Does the class system still exist?

[ludwig]

If so, what class do you think you are and why?

[jaydah]

If you have a valet to squeeze toothpaste on your brush then you're considered 'class' and the rest of us are here to maintain your lifestyle.

[mike11111]

Had to sack the valet, he was getting too bolshie. Even had the nerve to tell me I should wipe my own bottom!

[jaydah]

you should have told him to clean up after himself, mike

[naomi24]

infundibulum, since ludwig asked what class we think we are, I assumed his question related to this country. If we're talking about other countries, the Indian caste system would offer a better example than the estimated number of people living in poverty in the US.

[sandyRoe]

I took Abigail's Party as a template for gracious living. I suppose I must be aspiring upper-working class.

[ludwig]

I'm talking about the traditional Cleese/Barker/Corbett system, particular to Britain. If the same distinctions exist (which I'm not sure they do) I'd have to put myself in a grey area between upper working and lower middle class.

// I checked with the second footman as he was attending to my toilet and he concurred. //
shouldn't you have got a plumber in for that Mike?

[jake-the-peg]

it's not as one dimensional as it used to be.

Once if you came from a certain background you'd have money, power and priviledge and you'd probably share the same values as the others from your background.

Now there are a lot of the Upper classes sitting in big old houses without the money to heat them.

The old stereotypes of class fragmented like this years ago which worried the pants off of the marketing industry until they came up with the "lifestyle" notion.

Now they catagorise us as to whether we're Guardian reading, environmentally concious types or BMW driving career and status types, or campervan driving retireess or young festival going latest mobile phone types etc.

The familly you come from is now much less important than the sort of things you value because what you value determines what you spend your money on!

[fredpuli47]

My old history teacher would say of some period " At this time there was a rising middle class" and then add wrily " That's not a revelation. The middle class is always rising" The upper class and the working class tended to know and accept their place and were happy (or resigned) to stay there.The two had a lot in common in that respect; neither was ever obsessed with 'keeping up appearances' in the manner of Hyacinth Bucket.
,
Has that changed? My grandmother still spoke of people being 'in trade' as though being in any business was demeaning. I think that's gone !

If there is a clear dividing line between classes, at what point does an individual cross it? A friend describes herself as working class. She was educated at a private boarding school and her father is a working class man who is a self-made multi-millionaire. She means that she thinks and feels working class, whatever that means !

[naomi24]

fred, I've always thought that anyone who has to work to live is working class.

[madmaggot]

IMO less well off people have a problem with better off folk.

[sandyRoe]

If you have an old mattress and a few black bags of rubbish in your garden can you call yourself middle class?

[naomi24]

Ha ha! That made me laugh pixi, but you're absolutely right. It all depends upon how you measure class. Is it background, wealth, geographical location, speech, manners, education, lifestyle, breeding, career? What?

[sandyRoe]

An infallible guide is this: milk in the cup first, common as muck.

[naomi24]

Haaaaaa! Yes indeed Sandy!!

[sandyRoe]

I'm not 100% sure about the milk. But peas of your knife is a no-no.

[naomi24]

Oh, the milk is a definite - and whilst not actually acceptable in polite company, eating peas from a knife is a pretty neat trick!