Tiredness kicking in. That should read “only enough room for two people”.
You work in the City (translation: Wall Street) and hang out with rowers at the weekend. Of course you’re going to encounter snooty people and those who resent them - you’re living among some of the wealthiest people in Britain.
London is not representative of the UK, certainly not in the well-heeled areas that you mention.
I lived in Jakarta for a while. The constant din of the megawatt amplifiers used in every mesjid drove me batty for the first week until my ears got accustomed to it. 24/7, rain or shine.
I got tired of the blue laws, where stores were closed most of Saturday and all of Sunday. You could buy “perishables” like fresh fruit and the newspaper, but not tins of fruit or weekly magazines.
What does that have to do with religion?
Hell, I hear that from everyone who’s moved from here to New York.
Are you really going to say that class doesn’t exist in the UK? I would argue London has less class-consciousness than some other cities, because London is over 40% foreign-born people who don’t fit into the class system.
I work in the City but not for a bank or investment company; I work in IT, and most of my co-workers are working class. The rowers are pretty upper-class, I’ll agree - but the point of my post was that the area I live in (Near Kingston) is quite working class; the area I work in is middle-class trying to be upper class, and where I play (the rowing club) is upper class and I take public transport to and from; I get exposed to a fairly good cross-section of the class hierarchy in England nearly every day. And I’ve lived here for over 6 years - 2 of those were in Reading and Henley, and I used to travel as a consultant all over the UK so it’s not like my only experience is London.
Class is alive and well in England, for sure. There was a fantastic article in the Times on Saturday - link - talking about ‘prole porn’ in the Shannon Matthews case; it’s not like I just made this up for something to whinge about.
Wait a second…I’m positive I left the US before you, how are you COSing before me?
I’m jealous.
Possibly because I had a really shit day and called up my program manager to tell her I’m ETing, which she talked me out of because I only have seven more weeks of school left, or possibly because I haven’t had a burrito in two years. Take your pick.
I don’t think we Brits are denying class consciousness exists in the UK - we just don’t recognise the detail of the picture you paint in your original post.
Who are these upper classes displaying all this arrogance - people with titles, the rich…? And who are these middle class people striving to be seen as upper class and what do they do - speak with phoney accents, join a rowing club? 
It’s just not a picture I recognise.
The Times article is interesting but I don’t think it says much about “class” in the sense of people being born into the Upper Class, Middle Class, or Working Class – the contrast is between the respectable and the sort of dysfunctional “under-class” represented by this little girl’s family. The people lapping up the newspaper coverage are just as likely to be respectable working class as middle class.
Is it possible that as a Brit you don’t notice the class references as much?
Because I have certainly noticed them as a New Zealander living in a small town in the UK.
Not to the extent that I would post about it being something that drives me nuts, but I’ve definitely noticed that class is often referred to in both positive and negative ways.
No kidding. I moved to NYC from the west coast and there just isn’t much in the way of decent Mexican food. I have yet, after much trying, to locate good nachos. I found some acceptable nachos, but that’s just not the same as good nachos.
Canadian from Alberta living in Maryland, USA.
There are SO MANY PEOPLE. I was sort of overwhelmed when I came here, even though I’ve lived in cities in Canada. Everyone seems so concerned with appearances, and having more than their neighbours. Stuff is dirty, there’s litter all over the place even in my nice suburban neighbourhood. It’s worse in poor city neighbourhoods in Baltimore.
I find the racism a bit much, too. Before anyone says “no worse than Canadians treat their Natives”, I will stop you and tell you that I wasn’t raised that way, so it’s pretty foreign to me.
I’m getting used to it though. I would hope so, it’ll be six years here on May 1.
You know, I’ve seen you say this, or stuff to this effect several times, and it bothers me a little. Do you really think that most Americans were raised that way?
I wasn’t. I bet most Americans on this board weren’t as well.
That’s what I think - it’s so ingrained into British culture that natives don’t notice it so much.
It does make me a bit nuts - I find anyone who automatically judges someone on a characteristic they have no control over, like class, race, or sex, is pretty offensive.
Seven weeks of school! Our students have pretty much stopped coming. Today the principal bought us all beer. I’m gonna miss this place…
Our official COS is July 1st, but we can go pretty much as soon as school gets out.
Crazy me though, looks like I’m extended. To China. I think that is because I am certain that is the one place where I won’t be mistaken for Chinese.
No true Englishman…
Wow, we just got a new hardassed CD who won’t let any of us COS before our official date. Our old CD wouldn’t have given a shit, so my group is pissed off that we all have to stick around doing nothing for two weeks after school ends.
Three people in my group are going to China, too, though! Sounds like they’re going to have a ton of continuing volunteers! I thought about doing that for about a minute before I realized that another PST might break something in my brain.
Good luck! How exciting!
I guess I don’t have a wide enough social circle, I don’t see many class issues at all.
If you, in your studies of the U.S., you have honestly come to the conclusion that there are NO TREES in the country, then it is very unlikely that your impressions of anything else are worth consideration.
I’m with kferr, I just don’t know enough toffs! Maybe its because I work at a top research lab and it is completely meritocratic. Nobody cares who your parents were, they care about how you do your job. And that applies whether your a physicist or fitter.