Hilary Mantel makes a good point

[juneau]

She shouldn't have said it, since it's bitchy and uncalled for (and I actually find HM rather odd, if I'm honest), but after a good couple of years in the media spotlight I struggle to think of one thing the Duchess of Cambridge thinks or believes in. She never gives an opinion, she barely speaks, she just looks pretty and smiles.

lol copthall, quite. agree with you and polyhmnia.

reported post btw

Well done. Now deleted I see.

Xenia and Baking - interesting point about Carole Middleton and her work ethic compared to that of Kate and Pippa. I've come across exactly this syndrome in RL. One really cohesive family I know very well, with a similar economic background but a great deal of commercial acumen, had four DC all of whom 'dropped out' (after Eton and Roedean). The big catch appeared to be closing rank with the established upper classes at the schools. Other things which should have been within reach, given their reasonable brains, (interesting careers and a good earned income) rather faded. It's pretty sad, given how decent all of them were. Why chase that shallow status? I read that Carole's brother Gary is writing a book. He says he hopes people will be interested by the fact that both he and Carole were millionaires by the age of thirty. I find that interesting - very interesting. But I find the emptyhead daughters that Carole appears to have produced hugely, mindnumbingly dull. How does that happen? Is 'class' still all? How sad.

But we don't know their heads are empty, do we? We don't know what's in those pretty heads ... it doesn't mean there isn't anything, only that they're not flashing whatever it is around in public.

There used to be lots of Carole Middleton's grooming their daughters for social mobility. Even in the social wastes of the north I had a friend who had a perfectly good brain and lots of personality whose mother was focused on equipping her for a "good marriage" with minor aristocracy, or at the very least money. There was near success with a prat with a castle but after failing to net anyone at uni, whilst her peers were building up careers she was set up at secretarial college and with the right address and a drive to target the right man. Wasn't that what the sloane ranger thing was all about? I can see in the Middleton girls that same calculating pursuit of a ticket to a privileged life but now it is a bit quaint and old fashioned, and sloanes are now more usually orange and falling out of clubs (though Pippa shows some tendancy, just goes for more of a mahogany....)

garlic, given their various interviews, there really is absolutely nothing, not unless they are both Oscar winning calibre actresses, which I doubt.

I thought Pippa's business was doing well? Not that I know; I'm just going by what the papers say. Going to be a Lady in Waiting for her sister would seem a bit of an odd move ... unless it doesn't preclude her carrying on her business, in which case it'd be an incredibly good move. Connections are vital in any business, and especially in the Middletons'.

Copthall I think Sloane as I knew it, as an anthropological term, implied thickness, really quite serious thickness. So Cambridge grads for example, who weren't averse to carrying on with a Sloane, weren't really Sloanes themselves. There were boy Sloanes too, but dullness and slowness of wit was the hallmark, with a penchant for clichés and stereotype. I certainly buy the idea that Kate and Pippa are latterday Sloanes, and how wearying they must be for company.

Not sure you have to be an actress to be a closed book. I am no royals-watcher, so have just done some searches on "quotes" from either of them. Hardly a peep. The only quote I got from Pippa was about how strange it is to see herself described in the press, when she's revealed so little of who she is.

If they have, in fact, come out with a welter of ignorant, elitist, inconsequential crap then, obv, I'm to be corrected :)

Sloane as I knew it, as an anthropological term, implied thickness

It didn't. It was a social classification tool. Diana, the archetypal Sloane, was a little blunt of wit but that was by-the-by. You're probably thinking of Enfield's Tim Nice-but-Dim character :)

See, I think these posts about the Middleton daughters being vapid, calculating, shallow, blahblah, are all about the original topic: a keen desire to force them into a stereotype.

Admittedly, I'm the least well-equipped person to know what kind of women they are. If folks here have evidence of the above character deficiencies, fine! But if they are mere assumptions, then you're writing on a blank sheet just as surely as the frilly Princess lover who assumes Kate spends her days being manicured. If the sheet is blank, I tend to feel that's deliberate because no human being is really 'blank'.

I was right there in the thick of it garlic and I'm a fairly semantic type. I would argue that true Sloane and true Rah both carry with them an inference of being thick.

And you should listen to what Kate and Pippa do say on air. It's not what they don't say afaiac. It's the crass stuff that they do say. Not that in the global scheme of things either of them are in any way important, it's just inconsequential observation.

Heavens yes. Sloanes were most definitely both thick and what's more anti-intellectual. They were also quite anti-culture - didn't read books, didn't go to the theatre etc etc.

Mind you, I'm not at all convinced that either Kate or Pippa are archetypal Sloanes.

But Russians do you say that because of their background?

I think Sloane in the original sense (1980's) used to encompass those who dressed, talked, acted and simply aspired to be Sloanes, regardless of background. I'd argue that (possibly with the caveat of a minimum level of good looks), this was an area of some social mobility.

Please don't tell me I'm overthinking this; I'm already conscious of that :)

Goodness, Yellowtip, we might have known each other. I was there, too, though not a Sloane myself (I did qualify as a Foodie, however, amongst other mishaps including Yuppie- and Dinkie-ism. They were good times.) Have you got York's original Handbook? Henry & Caroline aren't particularly thick. They downplayed intellectualism; that's not the same as lacking it. It's a social habit, mainly for good manners as it's nasty to risk making one's companions feel disadvantaged.

Thatcher's Britain killed Sloane Rangers off, selling their pearls & Barbours to anyone with sufficient cash and pretentions. The social activity and the sense of duty have persisted among the few whose finances are still secure. Most have to pay closer attention to money now, so are less free to be as insouciantly charming as before.

As someone who went to a Sloane school at the time the phrase was coined, and wore the Sloane shoes etc (the handbook described what was in existence at the time, very accurately) I wish to point out that Sloanes were not thick, read loads and argued loads, but of course in company might not appear to be brainy as the tension brains might create was not considered to be good manners. Though I have to say by the time I left school, even that concept, of what good manners might be, was definitely outdated. Understatement was the essence of the Sloane. Bling was considered passe.
Sloanes are still quite non confrontational. As is Kate. It would be so much nicer to have a bit of subversion in the Royal family.

garlicbreeze I well remember the shift from Seeking Mr Sloane to Seeking Loadsamoney. Aforementioned friend suddenly wanting to meet banker friends and marrying one............

Yellowtip Also from the thick of it I remember a brother and sister I knew from Oxford actually being named in the Sloane Ranger guide, possibly in a thinly disguised way, or come to think of it maybe sister was involved in actually writing it (?), or the magazine, and they weren't thick, just a bit weak chinned and overbred, or maybe I mean overwrought about the wrong things. Perhaps it was all a bit of self deprecating piss taking but I do remember the male getting a bit flustered when encountering women who related on equal terms and ending up with someone easier on the eye and intellect.............

Anyway social climbing was all about being equipped with the right clothes, context, social skills, and aspirations, friend knew just how to direct her intellect, wit and personality in pursuit of her aims , which sadly meant always shifting her focus on the person being targeted and never betraying that actually she was clever, occasionally I meet her for lunch

yellow - I don't know enough about their background. But I don't see any indication that either of them are philistines or anti intellectual. They both got decent exam results and went to proper universities after all.

Actually, what I mean is I don't know enough about their background to judge them on it. I know quite enough about their background (frankly more than I want to - the amount I'd like to know is 'nothing') for my everyday purposes. I was not in any way expressing sorrow at my lack of knowledge about their background.

It worries me that, as Kate is a role model, this notion- that it is not good manners for females to appear to be brainy, or have opinions, or have a successful career- is being perpetuated.

She really isn't a role model. :)

Think the Sloan thing was more complicated than it appears here. There were people identified as Sloans, the PofW being the archetype. However there were then the aspirers, who were generally laughed at by "the real thing". They wore the clothes and tried to achieve the lifestyle, but didn't quite get it right- the rules were too subtle and complex. It's typical of the class structure in this country to do stuff like this- to have very subtle rules that identify outsiders by tiny "mistakes". Just like the U and non-U nonsense. Which is why Carole Middleton will never be able to leave "doors to manual" behind. Ever. I've said before- Jilly Cooper and Evelyn Waugh are your best source material for this!

Oh, and for some reason I have typed Sloan, not Sloane throughout. My IPad obviously wouldn't make the cut!