[quote=binners ]Now that looks like the way forward to mePP! Invite everyone round for a Munchy Box. I would never trust anyone who wouldn't jump at the chance of a Munchy Box. Therefore it acts an effective social filter. Its a win/win!
I shall eat the salad for you 😉
I am Northern and I would prefer food.
Anyone on here going to a dinner party should think of themselves as a representative of the STW forum, and behave accordingly 😀
Following on from the dinner party for middle classes, got invited to a games evening,by the manger of a place i used to work at (all adults no sex games)a few years ago, playing monopoly, cluedo, cards,or bring your own games etc,she said there would be nibbles/snacks/brink some drinks, i refused as it was 20 miles from where i lived and i had no transport home, also i thought it was a joke, this didnt go down well and the woman hated me from then on, as i had refused to go on a team bonding event.
One of the other people that went said it was horrendous, her being a working class person,it was all people trying to impress each other, talking shit and acting daft, and she was treated as lower class because she stuck up for the labour party and didnt have a car, but choose to use a bike or public transport.
Throw a sickie and go riding
Dinner parties are not an act of responsibility. Sounds like pretentious ****.
TBH the OP sounds like one of those people who's so desperate not to be middle class that he falls into the trap of actually being middle class.
At some point he will start reading the guardian in order to stay in touch with the troubles of the working classes and go to dinner parties to tell other middle class people how working class he actually is.
I think it's the name "dinner parties" that is putting the OP off. Don't think of it like that, think of it was a group of mates sat around with some good food, a shed load of beer or wine (or Port in my case) and a chance to talk rubbish to each other. That's certainly what my "dinner parties" turn into.
if in doubt, get hammered.
I think the OP is just very young. This is the sort of thing lots of us said in our early twenties when being pretentious muppets desperate to show how non conformist we really were.
Oh God, my parents used to do this back in the sixties and seventies. I remember my Mum often asking my Dad: "Do you think the Joneses would go well with the Smiths?" She was a huge social climber, being the village doctor's wife and all.
It always followed the same ritual; medical, musical or village friends would arrive, we kids would be introduced then we'd be sent upstairs to mess around (no TV in those days) listening to the gales of increasingly drunken laughter until the guests had retired to the lounge, when we would sneak down and scoff the leftovers. At some time when I was about 14 this included alternating kitchen tumblers of white wine and sherry from plastic barrels, which got me so drunk that I still had a hangover two mornings afterwards.
The following day my Mum would always have an inquiry: "I think that went quite well, don't you dahling?"
My poor Dad croaked years ago under the stress but my mum, now 86, is still an embarrassing social climber. In my adult life I have met women like her and even been invited to a couple of these dinners, which I soon realised are held for the hostess to show off her cooking or her social connections. Whatever the reason it's usually the host and hostess who feel they have the floor and will witter on for hours talking conceited bollocks about themselves.
Hideous.
my parents used to do this back in the sixties and seventiesno TV in those days
Where did you live.......somewhere in the North ?
Sounds grim.
[img] 
[/img]
ernie_lynch - MemberWhere did you live.......somewhere in the North ?
Sounds grim.
I grew up in a middle class area of Bristol & I don't remember anyone having a TV upstairs either.
I don't remember anyone having a TV upstairs either.
I see, the downstairs TV couldn't be watched, perhaps I don't understand dinner party etiquette fully. I certainly find children having to sneak down to eat the leftovers strange and somewhat incomprehensible.
I get dragged along to these occasionally.
At the last one, the hostess (a friend of my partner's) was so obsessive and anxious that she looked like she would burst out crying if the slightest thing went wrong. So what could have been a relaxing evening with friends just became some sort of horrible challenge. And her loud-mouthed Tory **** of a husband was, well, a loud-mouthed Tory ****.
I tend to smile and nod, eat with my mouth closed and say as little as possible.
My mum used to do this. The treat for us kids was leftover brandy snaps; and for the adults 'cocktail' cigarettes in pastel shades with silver filters IIRC. As opposed to the Players #6 she usually smoked.
We were never dispatched upstairs though. Mainly because i grew up in a bungalow.
One of the other people that went said it was horrendous, her being a working class person,it was all people trying to impress each other, talking shit and acting daft, and she was treated as lower class because she stuck up for the labour party and didnt have a car, but choose to use a bike or public transport.
Wow mate, I think you are the one with some class issues!
No Ernie, we just didn't have a TV in those days! We read books and did healthy country things like cycling and forced labour gathering elderflowers for my Dad to make wine.
The first grainy black & white, second-hand valve-powered TV arrived in 1973 when I was 17. There were only four channels; it was hidden away in the cold spare bedroom (the shame!) and the set-top antenna had to be waved around then balanced on a pile of books to get a reasonable picture. Perish the thought that we should have an aerial on the chimney! I remember my Dad chuntering about this subversive new show called Monty Python's Flying Circus then watching it secretly with my sister and loving it. We were limted to an hour of TV a day but TBH the picture was so terrible there wasn't much joy in watching anyway.
TV arrived in 1973 when I was 17. There were only four channels;
Four channels in 1973? Did you live in the USA or something? 🙂
Okay maybe there was only BBC1 and BBC2, I can't remember; or maybe it was just BBC and ITV.
The first grainy black & white, second-hand valve-powered TV arrived in 1973 when I was 17.
So you spent all your school days not having a clue what the other kids were talking about when it came to talking about what had been on the telly? That's tragic.
I remember BBC2 arriving. ITV had always been there but we weren't allowed to watch it - what with us being middle class.
I don't remember anybody talking about television at school, but then I was at boarding school until 1971. The first time I saw TV must have been at my Granny's house, probably when we watched the maiden flight of the Vickers VC10, which Granny's brother, great-Uncle Eddie Gray helped design at BAC at Hurn. That would have been in 1962 according to Wiki.
I don't remember anybody talking about television at school.
WTF did you talk about.....reading books and gathering elderflowers to make wine?
Old mantra, avoid politics, sex and religion.
That's pretty much my conversational remit. 👿
I like dinner. And I certainly like a paaaaarty! Why mix them?*
*COI: often invited, rarely asked back... Actually I'm probably not that much of a rocker, though I did once eat an after eight at seven forty five.
Don't tell the story about when you ended up in a knocking shop in the early hours of a morning completing a Spitfire jigsaw with the resident professionals whilst your mate availed himself of the entertainment on offer.
Especially if it's your own dinner party.
Could have heard the proverbial pin drop.
In my defence, it's hard to resist a part complete jigsaw.
'Munchy'?'Munch' makes me think of idly grazing - whilst that box of delights thing up there is an olympian f/eat!
Dinner + party?
Point of note, a dinner party and a munch are two very different things. Mix them up and someone's going to get a shock.
Point of note, a dinner party and a munch are two very different things. Mix them up and someone's going to get a shock.
Cheers, coffee\keyboard disaster narrowly avoided and now getting odd looks from bloke across the desk from me.
don't tell the story about when you ended up in a knocking shop in the early hours of a morning completing a Spitfire jigsaw with the resident professionals whilst your mate availed himself of the entertainment on offer.
...so did anything interesting happen?
do all the people have to be doctors and lawyers ?
majority of my mates are doctors, the OH is a lawyer; dinner at my house must be middle class, but they don't sound awful like the OPs description.
Is this MCDP different to dinner with friends?
majority of my mates are doctors, the OH is a lawyer; dinner at my house must be middle class
Out of interest when does supper become dinner, or are you talking about lunch ?
Middle class Munchy box....
[img] 
?view_padding=%5B285%2C0%2C285%2C0%5D[/img]
Out of interest when does supper become dinner, or are you talking about lunch ?
'Supper' is an upper middle class thing Ernie...you probably don't get invited to many Supper parties in Croyden I imagine? Your Mate THM probably goes to them every week!
'Supper' is an upper middle class thing Ernie.
So what you're trying to say is that people who talk about dinner parties aren't posh enough to have supper parties ?
I'm sure that's harsh but fair.
Of course they do. They just give them their proper name, pyjama parties.
Supper is working class 4th meal of the day: but then I'm not as posh as my MCDP suggests!
Breakfast- lunch- tea- supper in my family.
My grandparents would have cheese / biscuits / toast for supper. NB not cheese & crackers but cheese or bikkies.
The OH still gives me grief over eating tea. 😀
thomthumb - MemberBreakfast- lunch- tea- supper in my family.
Now I'm getting really confused.
Why did you say [i]"dinner at my house must be middle class"[/i] when dinner doesn't even ****ing figure as one of your family meals, pardon my language ?
[i]So what you're trying to say is that people who talk about dinner parties aren't posh enough to have supper parties ?[/i]
Indeed.....you have to have been privately educated to have supper parties.
I was always led to believe (like Tomthumb) that you had Supper late in the evening before bed. But....people used to eat their main meal at lunchtime in the past (especially at weekends), so you'd have Tea at say 4.30-5pm consisting of sandwiches and cake or perhaps crumpets/Tea Cakes and then have your supper later.
Made a faux pas at one of these events recently.
On our way to said dinner the coil spring on my good old mk3 mondeo snapped.
Making light small talk with a middle class gent whom my wife knows I thought I would mention the problem as I had nothing else to talk about.
He then told me that his new audi a4 estate had been back to the garage for a minor issue.
Oh, new audi a4 estate?! How does one go about getting one of those for in a cost effective way when your in your early thirties with kids??
I ask becuase I'm keen for a newer car at some point and money isn't growing on trees at the moment and I'm sizing up options (though not at that price point)
Big mistake.
He then told me they bought it outright. "Oh fair enough" I thought, goes well with the big house in suburbia, lucky people....
Two weeks later my wife had met with another friend and apparently I had deeply upset the audi couple by trying to suggest they couldn't afford to be having such a car. Realistically I was trying to find common ground with another fellow dad who drives a family car.
Not only that, audi couple hadn't bought it outright, it was on Hp.
So what can you talk about?
Real friends will come by and have dinner on their laps whilst I sit in my joggers.
[coughs] [i]Country supper[/i] darling.
Real friends will come by and have dinner on their laps whilst I sit in my joggers.
We have this problem, as one of the few childless couples in our circle, we'r expected to go to their house (along with the etiquette of bringing a bottle or two of booze), but then drive home so we have to be sober whilst they get to drink our booze!
This is one of the few problems in the world where you can genuinely say "you wouldn't understand, you HAVE kids!"
but then drive home so we have to be sober whilst they get to drink our booze!
We share the driving in our house, I drive there and she drives back! 😀
I collapse in a drunken heap about 3 in the morning after too much whiskey and get deposited in the back bedroom. It's a good ploy, you get breakfast out of it too.
don't tell the story about when you ended up in a knocking shop in the early hours of a morning completing a Spitfire jigsaw with the resident professionals whilst your mate availed himself of the entertainment on offer.
...you mean he did a Fokker? Edges first? Sorry. Just can't let this one go.
Supper is working class 4th meal of the day: but then I'm not as posh as my MCDP suggests!Breakfast- lunch- tea- supper in my family.
Its breakfast-dinner-tea-supper - you are as posh as your MCDP suggests 😉
Well this thread took off a bit, even the criticism was entertaining! 😀
Keep a yellow card and a whistle in your pocket.The second anyone starts a conversation about property prices, the OFSTED rating of the local schools,or the relative merits of their next company car, blow your whistle loudly and produce your yellow card with a Mike Dean style flourish. If they continue down this road having already received a yellow, due to human rights legislation, you are now perfectly legally allowed to stove their head in with a pick axe handle
I laughed a lot at this Binners. Cheers!