Thursday 26 August 2010

The Alder-toff Woes

Salutations my loyal and treasured readers, may I once more permit you welcome to the sanctuary of ignorance known by many as the Aldershot Woes, a twice to thrice weekly memorandum on the comedic reverberations of life. This week’s relation: The Alder-toff Woes.

Class, we all have an axe to grind about it, I am working class my dad is working class his dad was a layabout, but his dad was working class. I grew up being fairly poor, above breadline but by no means affluent. And for the first 5 years of my life I only saw my dad every other weekend, not because he didn’t live with us, but cos he left for work at 6 and got back from work at 9, and worked every other weekend. He struggled for us to be meagre, and that will always live with me, it’s shaped my perceptions of society it’s given me a good work ethic and an appreciation of the simpler things in life, but above all is given me an intense inbuilt and inherent dislike of middle and upper class people. The floppy haired, Land Rover driving, Barber Jacket wearing, Ski holiday taking, double barrel named, chortling, yah-ing shitbiscuits… every one of them.

However like most inbuilt social level hatreds this exists purely in my head, it airs itself when I am watching television, or if I see some rich twat in a car park or in a shopping centre, when I read the newspaper or anything what-so-ever to do with politicians, then its there, in the back of my head bellowing fourth “posh w@nkers” and other hate slogans aimed solely at my affluent brethren. But in real life, when I meet middle or upper class types I am always open minded, non judgmental and have no more prejudice than when I meet any other human being (which to be fair is still a large amount of prejudice). In fact some of my closest friends are painfully Middle Class, they grew up in large detached houses, went to grammar schools, drive expensive cars and holiday abroad at least twice a year. I can honestly say some of the most welcoming, charming, witty and brilliant people I have met have been from the upper echelons of society, a friend of mine I consider to be more of a brother was a junior Ski Champion for gods sake, that’s surely as posh as it gets. Don’t get me wrong I do rip it out of him for it, but he in turn rips me for being a do-as-you-likey, so it’s all even. But regardless of what we actually practice in our lives, in the back of our minds lying dormant, but ready to pounce the second a floppy haired toff does anything a little bit annoying lives our classist rage. Personally I think it’s a good thing, gives us all a sense of identity and a very useful chip on our shoulders to back us up in times of difficulty. I live in a sh!tty council estate, plagued by junkies and morons and as ridiculous as it seems the thin veil of “being true to my roots” does act as a minor comfort to me and helps me handle life. So classism as far as I can see is just a tribalistic defence mechanism we all trigger to make us feel a little better about our selves, groovy…

But why did I start this meandering blog-guff in the first place? I’ll tell you why as I just read an article that got my working class hackles up about how “Country Life Magazine” or “Fox Killer” or “What Cravat?” or some other posho-toff-mag have lambasted the BBC (the BB effing C of all organisations) as being Oxbridge prejudice, as on some shows they use the terms “Oxbridge” or “Old Etonian” in a detrimental manner… what? That’s like calling McDonalds fattist as it sells salad. Ridiculous…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1306237/BBC-turns-Oxbridge-term-abuse--Shows-accused-bigotry.html

Us working class people have had to spend our lives watching former footlights make fun of us and we laugh like drains and lap it up like hungry cats… Sasha Baron Cohen does Ali G, and we make him an Icon, Harry Enfield does Wayne Slob and he’s a genius, that awful ginger woman does that “bovvered” thing and we can’t get enough. Up and down the nation people are uttering ironic “innits” and you know what, its funny. Its much better to laugh at peoples differences than ignore then all together and pretend they aren’t there or worse of all “tolerate” them… you tolerate a head ache you shouldn’t tolerate a human being you should like them or not… We’re all different so lets take the p!ss out of each other about it, beats the hell out of fighting. So my advice to those posho’s horrified by the Beebs ribbing of your privileged background and expensive education is to say to yourself “At least I’m not a stinking chav” then burn some money and guffaw like the inbred madman you probably are…




Woe (innit)

30 comments:

  1. FIRST!!
    WOESOME dude. you's got yous a bright future young man!

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  2. The floppy haired, Land Rover driving, Barber Jacket wearing, Ski holiday taking, double barrel named, chortling, yah-ing shitbiscuits… every one of them.
    ___________________________
    I don't wear a jacket.

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  3. Class is a funny old thing.Proud of our working class roots and all that,but we strive for life's good things.

    The sign of a working class family doing well is the 50" plasma screen that requires you to sit in the garden to watch it.

    I'd like to use class in another context about your blogs RBA.

    Class.

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  4. Hey hey, cheers guys... the kettle is on Jack, but i am so working class it wont be tea, it'll be hot muddy water (not the blues singer, though that would be excellent!)and rather than cake it'll be mud (not the glam rock band, though that would be excellent).

    Thanks the words...

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  5. thanks "for" the words... as it was it sounds like a strange summary of pretentious writer...

    thanks the keyboard.

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  6. RBA I'm sorry that myself and my fellow upper class has offended you so much. I agree that we should be more humble so I will forgo flogging the stable staff and sleeping with the maids and au pairs this week so I can "connect" more with the working class. As for your naming of magazines might I point out that is "Which Cravat" (being more grammatically correct than what in this context)

    Any good read and rant as always now return the favour please at

    http://adampsb.blogspot.com/2010/08/out-of-my-system.html

    You will have the chance to read my musings on Manchester City but more importantly vote on who you think will finish higher in the Robbo/ Jacks fantasy leagues

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  7. good blog, rba, keep em coming son.

    im proud of my roots but i want something better for my kids. heres my random thoughts on the points you raise, me old mate...........

    people tend to stick with and marry people like the people they grew up with. my plan to marry into royalty has so far failed. not bothered as theyre fucking ugly.

    british class codes and shibboleths are fantastically sophisticated and you are either in or you are out. at windsor they all pointed and muttered about my chin.

    most middleclass parents try to turn their kids into robots. really, accountancy is no way to spend a life.

    if someone has been to a grammar school you find out within 0.00000005 seconds of meeting them. as well as (usually) bright they are either a) arrogant and odd or b) crushed by lifes inability to recognise their ingrained and delusional sense of intellecual superiority.

    private school kids are even worse because they peaked thanks to intensive one-to-one tuition at the age of 16 and now run the country into the ground with their "clever 16year old" brains.

    the daily mail is a mental illness in print which has spread its sickness into the dna of english life

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  8. it'll take a few days to reflect on your reflections which is why a Wednesday woe would work wonderfully well (as opposed to Thursday).

    I did discuss the crux of the matter over lunch with Lord Spencer back in '84, he seemed to think that feigning madness (or implementing extremes of eccentricity) was the best manner in which to overcome the class divide (in either an up or down direction) and I haven't heard a better idea since I finished mucking out his stables.

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  9. jebus, thanks you lot... always get much better comments on the matter than i actually write myself... glad my idustrial grade ignorance can be the catylyst for some well thought out shit!

    The daily mail is the best comedy paper, better than viz, and they publish it every day... its not hate filled its ironic!

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  10. One day, long after you're dead RBA, people will read your blog legacies and you will be remembered as a genius.

    Not a bad blog.

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  11. how long after i'm dead?


    Cheers Noel... your too kind sir!

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  12. about 5 minutes now get your 40 odd people voting on the fantasy league winners (they couldn't decide between Wigan and West Brom to finish bottom this season

    http://adampsb.blogspot.com/2010/08/out-of-my-system.html

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  13. RedBlueArmy92 said...
    how long after i'm dead?
    ==========================================
    During the memorial ceremony and that'll be that. Well, except I'll force feed it to my son he'll know all your posts by heart. The reason for the force feeding, when he grows up he'll be your historian. You're that genius i'd want your brains used for cloning the next generation of a 4 legged man

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  14. Monk's right, in fact, you should scribble the woes out on the backs of napkins, an old blotter or a pad and not just generate them electronically. An original woe in draft form (with doodles and all that) would eclipse any auction price ever received for a ditty by Lennon & McCartney or that Da Vinci bloke. If you autograph them, well, the sky's the limit old son.

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  15. Toodle pip with a tally ho and an oik, oik, oik and a rah, rah, rah.

    Top hole ol' bean.

    Or as a sne person would say, this was the dogs bollox my brudduh.

    Us povvo's need to stick together, I too was born on a decease and crime ridden council estate, my dad was a caretaker which is a glorified street cleaner and solver of ungratefull toe-rags problems, no wonder the poor guy hit the drink. We would of had to save up just to be poor.

    I wouldn't wipe my ars with the Daily Mail, there's enough shit in it already.

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  16. you say that but i have the handwriting of a 4 year old with 2 left hands and crushed fingers writing with a brick of chalk on to a hung bedsheet.

    so it may not be as profitable as ou think...

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  17. ok, well, sign your mouse or sumat. Put the woes on a CD and send it to a book publisher. You could call it the 'Aldershot Woes' then you could autograph it at book signings for us all.

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  18. trotts thats a plan... i mean Wayne rooney ha a 4 book deal with a publisher and Jordan is the current bestseller... surely my musings are worth a print up... right once the books out, signing in waterstones then a knees up at a boozer au pies... troots, h2, monks and all other foreign based people, the publisher will pay for your flights i am sure...

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  19. yeah, and you don't even need a ghost writer which means you keep more dosh for our pies.

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  20. Well I missed elevenses then

    will you get an advance like the other Tony and give it all away.
    Id better go and read Adams now

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  21. A Woes book release, a piss up and pies?
    Hell, I'll swim accross the North Sea for that.

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  22. can i join in the eugoogly - youve got more writing talent in the little finger of one of your two left hands than all the bbc bloggers and 99% of the journalists anywhere on the net or in print, RBA; do something with it, man - the world of photocopiers will survive without you ( i asume )

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  23. of course i mainly say that in the hope of a pie party to go to

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  24. H2, in an ideal scenarieo you won't need to swim. With a bit of luck, the book launch party will start on a luxury yacht off the beach near Aldershot, there'll be a bevvy of scantilly clad crack whores on deck serving deleter and pies and they'll be over to pick you up.

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  25. Great blog RBA

    See i dont have a problem with classes...but i do have a problem with people who (i think) put on a front which suggests they are better than they are. I know a few people like this and on the whole i let it wash over me (so to speak) but now and again i think "you fucking cunt" this is normally after they have told me that they bought their latest car from a park lane garage so that it had the name on the number plate!

    My dad worked 6 or 7 days a week for most of my childhood. I think its my duty to do a bit better than him so that i dont have to work 6 or 7 days a week and so that i get to spend time with the kids and being part of their childhood....if i didnt then all that hard work he did would be for nothing.......now this may sound all noble and stuff (GCSE English Language - Grade D - fucking clever eh?) but currently i am still without a job, so im not exactly living up to that am i?

    I love these blogs.....become part of me weekly routine. Keep em coming RBA mate!

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  26. Trott, I'll be waiting on the beach at Scheviningen, fuck that, that's too difficult, make it Hoek van Holland.

    Hmmmmmm, Deleter and pies.
    ---
    I second Bloggy's comments. You is well wicked at putting these words in the good order to make excellent stories and stuff.

    SNHFIVE, Manggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeh

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  27. Crumbs... thanks for the unbearbly kind and undeserved words, if i wasn't such an arrogant cunt i would have blushed, as it is it has only furthered my ego and i now think i am king of the internet... Nice!

    Although i dont sell photocopiers, i know what you mean blog mate, however i know you, its just an elaborate wind up to get me to quit my job and become a writer only to get rejected by everyone and lose my hope my family and eventually my health till i end up a lonley old man, sipping deleter from the bottle in a dirty bedsit, surounded by sickstains and cheap grumble weeping in to my failed manuscript of witty pie and dart fables. well i aint falling for it!!!

    Photocopier anyone?

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  28. Yeah, but then you'd be a tragic genius. And they're the best kind, cos they were so brilliant that no-one understood them until the species had evolved further and realised that you was right all along. A bit like John Terry.

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  29. ....only to get rejected by everyone and lose my hope my family and eventually my health till i end up a lonley old man, sipping deleter from the bottle in a dirty bedsit, surounded by sickstains and cheap grumble weeping in to my failed manuscript of witty pie and dart fables. well i aint falling for it!!!
    -------------------------
    Could be worse, least you have a roof over your head and a drink!

    ReplyDelete