How to be a Brit

top-working class — just to fit in between the middle-working
class and the lower-middle class. This, of course, makes them fully conscious
of how pitifully inadequate their language is to describe the other 120 clearly
defined castes and 413 sub-castes of English society. What about the
lower-middle-upper layer of the lower-upper-middle class? What about the
middle-middle of the middle-middle class? And how can you really clearly distinguish
between the upper-upper-middle people who by no means qualify yet for the
bottom-upper?
    While all this goes on, the
English remain staunch believers in equality. Equality is a notion the English
have given to humanity. Equality means that you are just as good as the next
man but the next man is not half as good as you are.
    Slowly but inescapably,
however, the whole structure is being turned upside down. Oh yes, we still have
an aristocracy consisting of two main branches: the old families of the peerage
who look down upon the business-barons and stock-exchange-viscounts who look
down upon the ancient peers. But while people still insist on sending their
children to a good school (and a good school must not be confused with a school
where they teach well); while for a few it is still a serious problem how to
address the eldest daughter of a viscount married to an archdeacon; while some
people, having obtained firsts in Phoenician history at Cambridge, still expect
to become directors of breweries as their birthright; while doctors and
barristers are still angry that chartered accountants and actuaries should call
themselves ‘professional people’ and while the lot of them still believe that
professionals do have some prestige left — while all this still goes on the Big
Businessman takes over the leading role in society with a firm hand and a quiet
smile.

    The great conquest by money
is on. A title will not bring in money; money will bring in the title. The
great fight is warming up every day. Battalions of company directors riding on
the white chargers of prosperity, waving their expense accounts, their faces
painted red with Burgundy, and howling their famous battle-cry: ‘Long live
Capital Gains I ‘ are battering at the ancient walls of privilege. The pillars
of the established order — never even cracked by the Socialists — are crumbling
under their assault. Brilliant sons no longer aspire to become Lord
Chancellors: they dream of controlling large advertising agencies. Soon people
do not boast of being descended from a long line of generals or judges but from
a long line of stockbrokers. Talent will soon mean talent to make money. A
genius is one who makes a lot of money.
    Soon it will come — that
final take-over bid, in which Big Business will make its deadly offer to the
Establishment. And if the deal goes through — as go through it will — the
former people in charge will not be asked to remain at their posts.

HOW TO AVOID TRAVELLING
     
    ‘Travel’ is the name of a modern
disease which became rampant in the mid-fifties and is still spreading. The
disease — its scientific name is travelitis furiosus — is carried by a
germ called prosperity. Its symptoms are easily recognizable. The patient grows
restless in the early spring and starts rushing about from one travel agent to
another collecting useless information about places he does not intend to
visit, studying handouts, etc.; then he, or usually she, will do a round of
tailors, milliners, summer sales, sports shops, and spend three and a half
times as much as he or she can afford; finally, in August, the patient will
board a plane, train, coach or car and proceed to foreign parts along with
thousands of fellow-sufferers not because he is interested in or attracted by
the place he is bound for, nor because he can afford to go, but simply because
he cannot afford not to. The disease is highly infectious. Nowadays you catch
foreign travel rather as you caught influenza in the twenties, only more so.
    The result is that in the
summer months (and in the last few years also during the winter season)
everybody is on the move. In Positano you hear no Italian but only German (for
England is not the only victim of the disease); in some French parts you cannot
get along unless you speak American; and the official language of the Costa
Brava is English. I should not be surprised to see a notice in Blanes or Tossa
de Mar stating: Aqui Se Habla Espanol — Spanish spoken here.
    What is the aim of all