High life
Earthly power
Taki
ArtGstaad
article in the Herald Tribune announces that the UK's upper crust has made way for CEOs and celebrities. 'It's not so much your family that matters; it's what you've achieved, and how much money you've got.' Well, we are in the middle of the silly season, and what the writer had to say wasn't any sillier than what the rest of the ghastly purveyors of trivia and salaciousness bombard us with week in and week out. But leave it to an American journalist writing for the Washington Past to discover in the year 2002 that the aristocracy isn't what it used to be in the tight little island that's Britain. A television broadcaster, Joan Bakewell, whoever she may be, blamed the aristos' demise on the fact that they've been reduced to selling tickets for tours of their gardens. Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, was singled out as the perfect example. The passage I liked best stated that traditional class divisions still influence basic elements of daily life — 'language, diet, schools, even the news business'. Hooray for you, TR. Reid (the writer); scoops like yours should get you a Pulitzer in no time.
Do the upper classes have a different diet? Judging by, say, Alexander Hesketh and his brother the 'captain', I guess they do. Or Sir David Llewellyn, for that matter. Dirty Dai is now so big he passes for Robert Maxwell at times. But then one looks at the lower classes, say Peter McKay, who writes in the Daily Mail under the pseudonym of Ephraim Hardcastle, and he, too, resembles the Heskeths, in girth only, that is. McKay is a strange chap. He is very amiable in person, but vicious as hell on paper. He loathes Charles Moore and the Telegraph group. He calls Charles Lord Snooty. But Charles is nothing of the sort, He is naturally reticent and a born gentleman, nothing more. To McKay's working-class jaundiced eye, he's a snob, as are the rest of those who work for Lord Black. What T.R. Reid failed to mention in his less-than-eye-opening piece was the jealousy and envy that go hand in hand when those of the lower classes write about their betters.
Mind you, I've always been against the very human inclination to condescend, but there are times when one has to look down one's nose on certain of God's creations. For example, Jack Straw, This piece of lowlife tried to humiliate General Pinochet, the saviour of Chile, but all he managed to do was to bring the general back into the news for a while, spend a lot of tax-payers' money, and then eat humble-pie. To those of us who know better, Pinochet was, is and will always remain a great man. Just as Straw will always be a low-life coward who has not lifted a finger to help the white Rhodesians, but has instead kissed the black arse of the murdering Robert Mugabe. If ever snobbery came in handy, it's in the case of Straw. Tony Blair ditto. The man is pathetic, almost on the level of Bill Clinton, except for the hair.
Britain is now a joke. with the worst health service, the worst transport system, the worst state schools in Europe, yet after five full years in power Blair is blaming the Tories and the thickest people of Europe nod their approval. A person's chances of being mugged in London and other major British cities are six times higher than in the Big Bagel, and only in England is defence of person or property regarded as an anti-social act, with the victim likely to be treated with more severity than the assailant. But the moment Blair returns from his holidays, he will stand up in some forum, spout the same tired old bullshit, and the people will cheer. Just as those Chileans who disappeared got their just deserts for trying to impose a Marxist dictatorship, so do the Brits who fall for Blair's lies deserve what they get. In Britain's welfare state, crimes against property are not taken seriously. Ergo no house is safe, except for those who can afford 24hour guards, many of whom funnel moolah to the ruling Labour wallet-lifters.
Personally, I feel sorry for those who pay their high taxes and get nothing in return. But I'm afraid Blair and his gang of lunchbucket pilferers are in for the long haul. He's obviously made a deal with Murdoch, and he's got the rest of the scummiest media in Europe eating out of his trough. T.R. Reid should be writing about the demise of the English as a race, not about the expiration of aristocratic influence. It is obvious that the spread of proletarian brutalism as personified by the grotesque Prescott has engendered snobbery even in an egalitarian soul such as that of the poor little Greek boy. Thank God that I live in Switzerland and my doctor in America.
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