If you are really posh...

[quickque]

How do you view people that aren't?

A genuine question. I can't help but feel as if some of my husbands friends / colleagues think that he's married 'down'....

Maybe a generalisation but I mostly get this impression from his female friends.

This is an extreme example - for sure - but a salutary one. The manner of misrepresentation people engage in is mind blowing. An embedded class system also makes this worse, when no one is encouraged to question it.

I once dated a public school educated chap. His friends were vile. One offered me £1000 to have sex with him. He quite literally thought I could be bought because I was poor.

He soon found out different .

Using a linen napkin with a takeaway is frankly bonkers.

Oh, it's a completely fascinating story, @OVienna. I'm going to read some more about it when I can find anything. I find impostor stories incredibly interesting, like the various pretenders to being Anastasia, the Russian Grand Duchess who supposedly escaped the massacre.

It seems incredible to think that one of the most long-lasting claimants, 'Anna Anderson' (who was later conclusively identified as a Polish factory worker with a history of mental illness) could have been accepted as legitimate by even a minority of people who knew the real Anastasia (she didn't speak Russian, and can't possibly have known many of the kinds of things a Grand Duchess would have been trained in since birth), but the German courts were never able to prove or disprove her claim in her lifetime, some people genuinely wanted a miracle, some people thought there was a Romanov fortune to be recovered, and some were politically motivated and thought that if the political climate changed in Russia, they would be well in with a restored aristocracy. And the press always preferred the miracle story.

Sorry, major derail.

Back to the humble, hail-fellow-well-met aristos in their well-cut rags.

@Janegrey333

Using a linen napkin with a takeaway is frankly bonkers.

I'm working class or 'educated working class in a professional job' and we use linen napkins at every meal, regardless of what it is we're eating. Perhaps we eat particularly messy food, and we certainly have a spectacularly messy eight year old, but paper napkins/kitchen towel just seem environmentally disastrous and a waste.

Not starched and ironed or resembling a table setting at a Michelin-starred restaurant, or anything, just a motley collection of linen napkins acquired over the years that live in a drawer and get thrown in the wash with the teatowels.

Another napkin user here- what else would you use?

For foods like spare ribs or naan bread eaten with the fingers you need a wipe.
And I try to minimise use of disposable stuff in the house for environmental reasons- so have a drawer full of napkins.

@GrandAltogether

Oh, it's a completely fascinating story, *@OVienna*. I'm going to read some more about it when I can find anything. I find impostor stories incredibly interesting, like the various pretenders to being Anastasia, the Russian Grand Duchess who supposedly escaped the massacre.

It seems incredible to think that one of the most long-lasting claimants, 'Anna Anderson' (who was later conclusively identified as a Polish factory worker with a history of mental illness) could have been accepted as legitimate by even a minority of people who knew the real Anastasia (she didn't speak Russian, and can't possibly have known many of the kinds of things a Grand Duchess would have been trained in since birth), but the German courts were never able to prove or disprove her claim in her lifetime, some people genuinely wanted a miracle, some people thought there was a Romanov fortune to be recovered, and some were politically motivated and thought that if the political climate changed in Russia, they would be well in with a restored aristocracy. And the press always preferred the miracle story.

Sorry, major derail.

Back to the humble, hail-fellow-well-met aristos in their well-cut rags.

It is a derail but a fascinating one. Maybe needs its own thread! The Anastasia story feels different again to me than the Oudh's. She preyed on people who had lost their relatives in tragic circumstances and as you say probably WANTED to believe her. I can't believe she managed to tie up the courts with the claim, all the time wasted. Unbelievable.

I don't eat take aways. When we have a family meal we have proper table napkins. They also save waste. I don't know why people want to waste paper all the time. Mine have lasted at least 20 years so far.

@speakout

Another napkin user here- what else would you use?

For foods like spare ribs or naan bread eaten with the fingers you need a wipe.
And I try to minimise use of disposable stuff in the house for environmental reasons- so have a drawer full of napkins.

We use 3 ply white oater napkins. We do own the cloth variety too. My point is that if you use linen napkins whilst you are eating a takeaway, your napkins must stain so badly. You must spend lots of your time using a Vanish spray!!

But well done on the environmental front!

oater

paper

@Xenia

I don't eat take aways. When we have a family meal we have proper table napkins. They also save waste. I don't know why people want to waste paper all the time. Mine have lasted at least 20 years so far.

Nor do we. Many do though - and didn’t somebody reference takeaways? My comment was directed at them.

@Xenia

I think most of us don't take any of this very seriously. People are just people and some are nice whether "posh" or not and others aren't in all classes.

Remember anyone as old as I am the jibs against Michael Heseltine - self made publishing man and then politician? The diaries of Alan Clarke (who I think was from older money) mention the quotes from him that Heseltine had bought his furniture! (Rather than its having been passed down for hundreds of years from the family castle etc)

Jibs?

It is a derail but a fascinating one. Maybe needs its own thread! wink The Anastasia story feels different again to me than the Oudh's. She preyed on people who had lost their relatives in tragic circumstances and as you say probably WANTED to believe her. I can't believe she managed to tie up the courts with the claim, all the time wasted. Unbelievable.

I'm far from an expert on 'Anna Anderson'/Franziska Schanzkowska, but I think some people conclude that rather than being a deliberate impostor, she was mentally unwell and delusional and in rejecting her own 'real' past for some reason, embraced the Anastasia fiction and possibly believed it herself.

It does seem crazy now that it tied up the courts for so long, but of course no DNA testing until after FS's death, and they didn't find the Romanovs' bodies until I think 1991, and there was so much misinformation from the Soviet regime about their deaths for decades that there were loads of impostors. Not just for Anastasia, but all her siblings. There are still people in the most unlikely places who claim to be descendants of one of the children.

If you ever want an internet rabbithole for insomniac nights, the 'Romanov impostors' Wiki is a fascinating place to start.

@GrandAltogether

It is a derail but a fascinating one. Maybe needs its own thread! wink The Anastasia story feels different again to me than the Oudh's. She preyed on people who had lost their relatives in tragic circumstances and as you say probably WANTED to believe her. I can't believe she managed to tie up the courts with the claim, all the time wasted. Unbelievable.

I'm far from an expert on 'Anna Anderson'/Franziska Schanzkowska, but I think some people conclude that rather than being a deliberate impostor, she was mentally unwell and delusional and in rejecting her own 'real' past for some reason, embraced the Anastasia fiction and possibly believed it herself.

It does seem crazy now that it tied up the courts for so long, but of course no DNA testing until after FS's death, and they didn't find the Romanovs' bodies until I think 1991, and there was so much misinformation from the Soviet regime about their deaths for decades that there were loads of impostors. Not just for Anastasia, but all her siblings. There are still people in the most unlikely places who claim to be descendants of one of the children.

If you ever want an internet rabbithole for insomniac nights, the 'Romanov impostors' Wiki is a fascinating place to start.

That is true about the mental illness question- I have read a book or two on this, back in the day (very cool teen - NOT!) Also I do agree she was probably egged on by people hoping to cash in on the Romanov missing fortune.

I will def check out that website. Thanks for the heads up!

The derailings are among the most beguiling part of MN. Fascinating rabbit warrens.....

I really hope this works @XingMing and @GrandAltogether

I Googled "guy with three wives who was a spy" and got it. Alexander Wilson :

[]https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-46456654]]

Generated real lives for real people, based on God knows what crazy tale his own life was! If you haven't seen the programme I recommend it.

There’s also a bewilderment that I haven’t ever skied. They ALL ski. Apparently if I leave it much longer to introduce my kids to ski-ing it’ll be too late...
yep!
Agree there are snobs among the old upper class, even more so among 'gentry' and especially the well-to-do middle classes - maybe as they make it a lot more obvious than the well-bred aristocracy.

@OVienna

I really hope this works *@XingMing and @GrandAltogether*

I Googled "guy with three wives who was a spy" and got it. Alexander Wilson :

[][[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-46456654]]]]

Generated real lives for real people, based on God knows what crazy tale his own life was! If you haven't seen the programme I recommend it.

I vaguely remember this from when the tv drama was shown, but the sheer number of different deceptions and identities is dazzling...