RIGHT IF YOU'RE READING THIS THE FIRST TIME TODAY FROM THE TOP you won't know yet that I took some amphetamines/speed I found in a tobacco tin this afternoon, which made me really garrulous and I wrote more of my memoirs in two hours than I had done all week!! Only 8 pages of handwriting, but I've repeatedly been sleeping far too much and waking up to write a page or two then it's the next day... I'm still on chapter 3, my trip to Spain and Morocco.
I'm not sure any of this chapter is strictly relevant to my book; but if I pare it down too harshly it will be a book of drugs vignettes and nothing else and hence rather boring. I have to write about other things sometimes...! Still I'm trying to keep the main thread about stuff that relates to my subsequent addiction. I.e. things that made me depressed (almost all of life), people I met (hippie student losers a lot of them. Plus some annoying Sloanes (a Sloane, in case you are foreign, is a Sloane Ranger. A person (usually female) who ranges between Sloane Square, Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Mayfair - in other words all the posh parts of London - is highly likely to be called Hilly or Tilly or Annabel or Fiona (and hey - she might be working in publishing by now... or an art gallery: just until she finds the right man; either her British male equivalent (Miles, Giles, Spencer, Sebastian - yes I know I reeled out these names before; I'm indirectly quoting my book here) boys who work in banking/stockbroking/finance; or an American "businessman" (ie someon who's even richer than Daddy or failing that someone who'll give her a nice title like Duchess of... Countess of... etc. Art History was full of them (I wish I'd known Art History was the easiest degree - I might have gone for it myself. The other subject heavily favoured by Sloanes was French. Ooo there were so many of them crowding my seminars and crowing about how jolly a time they were having slumming it in a two up two down hovel (usually Daddy buys it and collects rent money off Jemima's friends. Rich people are always after another pretty penny. Anyway these lot were quite a contrast from the German students, who tended to be a far broader and more representative social mix. Nary a Northern accent was to be heard in French class. German classes were full of them. (Note 2: if you're a foreigner: Northerners are famously down-to-earth. Also I think their accents are much nicer than the bland swathe of southern English which runs on a continuum from Cockney (Michael Caine) through Estuary (Tony Blair when he's talking down) up to Received Pronunciation (Tony Blair when he's talking posh). Anyway these Sloanes nearly drove me up the wall. Sometimes I got mistaken for posher than I was and asked what school I'd gone to - I just replied "not one you'll have heard of!" but in general the Tillies, Hillies, Annabels kept themselves to themselves. Or kept themselves with Miles, Giles, Sebastian...
When I came to university I knew few of the social "mores" and codes... E.g. I did realize the house full of girls who lived round the corner from me were more middle class than I was as they ate nothing but pasta and had a £10 a week pesto bill (that's not much of an exaggeration either!) but I had no idea at the time that Pimms was a posh drink, for instance. Or that one person's parents visited my block by helecopter (there was a "pad" at Norwich airport next door.)
Some of the girls (it's always the girls, too) were such social climbers! This showed up most transparently when one of their brothers came to stay for a weekend. Michele as she styled herself, a la francais - complete with grave accent that I can't locate here talked all lar-de-dar posh but her brother had the voice of a Yorkshire farmer! She was dating a horrible specimen from Eaton. He wanted to be a writer as well but I googled his name the other day and - hoorah! - nothing came up. Don't tell me he might use a penname I know.
Well this has gone totally off the point. But I'm going to have to incorporate most of what I said into my book as it will explain how I managed to end up feeling so badly out of place.
In the end I got fed up on the one hand of vulgar people who told me (OK they didn't always tell me but they thought it;) "You think you're so posh." My answer: "No YOU think I'm posh!" And on the other of the haut bourgeoisie who as I said sometimes assumed I was one of them when I was not, or thought I had been one of them but was slumming it. I remember one person honestly couldn't believe I was willing to eat fish and chips straight from the paper to save washing up. "You simply must put it on a plate; really you must. They taste so much nicer that way. Do you want the balsamic vinegar to sprinkle on? What? Sarsons? Oh must you use that stuff? It's really whiffy..." And so on.
I've decided NOT to make a big deal out of my next bout of cleaning up. Wouldn't it be better if I just did it and told afterwards? Yes I think so too...
Righty-ho it's 9:56pm I'd better go.
(I got that expression from someone called Joey who came from the Wirral (Liverpool). When he was trying to get rid of his parents on the phone he'd start saying, "righty-ho then... righty-ho... righty-ho then... righty-ho... bye! Bye! Righty-ho then... bye!" Slam. Gasp of repressed exasperation. Right I am rambling like a Roborovski on a buttery wheel. Right I have to go
righty-ho then!
bye!!
***
Some good blogs
Cirkulators - intellectual photographic imagery; I've no idea where from...
Hambricks - cute baby blog from American midwest (?) - well I think it's from the midwest my American geography ain't that good...
Fi Mims Photography - Melbourne-based portrait photographer, available for weddings etc... this is fantastic stuff. FAR better than the usual run of the mill portrait photography...
Toronto Morgados - another baby blog (cute!)
Flashes Photography - more stunning (unusual) and funky wedding photos; this time from Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Monstror - very unusual, quite sinister... images by a French "graphiste"...
Slack Photography - Americans go to Mediterranean Europe
and last but not least
"anuLka" - Polish baby blog - the images are so entertaining!
14 hours ago
13 comments:
What???fish and chips without paper and sarsons...never!!!
I was married to a scouser so righty ho and ahright there were everyday utterances
This made interesting reading Gleds,keep going looking forward to reading more
hey thanks for stopping by the other day::smile::
Audrey: really? I didn't realize "righty-ho" was ordinary Liverpool... sometimes I imagine people will think I'm posh for talking like that, as if I'm saying "right-ho!" as in "what-ho!"
I will try and keep up the interesting factor, actually was going to post a bit I'm not sure about so to see what everybody thinks ...
Jerrster: if I had those smileys I'd do the : roll : one! But as it is only ;->... will do!
note to self:
visit this blog again
re some person kissing a white canvas valued at $2.8 million
sorry that's called "gallery taking the piss" nobody not even a modern art collector would buy that... wouldn't you buy a $30 replica from an art supplies store?
http://phlegmfatale.blogspot.com/
French woman up in court for kissing $2.8m painting...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21211300/
That French woman kissed a "white" painting with bright red lipstick causing permanent damage. She gets what she deserves. I think she annoyed me most when she said she too was an artist. As if. No true artist would destroy another's work.
Hello there, thanks for the visit last evening, and thanks for the link in your blog! :)
My cousin ... no, wait, I told you before about her adopting a terribly posh accent.
very good piece of writing.
My Personality is Very Rare (INFP)
"Your personality type is dreamy, romantic, elegant, and expressive.
Only about 5% of all people have your personality, including 6% of all women and 4% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving."
A rare flower, that's me. You too. Only not quite so rare.
Toccata: - but the painting was just white! Surely they could quite easily have gesso'd over it without much fuss... I think they're making a big deal bc I certainly don't believe ANYONE would pay $2.8m for a white canvas - not as I say when one can purchase the same for $30 from an artists' supplies store...
Monstror: You're welcome! Vos images sont magnifiques!
Liz: Oh yes I know about the snobby cousin who thinks the family are below her... mine did say I returned home saying "yah!" but it honestly was not done consciously... you pick up whatever voice you hear most around you and mine, unfortunately was the braying of Tilly Hilly Jilly and Giles Miles Niles... know what I mean...
BTW you're a VERY rare flower!
I don't recall how I answered to get called so rare I honestly don't recall the questionnaire... have you ever filled one out, got an answer and gone back into it altering just one response at a time? The results are fascinating?
I watched your hamster video. Looks like a few of them figured out how to escape up your arm.
I also vote save on washing plates and go for the paper on the fish and chips. Why wash a plate when you can just throw away the paper? I'm all for saving my time on housework.
Lv2scpbk:... did I spell that right...?
I totally agree with you re the fish and chips paper...
the hammies unfortunately weren't my own as I've no filming facilities... though they do look just like mine...
Sloan Rangers? I know them well. Used to hang out at Chelsea College which was on Sloan Street but I was no Sloan Ranger. You know Tonto? Well, I would be the cowdung that Tonto's horse stepped on. Were you studying nearby?
…and you speak a very good french :)
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