décor has changed more in 25 years than the middle-class variety.)

Very rich people have panic rooms, according to the Times 28 March 2015. “There were vaults as well... with marble floors, sliding walls for paintings, a piano, wine storage and an area to relax in.”

There can be something absurd or even melancholy about the open-plan minipalaces some middle-class Britons consider essential for civilised living. (Guardian Nov 2015-11-10)
Why do people put their pots [saucepans] on display, especially when they collect dust? (uglyhousephotos.com)

Hideous solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible... (Our Mutual Friend (The “plate”, is silver-plate – the knives and forks.)

Display domes are a massive trend – the silhouette and paper-cutting look is really on-trend. (House Gift July 2012)

My sisters used to do that candle-in-a-wine-bottle wax dripping thing in the early 1970s. (Ugly House Photos blog)

They all went into a room full of antimacassars and lunched off boiled mutton and caper sauce... She remembered suddenly the horsehair sofa and the antimacassars in the furnished rooms at Wiltsbury. (Giant’s Bread, Agatha Christie, 1930. Antimacassars are embroidered linen cloths placed on the backs of chairs to protect their upholstery from the macassar oil in mens’ hair. They only disappeared from British Rail seating – reduced to strips of orange acrylic – around the 80s. Caper sauce is melted butter mixed with chopped capers.)

A teenager’s bedroom in the 30s: “They saw a looking-glass draped with clouds of pink... the meagre furniture was in white painted wood – plain, cheap stuff, but sound. It had tawdry decorations of drapery. On the walls were pinned a number of newspaper photographs of beauties, male and female – film stars, stars of society.” (Clue for Mr Fortune by HC Bailey)

Her decorating mantra, “something pink, and something ugly, in every room”—riots of roses and hideous tooled leather covers for the Radio Times. (Redeeming Features, Nicky Haslam)

I think the tiny windows might be the product of regulation. I hate them!... What's annoying about this sort of thing and the mock-Georgian of the 70s is that it shows such a poor eye. The architect seems to have had no sense of proportion and no real ability to look at the buildings whose style he is copying. But it can work well. "Post Office Georgian" is usually very good. (JP)

This sort of thing has got a following in Brighton and London. It’s very much a studenty sort of look. (Bargain Hunt auctioneer discussing a purple cubist cocktail set)

Artex swirled across the ceilings as if it were a Cypriot taverna, embossed wallpaper peeled away from the dried-up paste hiding dodgy plaster, the nubs of the old gas mantels poked through the walls and the chimney breast still jutted out into the kitchen. (Linda Grant in The Guardian on a Crouch End maisonette in the 90s. That’s gas “mantles”.)

It had front and back gardens with a swing, rose bushes, a rockery of glittery stone and alpine plants, a garage, and an outside coal-shed. A row of Toby jugs grinned and grimaced from an ornament rail in the hall. (ditto on the Liverpool house she grew up in)

The room is an embarrassing mash-up of contemporary design clichés, from bare utilities to patches of brickwork exposed by “torn” plaster, folksy wooden dressers and “vintage” lampshades. (Giles Coren Times 2015-01-24)

 I saw what had been a simple bungalow and had been almost entirely rebuilt into something much bigger: a massive through kitchen (all granite surfaces and all the latest gizmos) to dining area (dining table with removable top revealing a working pool table) to TV area (with massive projection screen), small  nursery, small office, small bedroom, marble bathroom, master bedroom with big ensuite marble bathroom and dressing area, etc. – and then upstairs had a big bedroom, two small bedrooms, another bathroom, and a large low-ceilinged area for storage or playing with trains. Also a double-garage which had been turned into a very comfortable workshop, complete with electricity, water, and gas, also with an upstairs suitable for the biggest train set you've ever seen. And throughout, every room had the latest gadgets and gizmos, all carefully thought out. For example, not just the garage door but also the gate in the fence were electrically-operated, so you could drive straight off and close everything up by remote control without stopping. (A house-hunting friend writes)


More here, and links to the rest.

Classy Quotes 22

If people stopped talking about class it would disappear, said a flatmate circa 1984.

Britain remains a firmly class-based society, with the (im)possibility of social mobility mediated through the education system. Having spent decent amounts of time in the US and France, I think they are equally class-bound, and maybe only Scandinavia is really different... However, the exact mechanics of keeping people in their place differs... [Lynsey Hanley, author of Respectable, is] strong on the ideological use of the idea that all an individual child needs to do is to work hard and behave well to get on, as if individual responsibility can by itself overcome embedded social structures. (enlightenmenteconomics.com)

Northerners are often lumped into a homogeneous whippet-keeping mass. Wood was actually lower-middle, which is the best vantage point for social commentary: where yearning social pretensions are betrayed by a single common word. (Janice Turner, Times)

Don’t make assumptions about a person’s wealth based on looks or dress: many affluent Londoners have little concern with designer watches and handbags. (Debrett’s)

That thing where folks still use "latte sipping" to mean elitist when Starbucks is as ubiquitous as McDonald's. (@anildash) (They also accuse Jeremy Corbyn of eating "trendy falafel".)

I think the chattering classes want to rescue people, and that’s their drama: “This film’s about me discovering your story.” (Actor Eddie Marsan. He says film makers ignore the 90% of people on council estates living perfectly functional lives.)

"I've never seen it!/Am I only person who doesn't care about Star Wars?" is becoming my generation's "Actually, we don't own a television." (Area Man ‏@Alasdair_CM)

Today there are very much two Brightons: the inland one of vibrant creative industries, modern restaurants and a dynamic population – and the seafront of tacky sideshows, fish and chips, rock and assorted paraphernalia... There have been some attempts to turn the arches by the Pier into an artists’ hub but it hardly makes a dent in what is currently on offer, which is more akin to West Street than anything else. The current Brighton Pier is a beautiful photo opportunity on the outside and a disappointingly poor amusement arcade on the inside, surviving as a result of the endless day trippers coming from all over the country... there seems to be no shortage of people willing to spend their two pence on those machines, via Sports Direct and Primark on their way back to their coaches. I see the parades of them every day from my office in the Old Steine. Brighton needs attractions that are dynamic and more ahead of the curve. The pier is a golden opportunity to create a destination that fits in with the times. Get that right and the rest of the seafront will follow suit: proper restaurants, bars, shops, galleries, a decent performance venue. ... In short, a chance to move into the 21st century. (Julian Caddy, director of Brighton Fringe in a pyrotechnic display of classist euphemisms)

More here, and links to the rest.

Class in "Nine Till Six"

Nine Till Six is a 1930 play by Aimee and Philip Stuart with an all-woman cast, set in the cloakroom and office of an upmarket dress and hat shop. The proprietors, Mrs and Miss Pembroke, are gentlewomen struggling to keep the business afloat. They’d probably be much better off working for someone else and drawing a salary – but would that be hopelessly déclassé? They seem to spend a lot of their profits on employing young girls to run about with messages (and clothes).

Two young girls turn up the shop wanting a job: a working-class girl (Gracie) and an aristocrat down on her luck (Bridget). Mrs P takes them both on.

Clare Pembroke: Lots of girls of good family are learning to do something these days... Why did you send Pam (her sister) to the best school you could find? You sent her because you wanted her to come in contact with girls like Bridgit Penarth, instead of girls at a Council School.

They agree that the point of going to a “good” school is so that you can marry the brother of a well-heeled schoolmate. Clare reveals that when she was at a “good” school she never revealed that her mother ran a shop, but “times have changed” as they keep saying. The fashion for felt hats means that nobody will pay five guineas for the kind of fussy, elaborate headgear they used to make their money on. “We said short hair would never go out. It’s going. We said long dresses would never be worn again. We’re wearing them now.”

The resentful Freda tells Bridgit “You’re not the daughter of a lord without having things made easy for you. You’ll be first every time.”

There’s a “Mam’selle” who’s brought on so that we can laugh at her accent and giggle over her having a husband and a boyfriend (she’s French, of course!).

Bridgit gives the two mannequins (they swan about the shop modelling the clothes so that customers can see how they look “on”) a talking to about their futures: You two ought to be working where you can be seen by eligible men... With this surplus of women, someone’s got to get left. Why let it be you? (They quit to become cinema usherettes.)

The play ends with home truths being spoken right and left. A girl who has stolen clothes explains that she wanted to look good enough on holiday to get off with someone “who had enough money to give me a good time”. The workers demand to be paid a living wage, and the proprietors explain that they’re terribly sorry but that is impossible and they’re the ones who should be pitied.

In 1930, West End plays were also fashion shows – it must have been a shock to see beautiful gowns worn only by “common” shopgirls sitting around eating sticky buns. The play may have raised awareness of the plight of women workers, but I couldn’t help wishing the Pembrokes had employed a manager to rationalise their working practices.

Other all-women plays:
The Women, by Clare Boothe Luce (filmed with Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford)
The Ladies of the Corridor, by Dorothy Parker, set in a residential hotel for ladies (ordering now)
Steel Magnolias, by Robert Harling
Stage Door by Edna Feber and George F. Kaufman (The film stars Katharine Hepburn intoning “the calla lilies are in blewm again”.)

More on the play here at Clothes in Books.

Classy Quotes 21

Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography, Slipstream, is illuminating on the misery of "privilege".

I remember little of the rest of the house; in those days middle-class children lived in their nursery quarters unless sent for at teatime... I saw comparatively little of [my parents].

At her grandmother's, “food was always seriously plain. Boiled mutton and semolina 'shape' were usual, and she wouldn’t allow me to have both butter and marmalade on breakfast toast”. One of their cooks “produced grey meat, potatoes boiled until they had a battered, furry appearance, and cabbage until it was almost colourless”. The family considered food simply as good plain fuel... the less said about it the better... Talking about food was considered to be what Aunt Ruth called “unnecessary”. In one of the family’s houses there was a billiard room and “a fiendishly cold little room called the gun room where the only telephone was kept”.

There was no one to whom I could talk about things that touched me most nearly.

News was nothing like so ubiquitous then: we were, perhaps, unusual in that we didn’t possess a wireless. I’m sure my parents took a newspaper, but it was strictly for them. So news was confined to the occasional guarded remark made at the dinner table. (This was just before the war.)

Her mother told her “People of our sort never make any fuss or noise when they are having a baby.” (Her account of giving birth in a posh nursing home is gruelling. Her baby was taken away immediately and then looked after by nannies.)


Alison Light reviews A Notable Woman: the Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt in the London Review of Books. (She laments that the diaries have been severely cut, and their grammar “tidied up”. Jean was a young woman in the 20s.)

In her stuffy home, crying in public is seen as vulgar; affection is rarely expressed. Jean is both pampered and neglected... Jean’s home life between the wars initially seems to belong to someone in a Betjeman poem ... [she attends] Conservative Club dinners in “pale blue georgette”.

[Jean learns] a finely tuned language of discrimination. What matters are the differences between the middle classes... Fitzrovia, where she rents a flat, takes a dim view of Wembley ... “I am still stamped with the stamp of suburbia.”

In Home Counties parlance, [workmen] are always diminutive, as in “a little plumber came today”.
[She longs to be rich enough to be free of the] “petty irksome little details” of life. [Later she ponders that life is made up of] “washing up, typewriters and shoulder straps”.

At college, she dismisses sex as of “minor importance” but worries that she is “oversexed”. (Oddly, the unimportance of sex was assumed in the liberated 70s and 80s.) Later, she opines that “promiscuity is morally dangerous”. (In the 80s, the line was “It won’t make you happy”.)

Later in life, she’s embarrassed by her early “facetious” style, goes to a psychotherapist who has been affected by Eastern philosophy and advises patients to accept their lot (I bet he was a big help), and transcribes quotes from Marcus Aurelius about “renouncing the ego”.

Living alone in the country, she takes in paying guests, and then opens a bookshop, although the “snob in me” shrieks “Oh you can’t! You couldn’t!”. She refuses to sell tobacco, sweets and stationery (“Oh God! I will not descend to that level!”), but gets by thanks to her expertise in cat books.

Her affairs come to nothing, her novels aren’t accepted, she publishes one biography, and hopes to be known for her diary. I’ve got a feeling this is one dream that will come true.

Pratt's family are an echelon or two below what George Orwell called the “lower-upper-middle-class”, his family’s shabby-genteel world peopled by clerics, servicemen and Anglo-Indian officials who were reduced to living on “virtually working-class incomes”. As he wrote: "Practically the whole family income goes in keeping up appearances."

My own parents tried gracious living on a too-small budget. They couldn’t afford to heat the house, which was too big anyway, so it was always freezing in the winter. Bedrooms were unheated, and the hard, lumpy pillows were never replaced. Why didn’t we heat one room, put the telly in it, and live there? We were always being hived off into separate rooms. They were still trying to follow the “put the children in a nursery with a nanny and hardly ever see them” model. We really did hardly ever see them, apart from meal-times.

We ate off Georgian silver (inherited) but they were stingy about butter, sugar, jam and gravy. We only got water to drink, not milk or lemonade (that was for birthday parties). Of course they had to pretend that it was common to eat lots of butter or put sugar in your tea or be warm enough! Why didn’t we sell the silver and buy butter? Or eat marge?

Every meal had to be served up with proper china and tablecloths and a lot of stuff that was never used but just put on the table and taken away again (like side plates and small knives). It was supposed to, one imagines, make us happy – but instead it made us miserable. It took up our time and was too much hard work. We were trying to live as if we had fleets of servants when we had a daily and an au pair. Did they fear that if they stopped serving little curls of butter with a silver knife we'd end up pouring milk out of the bottle, using newspaper as a tablecloth? Oh yes, milk was always decanted into a jug, and vegetables were served in their own dishes – more washing up. We even dimmed the lights and lit candles when we were eating in the kitchen.

We couldn’t have tea without carrying the entire equipment of teapot, hot water, milk, tea cups and saucers, food and plates, silver teaspoons, on one tray from the kitchen to the sitting room. (Which is what a servant would have done.) We also couldn’t have a picnic at the bottom of the garden without pushing a bent trolley all the way there (squeak, jingle) piled with the whole above caboodle.

It doesn’t take three hours to prepare dinner. And it doesn’t take two hours to eat it and clear it away, either. That was five hours of every day wasted. And there was nobody around to impress, it was just us. I tried to protest, but got the answer "You have to learn how to behave in formal situations".

As we became more prosperous, the nonsense faded somewhat. We got a set of melamine picnic plates and bought shop cakes and had a new kitchen with a formica table top, and “Nightstor” heating, except we weren’t allowed to turn it up, or on very often.

It was about maintaining our class position – but was it worth putting ourselves through such misery? When my parents retired, they put the Georgian silver salt cellars and mustard pots and butter knives into a safe, and never opened it again.

More here, and links to the rest.

You Are What You Eat 7

Posh snack sellers are distraught to find that the UK government’s Sugar Smart app, designed to help people monitor their sugar intake, is laying bare the calorific content of their artisanal snack bars and sodas. According to the Telegraph, the app “fails to distinguish between natural and refined sugars” – a nutritional distinction that Feedback suspects may exist largely in the minds of upmarket shoppers. Helenor Rogers, whose company makes toasted grain breakfast snacks, complained to the newspaper that the Sugar Smart app “puts granola in the same box as Coco Pops”. Perish the thought. New Scientist March 2016

There's something majestic about the Guardian expressing quantities of sugar to its readers in quinoa- and mung-bean-based units. (Damian Counsell ‏@DamCou)

"Did chicken Kiev ever go out of fashion at home? I don’t think it did. But it never stayed on the menu," says Jesse Dunford Wood, chef at Parlour in Kensal Green, north London. "Everyone knows what it is, everyone secretly eats it at home, it sells really well in supermarkets, but you can’t buy it in a restaurant. And that’s weird. Why not?" Telegraph September 2015

Upwards eat exotic food not because they like it, but to show that they are better than other people. (We had shi’itake mushrooms – delicious! You mean you’ve never eaten one? You’ve never heard of them...?) They are falling over themselves trying to stay ahead of the superfoods game. Freekeh! Chia seeds! There’s a new one every few weeks!

Middle-class food continues its tradition of being unpleasant, tasteless and difficult to eat. Quinoa, rocket, salmon fillet, no dressing... There’s nothing to stick the quinoa together with and it goes everywhere. Doesn’t taste exactly exciting. Nobody cuts up rocket so you end up with bits sticking out of your mouth like a manatee browsing on seaweed. And it’s not very satisfying if you’re really hungry.

In the 70s, we had to pretend to like food that was utterly nauseous (steak Tartare), unbearably hot (chicken Madras), or unbelievably dull (polenta). I wonder why steak Tartare and escargots went out of fashion?

Now 30-year-old Upwards are obsessed with coffee oneupmanship. (In the 18th century it was snuff.)

Fussy food is aspirational, rustic food is middle class. The Upwards are secure enough to be able to eat dull peasant food without losing caste. “Aspirational” is of course code for “lower down the scale than us and trying to be something they are not”.

Upwards can eat Battenberg cake – in fact they’re fond of it. But they never eat Angel Cake – layers of the same white, yellow and pink cake with icing, and syrup on top. Too sweet? Battenberg cake is at least swathed in marzipan and held together with apricot jam, which are both slightly bitter.

The new Spar in Brockley is so posh! It's full of food I've never even seen before. (@MarkOneinFour)

Stow Crats can only eat thick cut marmalade (Cooper’s Oxford).
Upwards make their own (delicious – but it must be thick cut, and not too sweet).
Definitelies eat Silver Shred.

“I’ve watched Stella do the simplest things – like eating an apple. She'd peel it in one piece, round and round till the whole peel fell off. Then she'd cut the apple and dice the quarters, getting it all ready before she ate it… She must have seen how people do things here, but it never occurred to her that she ought to copy them.” (John Le Carré, A Murder of Quality)

You were supposed to break, not cut, a piece off your roll, butter just that little bit, and eat it. You couldn’t cut your roll in half and butter both halves. Was it too like preparing food, which was what servants did? Maybe that was Stella's faux pas. (This is all very old-fashioned.)

About 30 years ago, about the same time they bought crumbling Victorian mansions in unfashionable Crouch Hill, Upwards suddenly all became wine buffs. They went on about years and terroir and “nose”. They bought wine racks. Now they just neck the stuff, and are furious about the latest alcoholism figures.

Those in middle age are more likely than young adults to exceed alcohol limits and develop serious health problems, finds charity Drinkaware Guardian hed May 2015

In Weybridge Waitrose: Last Saturday they were offering samples of biscuits and booze. A woman reached for a beaker. "But darling, it's cava!" said her husband, in a very pained tone of voice. (She took it, nonetheless.) (JP)

On nature documentaries, animals never have breakfast, dinner, lunch or tea, because if they’re having tea at six pm the middle classes will be offended. (The watching middle classes wince at every use of the word “meal”.)

When I was small, eating or drinking on the street was really, really bad form. (Professor Susan Jebb, Obs April 2015)

Food crimes: supermarket or corner shop fusion food. Ramen burrito. Frozen French bread pizza. Sloppy Giuseppe (basically a mince pizza).

Kettle chips used to be the posh ones, and now they come in pumpkin pie flavour.

As Morrison’s open a chain called My Corner Shop, the BBC is helpfully explaining what corner shops are, and how you visit them three times a week, possibly even on foot, and buy only a few things.

Meanwhile, Liz Kendall’s final campaign rally is a few friends round her place for prosecco and gnocchi. (JeSuisREDTORY @twildun)
Nope, Malbec and steak. (Liz Kendall)

George Orwell suggested centralised cooking, with meals delivered and dirty plates taken away. It never happened, but became supermarket microwaveable ready meals, and takeaways. And thanks to dishwashers, constant hot water and fairy liquid, washing up isn’t the chore it used to be. (He once worked as a washer-up using liquid soap, cold water, and bunches of chain.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Romance and Sex, Part 2

Ghastly American import

Valentine's Day is coming up – don't forget it's a commercialised American import! Pairing off has a lot to do with class – but that’s one of those things the British won’t talk about. They have to pretend that partnerships are all the result of True Love striking like lightning.

Turns out that when a woman is rejected by a looker, rather than lasso the nearest leftovers... she will actually spurn the average guy waiting in the shadows even harder, because she doesn’t need that noise watering down her social value... accepting the overtures of a “low-status” person “may imply one is of similarly low status”... “What people want is not immediate acceptance per se, but a sense of assurance that the person is acceptable to the sorts of people they want to be connected to.” We only care about the opinions of certain people—it’s called standards... Everyone knows this. (Jezebel.com)

Comment to the above: I find the fact that most romantic pairings are negotiations of social status so disgusting that I cannot let my guard down to date at all. (She says she gets many more approaches when she is underweight. “I know they’re attracted to the idea that they are good enough to be with someone that is that small.” Also that slimmer women marry “professional guys with a college education” while their heavier sisters end up with a dropout with missing teeth.)

My parents met in a nightclub. I met my boyfriend in one. (London Review of Books Jan 2016)

It’s tough being middle class, because you can’t step outside. You can’t follow bands or go to discos or “clubs”. You have to go to classical concerts. You can be friendly with people from different backgrounds, but they keep expecting you to go back where you came from. They may almost order you to. They think you won’t want to go out with them. If they do ask you out, it's for the wrong reasons – you’re a trophy, or else they want to use you to move up the ladder. And they say nasty things about “chavs” and expect you to join in.

Point out a relationship between a man and a woman on planet earth that does not involve some sort of monetary output or exchange. The truth is marriages are built on this premise as is dating. (Web)

We can put a man on the moon, but it’s lonely in the big city and though we all want a partner we pretend nobody does, and couples drop their single friends and are super-unsupportive. Methods of finding somebody: parties, bars and apps.

In the olden days, middle-class parents spent a lot on their children, sending their sons to Eton and Oxford, and taking a house in the London “season” so that their daughters could mix with the right young men at the theatre, opera and ballet. They gave a lot of mutual parties, and there were public balls with an MC who would introduce you to a dancing partner. The Victorians gave big parties and invited all sorts, but made sure to invite several singles. There were also trips to the theatre, skating on the Round Pond, archery, croquet and tennis parties. Parents made strenuous efforts to get their children married, and got together with other parents. But there was no unchaperoned dating in those days. The Edwardians built conservatories so that couples could "sit out" at dances and propose behind the potted palms.

In the early 20th century there was a round of house parties with the aim of pairing people off. It was reciprocal, like wedding presents. Once you’d got married and had a house of your own and your husband was making money you took on that role and gave the parties. Obviously the house owners were rich (low taxes) and had servants (low wages). They wanted the right sort of people to marry each other, and probably thought of it as a social duty. They also wanted to keep family money in their own class. As the century wore on, they became poorer, and most of the big houses ceased to be. The debutante “season” limped on for a couple of decades after the war. And was replaced by... university. (Teales and Weybridges in suburbs or small country towns went to tennis club dances.)

These days parents buy a house in the right area near the right schools (where the children will meet the right people), pay public school fees ditto, and shell out for university ditto ditto. Do they ever admit their motives to themselves or each other? (In Jane Austen, the girls – and boys – had to pretend to be totally ignorant of what was going on, and the girls had to pretend they didn’t want to get married at all, as Mrs Smith points out in Persuasion.)

Writing in the Times about the death of dinner party, Shane Watson lamented: “There are no single men, there never were.” (Giving dinner parties was a terrible lot of work, and only really made sense when you had servants.)

Teales and Definitelies can be quite open about wanting to get a boyfriend, get engaged, get married, have children. Poor Upwards are forced to pretend they want to be writers and actresses, to be utterly wonderful and daring and unique. They settle down and get married anyway, just a bit later. Unless they think they are somehow too special to get married, and live together without the legal and financial benefits of marriage. They think cohabitation gives you legal rights, which it hasn't since 1753.

Writer Bruce Chatwin was married, though gay. He “hated the idea of divorce, while finding ‘something “awful” in the idea of two men living together’.” Meanwhile Lucian Freud thought birth control was “squalid”.

Old anecdote: Lady Jane Snooks got married. After the honeymoon, a friend asked her: “Well, how did you get on? You know, what’s it like?” Lady Jane: “It’s much too good for the working classes.”

Another old anecdote: Lady touring factory: And how do you find marriage, Edna?
Edna: Ooo, miss, it’s like 'ot treacle runnin’ down yer back!

More here.

A Poem for New Year

When disaster overtakes you
Never show it, though it breaks you.
In a crisis truly crucial
One must carry on as usual.

If the chaps all round you panic
Be depressive, never manic.
Though your road be steep and slippery
Cultivate stiff-upper-lippery.

Catastrophic misadventures?
Clench your fists or grit your dentures.
Just be calm and just be static.
Doesn't do to be dramatic.

When the sky begins to redden
At the dawn of Armageddon, 
If a feller makes a fuss
He just isn't one of us.

Afferbeck Lauder