I affect a crushed velvet hat with a tassel, when I wear my silk smoking jacket….and I bite the filters off my tabs, so they fit better in my jade holder….
I’ve got posh tea in the house. Moroccan Sahara, Geisha Blossom, Silver Moon, that sort of thing. Bought from TWG, a chain that tends to have outlets in the more lah-di-dah Singapore malls.
The thing is, you have to pay a premium for tea. I’ve tried Twinings etc flavoured teas, but though I concede that they are reasonably effective as air fresheners, they’re much less so as beverages.
TWG have 1843 or some such date attached to their logo which is all olde worlde but they chose that date because it’s when the Sing Chamber of Commerce was founded (or something like that) – the company’s only 25 years old. I found this out because I took tea in one of their posh places and asked my companion, a Sing businessman, about the history of the place (as one does in posh company) and he didn’t know, we we rather uncouthly both Googled it.
They do a good job with their branding. One thing I’ve noticed since coming to Asia is how so many Asian brands will try to appear European. Pedro, Charles & Keith, TWG, The Face Shop etc. The exception seems to be the Japanese brands. It reminds me a bit of the 80s when Woolworths came up with the Matsui (I think) brand to make their products such as blank tapes sound Japanese.
I’ve had my eye on the Smoky Earl Grey. will have to try it out!
Dilmah’s teas are quite nice. I find it funny to see PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea in some of the supermarkets here. Teas that are grown in Asia, shipped to the UK and then shipped back to Asia.
Dilmah loose leaf Ceylon is the only tea tolerated in my house. Made in a big Sheffield Steel teapot that my wife bought me ten years ago. Kiwi friends do come over and want a cup of tea done properly.
That butler of yours spends too much time with the Croft Original in my opinion Hubert. You need to get yourself an efficient secretary. I know of this fellow Baxter who’s looking for a placement at the moment. Very efficient, as long as long as you keep him away from the flower pots.
My neighbour has a MBE (we refer to her as “Ma’am” and curtsey when she puts the bins out) and I know two OBEs well enough to not require an introduction.
I own some land* which is not part of my garden.
(*) A strip about 3m wide by 20m long. The twerp over the road with his collection of old bangers (sorry, “vintage motors”) used to park his rustbuckets on the verge, forcing the local kids and mums with buggies to step into the road to access the nearby swing park. So I bought the land off the council and opened a public footpath along it. Because (a) I could afford it and (b) it pissed him off enormously.
I’m a resourceful sort – I’m a design engineer (paid problem solver) by trade.
When I politely asked Mr Twunt to park more considerately, he told me to eff off as he “wasn’t doing anything illegal” then rang the local bobby* to complain of harassment. I thought “Welcome to the neighbourhood, tosspot. We’ll see about making that illegal, then.”
I have yet to receive his Christmas card.
(*) Plod’s verdict: “He hasn’t done anything illegal yet but people like that always do, and when he does we’ll be waiting for him.”
Just remembered I’m a landowner too. I’m the laird of 1 sq metre of Islay, thanks to my membership of the Laphroaig Appreciation Society. I hope to visit it one day, maybe build a hamster adventure playground there.
I suggest you get into the spirit of being a Laird by burning down the playground, forcing the hamsters to emigrate to Canada, and then replacing them with a sheep.
I hate gardening, so I have “a man” who comes round every two weeks (four in winter) to mow my lawns and generally tidy up the garden. This is fairly common in Australia however.
Out of my front window I can see Windsor Castle and Eton College, however out of my back window I can see the smoke towers of the Slough Trading Estate and if the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction I can smell the sewage works…. I suppose that puts me at zero location poshness
Banbury used to smell of either Maxwell House coffee, or Angel Delight, whichever was being brewed in the General Foods factory. Bridgwater used to smell of burnt plastic, from the long closed Cellophane factory.
The part of Oxord I used to work in smelled of yeast, because Marston’s (I think). The brewery was nearly opposite the jail. I once passed a woman in the street holding up a baby to a man who’s face showed in a high, barred window. She was screaming “And he’s not yours, you fuckin’ bastard!” Couldn’t hear what he was saying.
I could go a pint of ‘Hooky’ right now. The brewery in Hook Norton is very much still going, and well worth a visit. A Victorian ‘tower’ brewery, complete with steam engine. When I lived round there, people who worked in the brewery received a monthly beer allowance.
You used be able to smell the Brickwoods brewery which was next to Portsmouth Dockyard right across the harbour in Gosport. It was a much stronger odour than that of the seaweed or mud, and no more pleasant.
At certain times and with the wind coming from the south east, Watford High Street used to smell of a mixture of Benskins Brewery and roasting coffee beans from the tea & coffee shop. Both of these are now long gone and the town smells mostly of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke.
Where I lived when I were a lad, if the wind was from the west, the town smelt of the gasworks. If it was in the west, one morning a week, you could hear the big guns on Foulness lobbing shells into the Thames Estuary, every five minutes or so. You could feel the pressure on your eardrums. Couldn’t smell them though.
Nothing. I am distinctly middle class with delusions of poshness.
I pronounce Newcastle as Newcastle and have been known to eat Peppers stuffed with Cream Cheese.
The poshest thing about my house is that it doesn’t have a doorbell, just a pair of ornate knockers.
I have my own private office which Mrs D continually refers to as “the spare bedroom” and she insists on calling the entire east wing of the house “the kitchen”
A burgundy ‘Radio Times’ binder.
We’ve got a live in housemaid and a gardener visits everyday . Does that make me posh?
My impeccable diction.
What’s posh about me /
Fuck all.
In fairness Jack, there’s your fearless sexual exploration. That’s very posh.
You know how it is Poppy, a man should have a hobby…
I get out of the shower when I need to micturate.
… you piss on a dry floor?
My dear fellow of course not. I avail myself of the bidet.
As an old college friend of my father’s once informed me:
“You Southerners are so soft you get out of the bath to take a piss. Up North we don’t bother getting out to take a shit”.
That must make the coal a little messy to handle?
I’ve stopped pissing in the laundry bag when drunk.
… but still use it when sober?
Won’t watch ITV.
I have a stripey blazer.
The poshest thing about me is that I laughed out loud at that bin liner joke. I simply MUST get some of those…
I find Mumford and Sons terribly common.
My slippers are from Marks & Spencer.
I say ‘bath’ not ‘bath’. And ‘class’ not ‘class’.
I affect a crushed velvet hat with a tassel, when I wear my silk smoking jacket….and I bite the filters off my tabs, so they fit better in my jade holder….
I’ve fucked a dead pig’s head.
Afterword t-shirt.
I have a Posh Spice doll. Not life-size, I hasten to add.
I look at the radio when I’m listening.
Wireless, surely?
Watching the wireless set while you listen doesn’t mean you’re posh, it means you’re old.
My bins are emptied by G4S. The bin liners are by Chanel.
I had a Campari and soda before dinner today
Yes, but what about pre-country supper?
We have fruit on the sideboard even when no one is ill.
Ah…but where do you keep your beer?
I’d have to ask one of the staff and get back to you.
Our washing machine isn’t in the kitchen
I always fart in a Home Counties accent.
The house I grew up in had an inside toilet
I don’t eat dogs.
The house I grew up in had two toilets.
We only used cut-up newspaper in the outside one.
I call people ‘mate’ without employing the glottal stop.
I drink whisky out of a proper cut crystal whisky glass afterwhich I am a cut Junior.
I’ve got posh tea in the house. Moroccan Sahara, Geisha Blossom, Silver Moon, that sort of thing. Bought from TWG, a chain that tends to have outlets in the more lah-di-dah Singapore malls.
The thing is, you have to pay a premium for tea. I’ve tried Twinings etc flavoured teas, but though I concede that they are reasonably effective as air fresheners, they’re much less so as beverages.
I prefer TWG’s Smoky Earl Grey.
TWG have 1843 or some such date attached to their logo which is all olde worlde but they chose that date because it’s when the Sing Chamber of Commerce was founded (or something like that) – the company’s only 25 years old. I found this out because I took tea in one of their posh places and asked my companion, a Sing businessman, about the history of the place (as one does in posh company) and he didn’t know, we we rather uncouthly both Googled it.
They do a good job with their branding. One thing I’ve noticed since coming to Asia is how so many Asian brands will try to appear European. Pedro, Charles & Keith, TWG, The Face Shop etc. The exception seems to be the Japanese brands. It reminds me a bit of the 80s when Woolworths came up with the Matsui (I think) brand to make their products such as blank tapes sound Japanese.
I’ve had my eye on the Smoky Earl Grey. will have to try it out!
Dilmah Ceylon tea is very nice. And I do like Twinings (loose) Earl Grey. So there.
I like Twinings Lady Grey. Her husband is ok.
Dilmah’s teas are quite nice. I find it funny to see PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea in some of the supermarkets here. Teas that are grown in Asia, shipped to the UK and then shipped back to Asia.
Dilmah loose leaf Ceylon is the only tea tolerated in my house. Made in a big Sheffield Steel teapot that my wife bought me ten years ago. Kiwi friends do come over and want a cup of tea done properly.
Matsui was Curry’s own brand. I got my butler to look it up.
They didn’t fool me Hubert, I knew what they were up to?
What was the Woolies one then? They definitely had one, trying to pass off their tapes as Japanese next to the TDKs.
Alas my butler has drawn a blank.
That butler of yours spends too much time with the Croft Original in my opinion Hubert. You need to get yourself an efficient secretary. I know of this fellow Baxter who’s looking for a placement at the moment. Very efficient, as long as long as you keep him away from the flower pots.
Baxter pshaw, only good for making soups.
Wondered why the Croft’s was evaporating!
Has your butler read “Lady Chatterly’s Lover?”
Read it, he wrote it and wore the T-shirt
I bank with Coutts.
I wear red trousers.
I say ‘an ôtel’ instead of ‘a hotel’.
This … explains everything.
My neighbour has a MBE (we refer to her as “Ma’am” and curtsey when she puts the bins out) and I know two OBEs well enough to not require an introduction.
I own some land* which is not part of my garden.
(*) A strip about 3m wide by 20m long. The twerp over the road with his collection of old bangers (sorry, “vintage motors”) used to park his rustbuckets on the verge, forcing the local kids and mums with buggies to step into the road to access the nearby swing park. So I bought the land off the council and opened a public footpath along it. Because (a) I could afford it and (b) it pissed him off enormously.
The footpath business is not necessarily posh, but it is very, very classy!
I’m a resourceful sort – I’m a design engineer (paid problem solver) by trade.
When I politely asked Mr Twunt to park more considerately, he told me to eff off as he “wasn’t doing anything illegal” then rang the local bobby* to complain of harassment. I thought “Welcome to the neighbourhood, tosspot. We’ll see about making that illegal, then.”
I have yet to receive his Christmas card.
(*) Plod’s verdict: “He hasn’t done anything illegal yet but people like that always do, and when he does we’ll be waiting for him.”
This is just brilliant – the kind of thing we all might think of in some revenge fantasy, but you actually did it? Kudos.
Just remembered I’m a landowner too. I’m the laird of 1 sq metre of Islay, thanks to my membership of the Laphroaig Appreciation Society. I hope to visit it one day, maybe build a hamster adventure playground there.
I suggest you get into the spirit of being a Laird by burning down the playground, forcing the hamsters to emigrate to Canada, and then replacing them with a sheep.
Good idea! Of course I do hope that my little corner of Scotland remains in Europe…
I’d check your deeds, Mike….I think it might be one square foot….
Damn, you’re right. I’ll just have to stand on it then.
Hardly room for a lamb chop, let alone a sheep …
I’ve been on a world cruise (really).
How very vulgar of you! Unless it was a private yacht, of course …
I hate gardening, so I have “a man” who comes round every two weeks (four in winter) to mow my lawns and generally tidy up the garden. This is fairly common in Australia however.
Surely everything is “common” in Australia?
I think I left my coat over there . . .
Yes, you could be right. Even the TV newsreaders call each other “mate”
I wear Marigolds when I have a wank.
Oi! You voted to leave! You can’t change the rules now, you have to live with it, there’s no second referendum you know [continues…]
I’ve got them on right now.
Good to have you back.
*squeak, squeak*
Wanking in Marigolds sounds like it could be the latest Marina Lewycka novel.
From now on, instead of calling someone a wanker, I will say, ‘S/he wears Marigolds.’ Might take a while to catch on, but worth the effort I think.
If you’re really posh, you stick out your little finger while you’re having a wank.
Or get your butler to do it you.
For you.
And there was me thinking you meant to you.
Don’t they make a lot of noise? They do when doing the washing up.
Marigolds what and who is marigold??
You’ll get pollen and petals everywhere.
http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l522/davebigpicture/African_Marigold.jpg
Out of my front window I can see Windsor Castle and Eton College, however out of my back window I can see the smoke towers of the Slough Trading Estate and if the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction I can smell the sewage works…. I suppose that puts me at zero location poshness
Once upon a time Slough used to smell of chocolate. Shame it’s gone to shit.
(Actually, is there a thread in this? ‘Things Towns Smell Of.’ Burton on Trent = Marmite.)
Banbury used to smell of either Maxwell House coffee, or Angel Delight, whichever was being brewed in the General Foods factory. Bridgwater used to smell of burnt plastic, from the long closed Cellophane factory.
Hexham smells of chipboard. Unless the wind’s in the other direction, in which case it’s Corbridge
If anyone wants to make a joke about the dodgy syntax here, go right ahead.
“Banbury used to” … the factory has changed owners – it’s now Mondelez, but the smell hasn’t changed (Kenco I reckon).
As a Marmite loving former resident of Burton I can confirm that the smell of yeast was stomach turning.
Oh, good. I’m originally from that part of Oxfordshire, but haven’t been to Banbury for years now.
Didn’t the factory explode once? Exploding custard powder as I heard or is it an apocryphal story?
Or was it a Goons’ episode?
The part of Oxord I used to work in smelled of yeast, because Marston’s (I think). The brewery was nearly opposite the jail. I once passed a woman in the street holding up a baby to a man who’s face showed in a high, barred window. She was screaming “And he’s not yours, you fuckin’ bastard!” Couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Marston’s is in Burton. Wychwood? Hook Norton?
Sorry, Morrell’s. Article here – closed since my time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081201232227/http://archive.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk:80/1998/7/9/85120.html
I could go a pint of ‘Hooky’ right now. The brewery in Hook Norton is very much still going, and well worth a visit. A Victorian ‘tower’ brewery, complete with steam engine. When I lived round there, people who worked in the brewery received a monthly beer allowance.
When I worked, I’d get a monthly beer allowance, too. It was called “wages”.
You used be able to smell the Brickwoods brewery which was next to Portsmouth Dockyard right across the harbour in Gosport. It was a much stronger odour than that of the seaweed or mud, and no more pleasant.
Re: ‘Things Towns Smell Of’
Iggesund in Sweden smells of wood pulp, from the huge paperboard plant there.
A frightful stench.
At certain times and with the wind coming from the south east, Watford High Street used to smell of a mixture of Benskins Brewery and roasting coffee beans from the tea & coffee shop. Both of these are now long gone and the town smells mostly of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke.
In Bristol city centre, when the wind is right, you can smell the roasting beans from Brian Wogan’s. It’s one of my favourite smells.
The town I live in smells, when any odour is noticeable, of coriander, spices, or incense.
Where I lived when I were a lad, if the wind was from the west, the town smelt of the gasworks. If it was in the west, one morning a week, you could hear the big guns on Foulness lobbing shells into the Thames Estuary, every five minutes or so. You could feel the pressure on your eardrums. Couldn’t smell them though.
If it was in the east, dammit.
Edinburgh smells of the Tenants brewery….well, Haymarket does, anyway…..
About the only thing I can think of is that I have books in my house that aren’t in English.
They are not picture books either, smartarses.
We had maids when I was growing up.
I, at one time, had a houseboy and a driver in my employ.
I would never use sauce from a bottle.
I have a jar of manuka honey in the cupboard.
I have a bee. I get mine fresh every day.
Peasant.
We have a colour tv.
And I bet you don’t even rent it.
When the neighbourhood cats sneak up on our bird feeder, I throw quinces at them. Quinces!
Nothing. I am distinctly middle class with delusions of poshness.
I pronounce Newcastle as Newcastle and have been known to eat Peppers stuffed with Cream Cheese.
The poshest thing about my house is that it doesn’t have a doorbell, just a pair of ornate knockers.
I have my own private office which Mrs D continually refers to as “the spare bedroom” and she insists on calling the entire east wing of the house “the kitchen”
A fine pair of knockers but no glockenspeil, eh? Same here, sister…
glockenspiel, even…
I have a man who reads out the Afterword to me. Never actually seen it in the flesh, so to speak.
Does your butler iron it before the reading commences, Ernie?
No need. I have a new PC and Ipad delivered each morning.
I saw Peterborough United play once.
I understand this because the Coventry City Song (when teams had songs …) included “Proud, Posh, or Cobblers …”