Saturday, March 25, 2006

Middle Class Blogland

Is there any other?
Blogland where we all try to be witty and cool. If I'm in the mood for it I can go along with it ok, but god when I'm not, it makes me angry.
Is there something inherently virtuous about being middle class. Reading fucking books and not watching reality TV. I hate the snobby bastards. Yes, I know I'm bitter - so fucking what!
On my Dad's side I come from a long line of clergy, and on my Mum's side I come from good farming stock so what went wrong I'll never know. I was fiercely left wing and anti royalist by the age of eleven and even now I struggle to remember that the fucking queen is human.
I think the final nail in the coffin for me was round about 1971 when I finally realised that 99% of the people weren't interested in love and peace and all they fucking wanted was a Mark 2 Cortina. I liked them myself and for a split second there I wondered if I perhaps should have made more effort to get my A levels.
The nearest I ever came to owning one was in 1976 when I almost swapped my Commer van for a Mark 3. The guy wisely backed out of the deal just as I was beginning to think that things were finally going my way. Those Commer vans were bad - the way they kind of went down the road with that big bulbous front sort of going from side to side, quite worrying above about 30mph. I can't tell you the overwhelming sense of relief I experienced when I finally got my Mark I Transit .

10 comments:

  1. I feel as if my attempts to educate you are entirely worthless. The hours of my life I have devoted to your improvement look to be in the time wasted column. At least they won't be lonely.
    Of course blogs are middle class. You have to be middle class in order to be able to afford a computer. Especially in rural areas such as yours, where it is too far for thieves to travel to pinch one.
    It's as if you only attended college to pick up the grant money to blow on dope.

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  2. I like this post but I'm not exactly sure where you were going with it. I'm not up on the social status connected with owning certain vans.

    I'm from working class stock, as my parents were among the "deserving poor". Through the sheer hard work of passing a smattering of O-levels and getting a succession of dreary office jobs I've now worked my way into the naffest social class of all - the lower middle class.

    This accounts for the poor spelling and grammatical errors. I shouldn't be blogging at all.

    Of course, I only own a computer because I "tea-leafed" it.

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  3. is a commer van the one that looks like a guinea pig?

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  4. I'm middle class. At least I used to be. Now (after a failed marriage and financial trouble) it's more like muddle class. But whatever I am I feel I should point out that I barely have time for books these days and I quite frequently watch reality TV. Especially The Apprentice, which is where the real societal monsters can be found.

    Keep up the good work, Tom. But I can't help with the vans...

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  5. Hi Tom, first visit here, just dropping in via crabby pants place.

    There's nothing wrong with working stock...that's where I come from too. I thought everyone in England was middle class? (except of course those bastards in the palaces)

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  6. p.s. just read your 'horse' website. Loved it.


    Have you ever heard of Pat Parelli? My girlfriend was taking lesson from them. Along the lines of Monty Roberts.

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  7. I recently had an epiphany, along the lines of - if there was a god, would he be dumb enough to give us all this power to question him, and if not - why the hell are we questioning him and not just having a nice big gin and tonic?

    Just saying is all.

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  8. Martha, Thank you for visiting my site, and can I reccommend that you lay off the acid for a while. Hopefully then things will begin to settle down and you can return to the mundane.

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  9. I'm hopelessly middle class, although my mum makes quite a lot of her working class upbringing, during which she had to share a bed with her auntie and grandma, like an old Giles cartoon.

    On the other hand I do like Transit vans, the old sort, not the new ones that look like their panels could be stoved in merely by leaning on them. Does this make me inherently good or inherently bad?

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  10. My dad had a Mark II Cortina, too. Several actually, because they kept getting nicked. We lived in the East End, y'see. Not exactly the kind of place you'd associate with middle class, at least not back then. Now it's full of yuppies and I'd have to win the lottery to be able to afford to live there. Although why anybody would want to is a mystery to me because it's a complete shit hole.

    I've climbed my social ladder, though. I'm not sure which rung I'm on or whether I'll get any further because the ladder was rotten and the rungs broke. I do read books and hate reality TV (most of the time) so I guess that makes me middle class, whether I like it or not.

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