No it’s true. some of us on here actually have lives, too. Hard to beleive, i know.

Speaking of which, there’s a threat of a picnic tonight in Ken Wood. It’s going to rain, isn’t it?

No it’s true. some of us on here actually have lives, too. Hard to beleive, i know.

Some of us do indeed. You are most certainly not one.

Says a person who appears to sepnd morning noon and night, every single day on ehre. Interesting.

Why the sudden hostility, wreker?

i’ll read your answer tomorrow or sometime. I’m meant to be at Highgate station at 6!

Only work hours mike. You’ll not find me on here very much at all in my own time, certainly not weekends. Hope you catch your train. I don’t do trains myself.

It’s very easy to look down on others, but much harder to look at yourself.

very true.

If it gets me banned it gets me banned, but when I drive / cycle / walk along the local streets, the council houses all seem to have sky telly and massive TV screens, and occupants who can smoke. I know it’s not everyone (and half my family are from “council house stock” and still live there, for the record), but there’s a high percentage.
Whenever I stroll down Church St in Stoke Newington, or Upper St in Islington, perhaps going for a coffee or a mung-bean soufflé, i see lots of affluent middle class types with iPads.

However, whenever a new iPad is launched, I don’t feel compelled to sneer at the middle classes for the choices they might make.

For the record, i’m not-particularly-affluent middle class. my girlfirend however is unashamedly affluent middle class, and has a medium sized old CRT television. Which she hardly watches, as she’s usually too busy eating organic houmous. Seh does have a Phillipe Stark juicer though.
Well get you! I’m sure, if you happened to see me sat outside my local coffee shop with my iPad and my iPhone, you’d take delight in making some condescending, patronising remark about my affluent, middle-class ways, while I’d just call you an insufferable snob, seeing as how I’m certainly not middle-class, while those friends of mine who are, and who also own such things, work bloody hard for every penny to be able to afford such luxuries. One such friend has a 22″ LCD telly! Such extravagance, I’m sure, Mike, you’d really look down on her. 🙄

what’s so wrong with being middle class and eating hummus?
you’re not being prejudiced are you?

O’Flashearty is unusually wound up there. I wonder why that is. You haven’t been dissing mike’s mum too have you?

I’m sure it’s a great telly, but 84″ and £14k? I was looking at a 55″ HD TV at the local supermarche yesterday for less than 800 Euros, about as big as anyone needs.
Not bragging here, but we have 8 bedrooms, almost a couple of acres of garden but only a 32″ TV, so the stereotypes are possibly not far wrong . . . we have better things to do than watch TV, tonight we rode our bikes 1k to the local lake, did a spot of fishing and then rode back. And we don’t eat hummous or organically marketed stuff. We don’t eat much fish either, because we never catch anything.

fishing?

I was buying into upto that point…

jumbo tron used at the Vuelta (although the image on the screen looks photo-shopped?)

Well get you! I’m sure, if you happened to see me sat outside my local coffee shop with my iPad and my iPhone, you’d take delight in making some condescending, patronising remark about my affluent, middle-class ways, while I’d just call you an insufferable snob, seeing as how I’m certainly not middle-class, while those friends of mine who are, and who also own such things, work bloody hard for every penny to be able to afford such luxuries. One such friend has a 22″ LCD telly! Such extravagance, I’m sure, Mike, you’d really look down on her.

I think you’ve completely missed the point of what i was saying, which was, that I don’t judge people because of the lifestyle choices they have made. Unlike others on here.

People are quick to sneer and be snobbish about other groups’ lifestyle choices, without being aware that their behaviour is very similar; they wittingly or unwittingly give off signals about their social status/group, in order to be ‘accepted’ by the rest of the ‘tribe’. For example; middle class folk often favour such items as expensive Dualit toasters, Apple products, John Lewis home furnishings and of course large bookcases. The huge tvs and Cath Kidson curtains are interchangeable according to social grouping, but ultimately serve the same putpose; to remind the person and others who they are, how much social ‘power’ the have, how successful and potent they are as individuals. This ‘tribalism’ manifests itself in the lifestyle and product choices we all make. Granted, this is generalising somewhat, and of course people differ greatly in their choices and behaviour, but the basic premise remains true. People have a need to ‘belong’ to a particular group they think best reflects who they are, and label themselves accordingly.

Amusingly, a friend of ours who has many of the stereotypical middle class accoutrements, such as the Dualit toaster, iMac, MacBook, large bookcases and the obligatory copy of the Gaurdian draped casually yet deliberately across the ottoman, bought a rather small LCD tv when their old one died. She deliberately chose a small one, as large screens are, in her own words, ‘vulgar’. It’s too small for the room it’s in, the kids end up sitting just a few feet away, and her partner moans that he can’t read and on-screen text from his position on the sofa. It’s hilarious to watch her leaning ever forward, because she can’t see what’s on the screen properly. I offered to buy her some binoculars, but she just scowled at me.

People are funny. We think we’re so different, but really we’re all the same.