I just started season 5, so that episode is coming up. I started watching it because I like Caroline Quentin. I’m really enjoying it. I think there’s a strong resemblance between Ian Kelsey and Brendan Coyle.
Unlike in Spain the planned switch to equal primogeniture will only apply to the Crown itself, not any peerages. Fellowes isn’t happy about this since if peerages were included his wife would’ve been able to suceed her uncle as Countess Kitchener instead of the title going extinct when he died.
Women could also vote if they had a degree from a British university. So now all the (adult) male servants can vote (they couldn’t before 1918), as well as Cora & Mary. It’s not clear if either Violet or Isobel actually own any property. Did Anna sell Bates’s house? I know he tranfered the title to her before he went to prison, but I can’t remember if they sold it or were just renting it out.
Ironically women were allowed to stand for office on the exact same basis as men, meaning for 10 yrs it was possible for a woman who wasn’t eligable to vote to be elected to the House of Commons. There were female MPs in that decade, but I don’t know if any woman were actually able to exploit that loophole. Oh, and Lord Grantham isn’t allowed to vote in general elections because he’s already in the House of Lords.
Yeah, she doesn’t get a dedicated lady’s maid and isn’t allowed breakfast on a tray unless she’s sick. She also can’t travel overnight without a chaperone or stay in a hotel on her own. Also she probally doesn’t even have her own bank account; just an allowance from her father. It’d be interesting to see her explore life as a “career woman”, and actually working instead of just desperatly trying to find a husband. Her being a journalist gives the writers a great excuse to interact with all kinds of different people and explore the new freedoms women are getting.
He saw a drunk boy toy and thought he’d have another go.
That didn’t creep me out. It was Jimmy’s inability to help out someone who came to his rescue.
Seriously, Jimmy was so drunk he couldn’t kick an unarmed bully in the nuts? What a worthless jerk.
Thomas is obviously still attracted to Jimmy, but I take him at his word that he followed Jimmy that day because he was concerned that a drunken and money-flashing young man might attract the attention of local roughnecks.
Another Game of Thrones crossover - Ron Donachie, who played Ser Rodrik Cassel in GoT, also played McCree, the dour Scottish butler in DA:
http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1497060.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Downton+Abbey+S3
And here’s a funny DA musical mashup: http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20675504,00.html
So here’s a trivial question but I’ll ask anyway: the gold sovereign that Daisy won- would that have had its face value of a pound or would it have been worth significantly more because it’s gold? Obviously it was quite a win for a tuppence (that Jimmy paid), but I was just curious if the purchasing power was any more than a paper pound like the one Jimmy wagered. (Per wiki it would have been a few years old as they stopped minting gold sovereigns twixt WW1 and 1925.)
Also: Any idea how much Shrimpy’s diplomatic post would pay? I’m sure it was several times what Carson would make and probably includes nice housing and servants, but I was curious if it would represent a good living in and of itself or if it was more meant to supplement other income. (I’m sure the Viceroy racked up, and Shrimpy’s post might have some lucrative bribe potential like many civil service posts since before Sumer, which I’m guessing he’d be the perfect target for shady dealmakers.)
Younger sons did not inherit most of the revenues but they also did not inherit the white elephant estates and had lower expectations to entertain lavishly. I wonder if this left some of them in more comfortable financial circumstances than their older brother.
I think that, traditionally, diplomatic posts would incur more in expenses than they would earn in pay, if any. That’s why top-level diplomats are often independently wealthy – they’re expected to shell out quite a bit of money out-of-pocket.
That was true of military ranks at some points; generals usually came from the upper classes because people without family money couldn’t afford the entertaining and servants and uniforms, thus sometimes a captain or a major might be the real brains behind a campaign while Lord General Youngerson was more for propping up his family’s rep. Still, at some point that had to have changed, especially as inherited wealth declined; I’m wondering if Shrimpy would take the Bombay post, which would have to be terrifying at that time, for the money or for the prestige and public service badge.
Of course I have to remind myself that “too broke to keep Duneagle” does not necessarily equal “no money at all”. It could be that the Flintshires alternative to Duneagle is something like the still baronial mansion Robert and crew were going to downgrade to when Downton was in jeopardy.
It would have been worth face value. Now about $400-600.
Why were the upper servants allowed to dance at the ball with the ‘quality folks’? We saw the lady’s maids and valets at the ball, and they weren’t just there to watch, they actively participiated in the festivities. Is this realistic?
I noticed that too, and figured maybe it’s like that annual event at Downton where everyone participated. Didn’t they call it the Servants’ Ball?
Yes, that was “the Ghillies’ Ball” which is held to thank the staff for their service.
http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/familylife/MicroObject.asp?row=3&themeid=181&item=3
I think Shrimpie mentioned something about living in London after they came back from India. It could be that the Flintshires just plan on living in their town house fulltime. I wonder just who families like the Flintshires were selling their estates too? 
Did the buyers tend to be nouveau riche like Sir Richard Carlisle, or investers wanting to turn the properties into hotels? I always thought that
would be the perfect revenge for him; turn the estate he bought next-door to Downton into a hotel and have them put up with middle-class vacationers as neighbors. 
It’s the Scottish equivalent of a Servants’ Ball. There was also a different kind of Servants’ Ball that was just a fancy dress party were the guests dressed up as servants. We saw one of those on Thomas & Sarah; the Upstairs, Downstairs spinoff.
John Brown, Queen Victoria’s beloved (we just don’t know quite how much) Scottish ghillie, was notorious for staging frequent ghillies’ balls because, his Royal Household critics said, he liked bossing around his betters: Mrs Brown - Wikipedia
DA and PBS fundraising cartoon: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eYDPjTOi-_4/USOd_tsmc7I/AAAAAAAAFJo/DAxANhcnRGg/s1600/PBS-Downton-Abbey-Cartoon.jpg
Another trivial question:
Last week, after Molesley spent a week or two driving everybody batty with his constant advice and self proclaimed expertise on cricket only to [whatever the term similar to ‘strike out’ is for cricket], his father said “He always could talk a good game, he just couldn’t play one”.
“He talks a good game” was a phrase that my father (born in '27) and his cousins and older relatives used to use all the time when I was a kid, but I rarely hear it now and in fact this was the first time in quite a while. Anybody else grow up hearing this phrase? (I’d always assumed it was borne of radio broadcasts- announcers who could criticize but not actually play- so I was surprised to hear it used pre-radio [well, pre- widespread radio].)
Robert used the term “learning curve” which surprised me but I looked it up and that term dates to the 1880’s.
Sure. It didn’t stick out to me as “old-timey” at all.
And after she won the game, what did the carny say to his co-worker? I gathered that they hadn’t sufficiently fixed the game but I didn’t catch exactly what he said.
Count me in as another who has heard the phrase commonly her whole life.