The Class Thing

Missmarketcrash had a delightful game of scrabble last night with the posh mums.  It is easter holidays here in leafy London and the children have been having tennis lessons during the time off from school.  With one child in state school, and, one in private, it was inevitable these two worlds of distinctly different mums would meet each other somehow.  And so they did.

Like the best hollywood kind of drama, the private school mums confided to me last night that they had met the state school mum at the tennis pickup.  And I gather it did not go so well. There seemed to be some kind of general agreement that state school mummy had been dismissive and abrupt. Oh dear.  Like a rabbit in the headlights, I imagine she was terrified by my bunch.  Or, the more sinister implied possibility, she was "ill-mannered".  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  State school mum was taking my state school child off for a playdate.  Her son is a gem of a boy, full of zest and good manners.  An A-list type of boy.  I do not know state-school-mum well but I am pretty sure she cannot be a savage with such a fantastic child.   I did sputter to the posh mums that state-mum was a super-mum and seemed to have few faults save looking perfect at all moments and being a bit short.  The posh mums did laugh quite a lot afterward addressing the class issue head-on and it all became a bit of a folly.

On the flip-side, after an evening out with some of the new state school mums a few weeks ago, I was on the other side of the class war.  After meeting a group of new mums and being asked which school my son had transferred from.  "DCPS" I mumbled.  And where is you other son? "DCPS" I mumbled again.  A mum at the table took that very opportunity to go silent.  The rest of the table followed suit and an arctic wall was erected. Cigarettes were lit in that quiet cliff-hanger kind of way.   The head mum then began to pontificate how terrible it was that someone could be bumped down the waiting list for such a good school just because some family who happened to live a bit closer had a credit crunch and decided to change schools... How dreadfully direct.  

So. What does Missmarketcrash think about the class thing?  Nothing.  And a lot.  It is an unavoidable thing here.  In a utopia, I'd say as long as you are a good scrabble player, you are in.

Google Street View

Missmarketcrash has frittered a good part of the morning away looking at the just-launched London version of  Google Street View.  Here is Missmarketcrash's local high street and the line outside the local butcher shop.  A bit dull compared to the image of the puking man and his friend with reindeer antlers that has been making the rounds.  Most of Dulwich has been re-classified as Camberwell by Google street view.  I can hear the locals fainting.  Maybe it is just a reflection of where property prices are headed. 

I ought to be chatting about AIG, bonuses and retroactive taxes, but, it is a philosophical tangle on many levels.  I will say that anger is a weird thing.  If we are collectively in some kind of emotional process in digesting the current economic crisis, anger is one of those things to move forward and beyond.  Missmc has a bit of a plexiglass screen up on the emotional side and is trying to address things purely on an intellectual level.  With that, the examination of human reaction in the media is a topic I am willing to tackle.  After watching Obama on Jay Leno last night, I can say that what works well on the emotional side for people is good comedic timing.

With that, here is the puking man and his reindeer friend.

Zero as a number does not make sense

"Zero as a number does not make sense" said the four year old at the dinner table.  I agreed. "Mum, are we going to be hippies?" said child number one.  I almost passed out.

Hippies...where does this privately-educated-until-six-weeks-ago seven year old hear about hippies?  I've not seen one in this part of London ever.  

So change is in the air, even amongst the children.  

Ok.  Let's say the world is going to be filled with hippies soon.  Hair will grow longer and music will flow.  The freshly unemployed and idle will wile away the days baking bread, reading poetry, planting a vegetable garden...

That all sounds reasonable so far...

But why were there hippies?  Hippies came about after Vietnam.  Hippies hated the government and turned on, tuned in and dropped out.  So, then perhaps I ought to tell my son that yes, now that we have The-Banking-Thing, there will certainly be a resurgence of hippies soon wandering around Dulwich, former home of Margaret Thatcher.  It still seems implausible, but, I've seen a few signs.  Many of the mums have postponed hair colorings as of late and are going brunette.  Homemade chutneys and gifts appeared at Christmas time. Gardens are being planned and bread is being baked.  But I cannot imagine any of them lying in a field, smoking marijuana and staring at the clouds contemplating the phrase "Zero as a number does not make sense".  Yet.