So Eton, everything I expected and more

[JoanBias]

My DS is at a private school, so I have experience of private schooling, but my word Eton was like another world.

Not just the school, but the people there.

There was one prep school being shown around, all in tweed jackets, and to a boy the spitting image of Draco Malfoy (well there was one Chinese boy, but otherwise....).

One of the mothers doing the tour was not quite right in some respect, I'm not sure how but something wasn't wired up correctly or something. She was immacuately dressed, 6-inch heels (pretty daft considering the confirmation letter warns about having a long walk), but she was just bizarre. The admissions tutor said 'we have a waiting list of 80 boys and typically 35% of these will make it through', and she asked afterwards 'so 80% of the boys from the waiting list make it through?', and it was then explained again, but you could kind of hear the cogs going round and she clearly didn't get it. She had asked several other similar questions; e.g., it was explained that some Houses are catering and others go to a central cafeteria, so she then asked 'so they all eat in the cafeteria'? She pointed at the Fives Court and asked me 'what do they play here?' I said 'Fives' 'Is it squash?', she said. 'No, Eton Fives.' 'So is it squash?' It seemed as if this woman had had the benefit of the 'Finishing School for the Terminally Dim', because she was otherwise every inch the presentable upper middle-class wife.

Another family had a son who looked the prototypical pre-Etonian, and sure enough Daddy spent the tour braying on about his House when he had been there.

The facilities were extremely impressive, although they didn't bother to show us any of the academic parts, and basically the impression was 'if your son is incredibly pushy and self-motivated, send him here and we will teach him to be entitled'. They said 'every year we reject about a third of the highest performers on the test', essentially because they aren't pushy enough. (The House Mistresses seemed quite nice though.)

Fantastic training for future managing directors and whatever, but not for us.....

Well worth it to sign up for a tour, very illuminating. They take about 100 a day from what I can see, so obligation at all....

But that is not why many people go on those threads mignon. Most have no choice but to shop in the cheapest places. Which is what xenia was alluding to.

There is a huge difference.

I don't necessarily agree that 'having' to shop at Aldi means you are unhappier than if you are packed off to £32k/yr boarding school. Money gives you more choices, it can make misery less uncomfortable, but it doesn't necessarily make you happy.

On the ancestors point when we moved from paleo diets to neolithic (agriculture, grains, less meat) 10,000 years ago after 2m years on the idet we are made for we shrunk 4 inches!... then in the 40 years since we moved from an unprocessed diet to processed all manner of new illnesses have emerged.

Interestingly my father had his great grandfather's grave (farming community countryside) photographed - Northern Ireland - and the life expectation there sheep farming, moving all day country air, sun.. or as much as you get there anywhere - all was 79 years 82 etc... then the next generation who were born around 1880 and mostly moved to towns , my grandfather was 1 of 26 men sharing one house in a town in a boarding house in the 1901 census they all died younger.

If you look at what prozac does you can work all this out anyway. It's pretty simple and much more important than who earns £10k and who earns £200k. Go outside for a walk and clear your kitchen of rubbish foods and you might find you are happier than if you double your pay actually and it's a lot easier.

Paleolithic people lived for an average of 35 yrs (if your lucky) in the UK our life expectancy has increased by nearly 10 years since 1960 the average age of death is now 80 new illnesses have emerged becasue we are simply living longer.
It is easy to criticise drugs like prozac and Im sure that there are many out there who could be helped with their depression in different ways but mignonette as a Senior RMN will I'm sure agree there are many out with serious life threatening depression who've benefited from drugs like prozac.

Here is the link www.etoncollege.com/NewFoundationScholarships

Sorry wrong thread!

Bless you happygardening!

Have all manner of 'new' illnesses emerged or are we simply more aware of them? Doubt paleo's had epidemiological documenting systems. You only have to look at historical documents recording morbidity/mortality to see that many illnesses had different names/were ascribed to different causes/reasons or simply not recognised.

I'll tell my patients with Schizophrenia, Bipolar, OCD, that all they need to do is dig in fields all day, walk about in all weathers all day and they'll be miraculously cured.....Oh how much pain they could have been spared, Xenia...

HappyGardening I agree with you. The antidepressant argument is very simplistic. When you see people admitted, moribund with depressive disorders to the point of urinating in their beds improve slowly and steadily because of medication, then you realise it is simplistic to write them off.
People who criticise them and claim that talking therapies are what you need for a cure simply have no idea about how severe intractable depression renders you unreachable to talking therapies initially. They have validity when the initial crisis has been treated.

*Xenia...you know nothing of what you are speaking of regarding serious mental health issues. Best leave that one love.

And spare me the 'my aunty had depression/Schizophrenia bla bla and this is why I know all about what cures depression etc' Xenia.

Subjective experiences cut no ice when you try to apply them to every person who has mental health problems....Get an overview...A comprehensive one (pun intended)...

bisjo, anything in particular you want to know about Eton?

I know a huge amount but I can't see what we will gain on here by writing about it. I haev not suggest talking therapies. I have suggested lifestyle changes which mimic what prozac does and I have never ever suggested that if you have severe depression don't take the drugs - they save lives.

However the lifestyle to which we were adapted for 2 million years is what ensures our best mental and physical health. Just about every study ever these days agrees from the need for more vit D from the sun to the good unprocessed foods do you to exercise and the like. I was trying to help.

Obviously if people think the best route to good mental health is to mainline the cream buns in front of the TV whilst hardly moving go forth and take that life.

Hmm, Eton fred = amateur medical advice.

Hurrah!

So I might as well stick the Eton Voting Song in really?

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LP7jzAOIuGI#t=148s

While I don't go along with all (or even much) that Xenia says, I do admire her, and am sorry that so many nasty remarks are made to and about her. She decided early what she wanted from life, worked hard and achieved it. Well paid work she loves, a large family to whom she has been able give much. And even buy that dratted island! She seems very happy and fulfilled. Isn't that what we all want, even if your fulfillment is different? Go Xenia!

We went on to interesting topics - the routes to happiness - what could be better than that and who says I am an amateur. I've never said what I do on here.

Once you got past a certain age you were likely to have a fairly good innings - look at how many 90 plus on 1901 census etc, far more than many would imagine.

Well I don't think you could describe it as professional, to be saying that sunshine is better therapy than a stranger's medication.

Whatever your qualifications.

@rabbit plenty of women want to be high earners. The fact that relatively few are (when compared to men who want to be high earners) is not because women don't want to be. It's because of socio political constraints driven primarily by sexism. Being or wanting to be a high earner does not necessary involve prioritising money (qua money) above everything else. For many people their main career-based priority is doing interesting stuff. For others, it's doing socially useful stuff. Sometimes this involves high rewards sometimes not.

The 110yr old whose birthday was on Sunday said the secret of his long and happy life was being lazy (I don't think he was asked about buns).

Yellowtip - some of the most hard working people think they are lazy: it's that inner self-critical image that drives them to work hard. Others think they are lazy because they've only ever worked hard at what interests them, but when you look at how much effort went into the pursuit of their interests....

Mordion - I agree with you to the extent that I think women are often genuinely more interested in the careers which pay less well, and they pay less well because they are more attractive to women.

Joan love the Eton voting song although it has to be said and I've got little time for him that only a fool describes Boris as a fool!
Xenia "However the lifestyle to which we were adapted for 2 million years is what ensures our best mental and physical healthy* how do we know that Palaeolithic man was mentally happy did he fill in a life style questionnaire, post on Palaeolithic MN leave his memoirs behind? This is pure speculation. He had a short life span with a high infant death rate neither of these things are usually associated with health and happiness.

I do also think women can be a bit more complex about the way they view work. My general, unscientific impression is that in negotiating for pay, men are in general more likely to go for what they think they can get away with, whereas women are more likely to bother themselves about whether they are really worth it and whether they can live up to expectations. It's pretty much the same in primary school classrooms - the girls aim to please and the boys won't pull their fingers out at all until they can see the point of it.

To reach xenia land you have to hire the very people you deride to do all the tasks you consider menial so that you don't have to do them yourself.

And she won't even allow them to get any enjoyment out of their menial tasks, because to her you have to be thick to want to do them, or too thick to be able to avoid them.

I have no axe to grind so not really wanting to go on about this route to happiness but first of all there are some studies of groups usually from a good while back who were still living as we used to eg the innuit who lived on meat/fat and other groups. One study was by a dentist so he was concentrating on that but looking at other issues too like obesity, cancer, diabetes. There are certainly a huge lot of modern diseases which were entirely unknown until we adopted our current eating and life patterns. I am not suggesting my ancestors were never killed by wooly mammoths of course and if you think your crispy creme donut health plan is going to ease the depression go forth and eat it.

There are lots of mental health studies and physical health studies into this stuff. The eating guidelines for many mental health clinics are basically unprocessed food, do not pile on the white bread, regular meals, lots of fat and protein, work of Dr des Maisons. Another one MS - recent disease - look at the work of Dr Wahls in the US. Read the Sugar Nation book (diabetes). Watch the Big Sugar films and of course read the research papers behind it all. What is fascinating is that that paleo diet and life seems to be the key both to mental health/eating disorderi ssues for many also for those grappling with diabetes and those with disorders which may be on the immune spectrum like MS, ME and the like. The fact they all seem to conclude that the same diet (ie that which we followed for 2 million years) seems to solve obesity, diabetes, depression, MS etc etc and they are all studying it from different directions and coming to the same conclusino - not to mention intermittent fasting which is not a good idea for those who binge and fast but is certainly consistent with how our ancestors ate, is very compelling.

anyway this just came out of someone not too happy about not earning much and I said well if your job makes you break a sweat - again something our ancestors did when runingn away from those wooly mammoths - and perhaps gets you in theo pen air then may be you can be just as happy as a woman earnin gover £100k a year who can buy most of what she wants.

I have never said anti depressants don't save lives although just about everyone working in mental health will be sure to tell you it is they plus therapy both at once which tends to work best for people, not just the pills.

The pills raise your levels of seratonin, beta endorphin and dopamine. Those who are not bed ridden with depression, unable to work or on the verge of shooting themselves but feel a bit fed up should certainly also try eating in a way which does the same thing. However do not just spike the levsl up to leave then rushing straight down which is what your hit of sugar will do or bar of chocolate or even your raisin/fruit rush. You want to go for stability and no spiking if you can. You want to be the opposite of running on empty/Red Bull/Diet coke/ coffee. you want serene calmness. Well that's when I feel best anyway.

SAnd loads and loads of sleep. When i was last sleeping on my island I remember going to bed in the tent when it was dark and thinking how much more sleep people used to get. I have always needed loads and after years of 5 babies who never slept much I still really appreciate the fact I can now have loads and loads of sleep. It's cheap. It's wonderful. Drink only water too - again that is free here.

There is a link between lack of sunshine and depression however.

Depression can't be summed up with a single cure however, there are many many reasons as individual as the people who suffer it.

Again, money is not a cure. It never will be. It will allow you to pay for your son's Eton fees or for private schooling and private healthcare, thus giving your offspring a better start in life than most and as a mother that's surely what most of us strive for, a better start for our children? It's just a shame that the hardest working people who bear up the UK economy never get that chance. You can see why. If we could all afford private education then who would take those vital but poorly paid jobs? The economy would collapse. Therefore it pays to keep the working classes exactly where they are which is what old-Etonian Cameron is doing.