We're All Going To IBESHA: Last minute budget holiday fun for 30s TTC. Pack your string bikini and your oversized shades and get on board.

[Saladbomb]

Last call for flight SWI101 to Shagaluff. Sangria laced with folic acid on tape. Fake tanned Club reps will be dishing out the 2 for 1 cocktails, dressed in nothing but the most miniscule budgie smugglers. The pit will be manned by sleazy but virile Spanish waiters to provide your every need. Lets see the summer out in BESHley style, IE: starting a bar fight, drinking the place dry and falling over in a heap at the end of the night.

Are you angry, Rie? Don't want to speak for HB but my working class comment related to not being brought up to ski, rather than the current lack of cash. Or the lack of any desire by the CH to go on ANY holidays apart from city breaks which is infuriating. One thing I was brought up with is beach holidays, and I do love them, and it's such a pain in the ass compromising over that.

FIL envy is just becuase I wish either of our families were a) bigger b) hung out togefa. But if it is the only holiday you get then pliz to share in swearing at me with the CH who has to see me mum for (almost) each break he gets.

I do beat Banger on the John Lewis front though. As I am writing about Bourdieu I should understand what this means symbl...

Aries sounds perfectly reasonable you would want a holiday together, and you aren't going on. Its lovely they all like being together so much but I don't think I could do a holiday under those term with ANYONE, family or friends. Can't you plan to go with them but then have a couple of days somewhere else of exploring by yourselves in the middle? Surely they would understand you would want some alone time?

Pencilhead don't worry ended up taping the end as bath was ready... but I want Dickie to win, anyone who can cultivate a tash that luscious is alright in my book.

Don't worry scorps I am ok about it all, if a BOC can't withstand a bit of exercise it doesn't really bode well. Maybe the needles are working, water off a ducks back.....

Eep i'm so stupid, DO NOT read that as just given away someone in the final, Balls, sorry :(

Ooooo, Score has readership within 72 hours .

Rie I hope you are OK doll. Is not like you to prickle .

Don't worry, LolloRosso, I would've been ver' surprised if he had gone out!

On the subject of prickliness: I am EXTREMELY prickly about class. People accuse me of being think I'm middle class owing to relatively nice speech, lots of edumacation and tendency to play Chopin nocturnes. However, I feel it is ver' ver' insulting to effectively say, "Why you cannot possibly be one of those ghastly working class oiks: I distinctly heard you pronounce 'specifically' properly, and you appear to have opposable thumbs!"

Anyway. No-one wants to hear my class rant AGAIN

He, he, go for it. I will retaliate with 'spatialisation of class'.

I assume you had read the seminal 'Culture is Ordinary'?

Not prickling. Just embarrassed now. Will you have me back?

Why is it that "middle class" has become something to deny? There's nothing wrong with being middle class or indeed any class. It's how you behave and treat people is what counts. And that's my firm belief and I know all you lovely BESHes would agree with me so there's no point saying it really. I really hate inverted snobbery, and I also really hate chavs and yobbish behaviour. I want to shout "Look, just because you are from a particular socio-economic background, is there any need to be inconsiderate, noisy and rude?" Which I think is a really catchy insult and would definitely make them change their ways.

And I too play Chopin nocturnes. Well I try to anyway.

HB, we've had this chat privately and you know I agree with you on this. I have the weird thing of Mum being middle-class and Dad being upper working-class, so have bits of both, despite upbringing being basically middle-class and so I've been in a lifelong state of people either finding me a bit too posh or a bit too common. And there's so many stratas of each class as well: TYF's family: Radio 4, Aga, live in the middle of nowhere, country-loving, stiff upper lip, only value the sciences, etc. My family: urbane, intellectual, tactile, argumentative, obsessed with stuff like art, ballet, opera, literature, travel, cuisine, etc. They think I'm an oik cos I say settee, lounge and tea for the evening meal, I think they're philistines because they don't own a copy of Gombrich, etc., etc.

And my working class grandparents were/are more cultured and better-read than many people others would call middle-class or even posh. We're so weird about this shit in this country!

PS Mountie, I love Bourdieu! Can I do your essay for you, please?

Well said aries. I got sick of apologising for being 'middle class' (a judgment usually based on my lack of regional accent) when i went to college. So i stopped. Tis all bollocks. Chavs are another thing entirely tho.

I don't. Play. Anyfink. Now that I think about it, how did I spend my youth?

Dunno about others, but I will only have you back if you give me a huge, wet snog .

Am I being sad and old in thinking that the general inconsiderate behaviour has increased recently? I am probably just being an old fart. Back in my day...

what is it? sofa, living room and dinner? or chaise longue, parlour and supper. :o

Pette BE ... MY ... GUEST. You just have to apply his theories to space and voila! Another bullshit dissertaishon!

Yeah, I hate the thing where you're supposed to be apologetic or being middle-class
Since when has being educated, having a few manners and being thinking, caring, conscientious, etc., been a bad thing?

I confuse a lot of people by having a Northern accent. People automatically assume you were born in a coal scuttle and had to share t'whippet's dog basket if they sense a touch of the ole flattened vowels. Tea, lounge, settee, etc., weren't class-based where I grew up; everyone said them.

We live in a nice bit of an otherwise v chavvy area. Sadly, the locals fulfil every stereotype you could imagine. I hate being a Victor Meldrew, but I too think people are a lot ruder nowadays, like GrandmaMountie says I think a lot of parents get things the wrong way round nowadays: they give their kids lots of stuff and let them grow up v fast but they don't give them time and attention and space, etc. Oh, it's so easy to be a perfect parent like me when you've not even had so much as a sniff of a diff*

*I think we should bring out a BESH perfume called Sniff of A Diff!

ILs from up north too, Petula. Tea is something you drink! And you don't go for a curry, you go for Indian food! Not class based. Just nationality based .

Oh lawks, I went to bed mid-debate! . All that you all say is da troof.

That being said I will always, always, mock the more twee aspects of the middle classes. Like being really, really proud that your groceries get delivered in an Ocado van for the street to see, and complaining about the nanny at top volume, and being frightfully squeamish at the thought of buying anything second hand. And getting really uptight before a dinner party because the darling burgundy shot-silk table runner with a beaded edge you bought at the John Lewis sale wasn't properly ironed by the nanny.

Plus, I really really object to the term chav, if by chav you mean, "People who have not had access to the privileges of your education and upbringing, and are therefore less socially adept, and are probably so perfectly aware that they're considered to have no value or place in society that it's no wonder they're bloody angry most of the time."

I suppose the reason I (slightly mischievously) keep claiming to be working class is that I despise tweeness and social climbing and obsession with appearances and worrying about what everyone thinks of your car and whether you wear a Boden coat on the school run, and I also despise the demonisation of entire sectors of society because don't they realise~ Waitrose organic hummus is the only acceptable snack for toddlers?!

I did experience a rush of anger yesterday when a lumpen, drooling, mouth-breather of an obese fourteen year old shoved her bawling off-spring onto the bus without once acknowledging that several people were helping her by moving aside & giving up seats. However, it was not her foul tracksuit that was the problem, nor her scraped-back hair and heaps of Elizabeth Duke jewellery - it was the fact that she was a deeply, deeply unpleasant individual. Mind you, if I were a teenager who'd got lumbered with a baby and therefore knew my chances of decent education and employment were pretty much wrecked, and if I'd had the foul-mouthed reeking harridan of a mother this poor girl apparently had, I'm sure I'd be pretty unpleasant too...

I'm not sure what my point is anymore other than that we should all love each other

But HB, those things (Ocado van etc) aren't middle class - they're just pretentious, Hyacinth Bucket-style. I think I'm middle class because of my fortunate upbringing (which was just average actually, but I still think I'm lucky), but nowadays MrA have to be very careful with money and buy the Value Tesco's range and everything! When someone takes us to a restaurant I have no idea what many of the things on the menu are, and when you lot talk about literature and culture sometimes I have to sit quietly and ignorantly until I know what's being discussed again. Yet I still think I'm middle class, but I despise social and intellectual pretension (NB I am not, NOT saying I despise what's sometimes discussed here. In fact I am frequently very impressed)

It's very very hard not to judge when you see situations like the one you described above. Likewise when we, MrA and I, are at work late you-know-where, and you get the local oiks tyre screeching and yelling expletives until gone one in the morning, it's very hard not to judge. Too hard for me I'm afraid. I don't often use the word chav, but when I do, it's in response to someone's manners and behaviour not their education. To me, basic consideration isn't something that should have to be taught - if you don't use it, then you are choosing not to use it, and therefore that's crap.

Ramble, ramble ramble. Ooh, I do love a mass debate!

Have now read your post properly instead of skimming and realised we completely agree. So I shall join you in the singing. In fact the next BESHmeet should be at a karaoke bar

I am always ASHAMED if having groceries delivered as it makes me feel like a lazy cah (never mind I am out of the house for 12 hrs a day) I wish they would have those drop down sides that they have on heist movies to cover my lazy ass shame. :( Think up here there is less of a 'class' divide, (still a huge wealth divide tho) I certainly don't know any one like you describe HB (thank god!) And we don't have chavs so much as scallies (trackie and hoody) and wannabe WAGs, sad little over made up girls who think that if they show enough flesh some footballer will snap them up and take them away from all this.

Aries I am afraid manners and consideration DO have to be taught, most people learnt the way they view the world and how they treat other people from their parents and peers. Some of the stuff my friends who teach in some of the rougher areas have dealt with, back that up. Lots of the kids are little shits precisely because their parents don't give a shit. Tis very sad.

Having said that some of the kids are also amazing considering the things they have had to deal with so maybe you are right..... so now I've confused myself. I used to be good at this debate kind of thing, think I have fried to many brain cells.

Oh yes yes yes yes pliz yes pliz! We can go to the karaoke box in Soho. Tiny and slightly feotid but completely private for BESH screeching purposes .

(And yes, I think we do agree. It's social pretension I like to mock - and quite rightly too!

And Salad yes I do agree with you there, about manners and consideration etc.. It's very much an education thing. I blame the parents. That's the first time I've ever said that and man it felt good

I blame the parents parents, no wait I blame the parents grandparents....

oh this could go on. Hey, how about some menkulling. I have absolutely no symptoms (despite convincing myself yesterday that I had loads!) but i have had a slightly elevated temperature for 2 days on the trot, so that might mean i am diffed if it carries on. Hows that for amorphous?

But isn't SOME kindness and empathy innate? Kids can do it - they'll offer to share something or come over and sympathise even if they're very little sometimes.

Otherwise I agree with you. Fucking parents. How hard can it be? I think many of them see manners as a kind of weakness, and if they show that they are considering others, it leaves them open to exploitation. It makes me very sad when I see little ten year old lads walking round with a defensive snarl on their faces. When they smile their whole little faces change.

I'm a contradictory bag today aren't I? Just musing things through...

I think chav is just used for the want of a better word when you hate someone's manners. I think most people (anyone I know at least) do not use it derisively against tracksuits and such. It is an unfortunate word though, because it mixes up manners with all sorts of other things, like class. And like others have pointed out, class has nothing to do with being kind and well mannered. And, yes, like you Arial I am judgey too. BUT on the other hand I get just as annoyed by all the rude upper classes that I occasionally encounter (mostly at a farmer's market - sorry) who are above talking to either myself or the farmer, who push in front of you, or plain push you aside without saying sorry. They try hard not to touch anyone, in fear, I guess of catching some disease? Then they drive off in their 4x4 in the middle of fekking Lahndahn FFS! What's the word for them? You think with all that cash and superiority you could have learned some manners? Like, let's start with basic 'thank you' and 'hello'. Hell, you can even use 'how do you do' if you like!

Culture is Ordinary? Raymond Williams? Anyone?