I have had mixed feelings and views about John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister throughout the Premiership of Tony Blair, a year older than me, who has recently published his memoirs and where one can assume the central issue is his views on class and privilege. This evening I watched the first of two or more programmes about his book, life and these issues.
Britain continues two have a flexible but evident class system. The top class has always been the Kings and Queens and their nobles (Royalty, Lords and Ladies). and these have always been recognised as such except by the underclass who recognise no one except themselves. The top class achieved status through birth, sometimes by marriage and sometimes by force of arms and Individuals were also raised to nobility through friendship and service to the Monarch and to the state. Their continuing power came from holding land and accumulating wealth, through the imposition of taxes and being able to command an army and navy and subsequently an air force.
Although the blood lines have changed, and most aristocrats are no longer exclusively the wealthiest citizens, they continue to hold land even if the country houses are open top the public and hey continue have their status. However they no longer directly hold political power although someone such as Queen Elizabeth can give advice because of her on long experience and extensive knowledge.
The term upper class includes Royalty and Nobility but also others defined usually by education, language and position.
Any description of British Education system gives a misleading impression. 7% of the children go to Public and other forms of Independent schools, yet go on to hold 80% of the top jobs, Judges, Head Teachers, Military, Air force and Naval Commanders and heads of Professions and major business enterprises. Moreover one Public School forms the nucleus, Eton. Not all Independent school are Public Schools and these are usually denominational. The difference between the Public and other independent school is that they are not run by local government education authorities and the majority of pupils are direct fee paying, that is the education and boarding fees are paid by parents direct to the school although over the past fifty years all or part of he fees can be paid by others such as the s armed services who can contribute up to two thirds of the fee for its officers, and a contribution to fees sometimes paid by companies
Such school, especially the boarding component create defined culture in terms of speech, interests, attitudes and behaviour. Once established it is carried through into the universities attended, not just Oxford and, Cambridge, but particular colleges, similarly at Durham, at Trinity College Dublin is another and Edinburgh. This is usually followed by a period as an officer in one of the service units.
The difference between the middle and working classes has become blurred and is no longer defined by accent, or home ownership, but occupation, education, lifestyle and culture are factors. In some instance BBC accents are a disadvantage and regional speech is an asset and the decision of Margaret Thatcher to enable those living in local authority rented accommodation to purchase their homes at subsidised rates ended one distinguishing divide. Education. Occupation is no longer the same divide as it was two decades ago as heavy industrial work and factory manufacturing has significantly reduced or as with underground coal mining disappeared and those working is these occupations tended to live in the same local communities and establish their own way of life. Similarly office jobs are performed by those from a range of backgrounds so that the traditional divide of manual and brain activities no longer is as clear as it was. Middle class and working class is still divided by cultural activities e.g. going to the opera, theatres in general, apart from pantomimes, orchestral concerts, cricket (this is changing with 20.20), tennis, rugby union, rowing tennis, formula one car racing countryside pursuits, especially shooting and legal hunting are all identified with middle class while musical halls when they existed, pop music, football (also changed) and rugby league, dog racing, motor bike racing, dance halls as opposed to discos. In some instances there are occasions within sports, such as Royal Ascot in Horse racing or Ladies day at other race meetings which traditionally are middle rather than working class activities although this too is no longer clear cut.
My general my impression is if you go through door of some schools, universities and university colleges, train as an armed service officer, enter some professions and accept that culture usually implicit in the activity, you can move from working to middle class and one important factor is self confidence and feeling comfortable in the same surroundings as others.
Then there is religion with the Church of England trended to remain for the upper and middle classes except for Christenings and Marriages.
I mention all this because while many of these points were covered in tonight's programme it became muddled, confusing the working class with the underclass which covers those who seek or become dependent on benefits, criminals, those with no fixed place of abode, drug addicts and alcoholics and some who are mentally ill. It also ascribed crudeness and violence as being working class.
The main point of the significance of class, and a point brought out strongly by John Prescott is that being a child in one class environment can bring great advantage or great disadvantage regardless of ability, unless you self destruct if born into a high class or have the drive like John Prescott where it was revealed that he is basically insecure, has always felt inferior especially because of his difficulty to express himself in a controlled and polished way. In the next programme he takes three members of the underclass to the Houses of Parliament.
My morning commenced at nine placing both the wheelie bin and the environmental box outside the garage door for collection during the morning and at ten I came across an interesting post World war film, Four Men in a Jeep, which opens with explaining the arrangement for controlling Vienna in which the Russian controlled the Northern sector across the Danube, the American the main area two the south but which the British and the French also controlled sectors. In the city centre each of the allies commanded for one month in rotation. Every day one man from each of the controlling powers form the International Patrol with the American as the driver and the man from the controlling power for the month sitting next to the driver. The story concerns a woman whose husband is in a Russian prison camp, is thought dead at one point but then escapes in an attempt to get to his wife and the efforts of the four in a jeep to help or apprehend. The film is an authentic account of what it was like to be an occupying soldier and someone occupied in post war Europe. It is a sad fact that it took the loss of many lives in Iraq for the lessons of half a century ago to be remembered.
As is my practice in addition to any notes which I make I like to read and print out one or two reviews but in this instance I could only find two brief and inaccurate descriptions which I then took time to correct and which involved registering in order to so. One on Rotten Tomatoes said the film was set in Switzerland and during the war while Yahoo film also set the film in Switzerland. On Britmovie and the British Film Forum, someone wanted information on the film where they had only seen the last 15 mins and another member had commented that the film Berlin Express also featured the four occupying powers and their relationship seen through eyes of individual soldiers. The most film set in Vienna during this period is of course The Third Man.
I did sweep and then wash scrub the laminated floors of the day room and kitchen and prepared an eat my lunch of an olive salad and a pear followed by a cup of tea after washing up.
In the afternoon I half watched a slight film which contained some good views of Dublin City centre. I have been to Dublin once for a conference organised by the Anglo Irish Foundation on the treatment and prevention of drug abuse and involving representatives from Northern Ireland, Eire and the UK. Apart from the taxi from the airport to the hotel and then a taxi to visit a medical treatment centre and back I had no experience of the city, but have followed the economic development of Eire over the past quarter of a century as well as being interested in the history of the country and its exploitation by British landowners. I also had a practical involvement from my work in child care in a part of London where it was not uncommon for Irish girls to come during their pregnancy until placement of the baby for adoption and completion of the legal proceedings before returning home or establishing a new life for themselves. My mother has done this in 1938, never going back, as her sisters then came to England because of World War Two. And I remained within the family and she established herself as a primary school teacher at the same school for twenty years in 1945.
I can only think that the writer and director of Goldfish Memory was wanting to make a point to the Catholic Church of Ireland through her film which shows that the student population of the university are divided between gay men couples and gay female couples, hetro-sexual and bisexuals all pretending to be sexually free while searching for monogamous relationships which have love as at their centre. Having hit on the idea, she was driven to include every variation and permutation in relationship between amoral characters who appear to have no interest in their studies or the world around them except so far as it furthers their relationship quests and conquests. There are however some great shots of modern Dublin city centre though.
A very different film is Mapmaker set in beautiful Irish Border country, and photographed and scripted at a pace usually associated with life in Irish countryside. One begins by asking what one earth is this film going to be about. A Mapmaker who previously photographed and mapped the sewers in a city is employed on a short term contract to create a local tourist map, discovers the body of a man in the surrounding countryside who disappeared ten years before, killed by the IRA as an informer. The Mapmaker is then sent a tape, previously sent to the police, in which although the man confesses at its end, he protests his innocence and that he is being framed.
The discovery of the body brings peace to his widow and parents but his school age son has mixed feelings, never accepting that his father was an informer. We learn that an ancestor of the Mapmaker was only in the same occupation but as a Quaker was regarded as neutral in the sectarian conflict and had been a member of the commission with determined the border between the Eire and the Northern Ireland Counties and was accused with having leaked information to the media unjustly.
A member of the committee employing his descendent, who is also a Quaker, a mixture of Catholic and Protestant clergy, is a school teacher and wife of a local businessman with a forestry contract and as the film draws to a close the Mapmaker discovers that this man was responsible for the framing and death because his wife's brother had been the man's best friend had been executed by the IRA and what better way to gain revenge than to frame one of their own as an informer and get them to execute the unlucky individual. , He is also part of a hierarchy which decides to fire bomb the unionist and orange order meeting hall, the night before the annual parade through the town in an attempt to put blame on the IRA sympathisers.
The Mapmaker is then tricked into a situation where the organiser of the framing attempts to kill him, but although wounded he survives with the help of the son of the victim and the man's wife. The film ends at a party to make the completion of the tourist map and the decision of the Mapmaker to stay, particularly as the sister of the other man killed decides to return and face the music of her fellow citizens. This independent Irish made film needed to have such an ending as part of the long peace progress now emerging in Northern Ireland and it is not the time for me, or anyone to go over the origins and development of what became a guerrilla led the civil war.
The evening ended with the first of the proper Winner Takes all, the Standford multi million dollar competition in which Trinidad the regional finalists beat Middlesex the 20 20 champions and won over £275000 dollars. The failure to hold catches lofted into the dark sky and a difficult wicked contributed to a close match with a great finish and the prospect of more interest with a match every night this week.
Britain continues two have a flexible but evident class system. The top class has always been the Kings and Queens and their nobles (Royalty, Lords and Ladies). and these have always been recognised as such except by the underclass who recognise no one except themselves. The top class achieved status through birth, sometimes by marriage and sometimes by force of arms and Individuals were also raised to nobility through friendship and service to the Monarch and to the state. Their continuing power came from holding land and accumulating wealth, through the imposition of taxes and being able to command an army and navy and subsequently an air force.
Although the blood lines have changed, and most aristocrats are no longer exclusively the wealthiest citizens, they continue to hold land even if the country houses are open top the public and hey continue have their status. However they no longer directly hold political power although someone such as Queen Elizabeth can give advice because of her on long experience and extensive knowledge.
The term upper class includes Royalty and Nobility but also others defined usually by education, language and position.
Any description of British Education system gives a misleading impression. 7% of the children go to Public and other forms of Independent schools, yet go on to hold 80% of the top jobs, Judges, Head Teachers, Military, Air force and Naval Commanders and heads of Professions and major business enterprises. Moreover one Public School forms the nucleus, Eton. Not all Independent school are Public Schools and these are usually denominational. The difference between the Public and other independent school is that they are not run by local government education authorities and the majority of pupils are direct fee paying, that is the education and boarding fees are paid by parents direct to the school although over the past fifty years all or part of he fees can be paid by others such as the s armed services who can contribute up to two thirds of the fee for its officers, and a contribution to fees sometimes paid by companies
Such school, especially the boarding component create defined culture in terms of speech, interests, attitudes and behaviour. Once established it is carried through into the universities attended, not just Oxford and, Cambridge, but particular colleges, similarly at Durham, at Trinity College Dublin is another and Edinburgh. This is usually followed by a period as an officer in one of the service units.
The difference between the middle and working classes has become blurred and is no longer defined by accent, or home ownership, but occupation, education, lifestyle and culture are factors. In some instance BBC accents are a disadvantage and regional speech is an asset and the decision of Margaret Thatcher to enable those living in local authority rented accommodation to purchase their homes at subsidised rates ended one distinguishing divide. Education. Occupation is no longer the same divide as it was two decades ago as heavy industrial work and factory manufacturing has significantly reduced or as with underground coal mining disappeared and those working is these occupations tended to live in the same local communities and establish their own way of life. Similarly office jobs are performed by those from a range of backgrounds so that the traditional divide of manual and brain activities no longer is as clear as it was. Middle class and working class is still divided by cultural activities e.g. going to the opera, theatres in general, apart from pantomimes, orchestral concerts, cricket (this is changing with 20.20), tennis, rugby union, rowing tennis, formula one car racing countryside pursuits, especially shooting and legal hunting are all identified with middle class while musical halls when they existed, pop music, football (also changed) and rugby league, dog racing, motor bike racing, dance halls as opposed to discos. In some instances there are occasions within sports, such as Royal Ascot in Horse racing or Ladies day at other race meetings which traditionally are middle rather than working class activities although this too is no longer clear cut.
My general my impression is if you go through door of some schools, universities and university colleges, train as an armed service officer, enter some professions and accept that culture usually implicit in the activity, you can move from working to middle class and one important factor is self confidence and feeling comfortable in the same surroundings as others.
Then there is religion with the Church of England trended to remain for the upper and middle classes except for Christenings and Marriages.
I mention all this because while many of these points were covered in tonight's programme it became muddled, confusing the working class with the underclass which covers those who seek or become dependent on benefits, criminals, those with no fixed place of abode, drug addicts and alcoholics and some who are mentally ill. It also ascribed crudeness and violence as being working class.
The main point of the significance of class, and a point brought out strongly by John Prescott is that being a child in one class environment can bring great advantage or great disadvantage regardless of ability, unless you self destruct if born into a high class or have the drive like John Prescott where it was revealed that he is basically insecure, has always felt inferior especially because of his difficulty to express himself in a controlled and polished way. In the next programme he takes three members of the underclass to the Houses of Parliament.
My morning commenced at nine placing both the wheelie bin and the environmental box outside the garage door for collection during the morning and at ten I came across an interesting post World war film, Four Men in a Jeep, which opens with explaining the arrangement for controlling Vienna in which the Russian controlled the Northern sector across the Danube, the American the main area two the south but which the British and the French also controlled sectors. In the city centre each of the allies commanded for one month in rotation. Every day one man from each of the controlling powers form the International Patrol with the American as the driver and the man from the controlling power for the month sitting next to the driver. The story concerns a woman whose husband is in a Russian prison camp, is thought dead at one point but then escapes in an attempt to get to his wife and the efforts of the four in a jeep to help or apprehend. The film is an authentic account of what it was like to be an occupying soldier and someone occupied in post war Europe. It is a sad fact that it took the loss of many lives in Iraq for the lessons of half a century ago to be remembered.
As is my practice in addition to any notes which I make I like to read and print out one or two reviews but in this instance I could only find two brief and inaccurate descriptions which I then took time to correct and which involved registering in order to so. One on Rotten Tomatoes said the film was set in Switzerland and during the war while Yahoo film also set the film in Switzerland. On Britmovie and the British Film Forum, someone wanted information on the film where they had only seen the last 15 mins and another member had commented that the film Berlin Express also featured the four occupying powers and their relationship seen through eyes of individual soldiers. The most film set in Vienna during this period is of course The Third Man.
I did sweep and then wash scrub the laminated floors of the day room and kitchen and prepared an eat my lunch of an olive salad and a pear followed by a cup of tea after washing up.
In the afternoon I half watched a slight film which contained some good views of Dublin City centre. I have been to Dublin once for a conference organised by the Anglo Irish Foundation on the treatment and prevention of drug abuse and involving representatives from Northern Ireland, Eire and the UK. Apart from the taxi from the airport to the hotel and then a taxi to visit a medical treatment centre and back I had no experience of the city, but have followed the economic development of Eire over the past quarter of a century as well as being interested in the history of the country and its exploitation by British landowners. I also had a practical involvement from my work in child care in a part of London where it was not uncommon for Irish girls to come during their pregnancy until placement of the baby for adoption and completion of the legal proceedings before returning home or establishing a new life for themselves. My mother has done this in 1938, never going back, as her sisters then came to England because of World War Two. And I remained within the family and she established herself as a primary school teacher at the same school for twenty years in 1945.
I can only think that the writer and director of Goldfish Memory was wanting to make a point to the Catholic Church of Ireland through her film which shows that the student population of the university are divided between gay men couples and gay female couples, hetro-sexual and bisexuals all pretending to be sexually free while searching for monogamous relationships which have love as at their centre. Having hit on the idea, she was driven to include every variation and permutation in relationship between amoral characters who appear to have no interest in their studies or the world around them except so far as it furthers their relationship quests and conquests. There are however some great shots of modern Dublin city centre though.
A very different film is Mapmaker set in beautiful Irish Border country, and photographed and scripted at a pace usually associated with life in Irish countryside. One begins by asking what one earth is this film going to be about. A Mapmaker who previously photographed and mapped the sewers in a city is employed on a short term contract to create a local tourist map, discovers the body of a man in the surrounding countryside who disappeared ten years before, killed by the IRA as an informer. The Mapmaker is then sent a tape, previously sent to the police, in which although the man confesses at its end, he protests his innocence and that he is being framed.
The discovery of the body brings peace to his widow and parents but his school age son has mixed feelings, never accepting that his father was an informer. We learn that an ancestor of the Mapmaker was only in the same occupation but as a Quaker was regarded as neutral in the sectarian conflict and had been a member of the commission with determined the border between the Eire and the Northern Ireland Counties and was accused with having leaked information to the media unjustly.
A member of the committee employing his descendent, who is also a Quaker, a mixture of Catholic and Protestant clergy, is a school teacher and wife of a local businessman with a forestry contract and as the film draws to a close the Mapmaker discovers that this man was responsible for the framing and death because his wife's brother had been the man's best friend had been executed by the IRA and what better way to gain revenge than to frame one of their own as an informer and get them to execute the unlucky individual. , He is also part of a hierarchy which decides to fire bomb the unionist and orange order meeting hall, the night before the annual parade through the town in an attempt to put blame on the IRA sympathisers.
The Mapmaker is then tricked into a situation where the organiser of the framing attempts to kill him, but although wounded he survives with the help of the son of the victim and the man's wife. The film ends at a party to make the completion of the tourist map and the decision of the Mapmaker to stay, particularly as the sister of the other man killed decides to return and face the music of her fellow citizens. This independent Irish made film needed to have such an ending as part of the long peace progress now emerging in Northern Ireland and it is not the time for me, or anyone to go over the origins and development of what became a guerrilla led the civil war.
The evening ended with the first of the proper Winner Takes all, the Standford multi million dollar competition in which Trinidad the regional finalists beat Middlesex the 20 20 champions and won over £275000 dollars. The failure to hold catches lofted into the dark sky and a difficult wicked contributed to a close match with a great finish and the prospect of more interest with a match every night this week.
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