im not middle class. im an a-typical working class hero. one grandad was a miner, the other a butcher, my dad works in a factory and my mum is a house wife. im a civil servant, i buy the star and eat pork pies for my lunch. i dont know what houmus is and in my opinion all peas should be of the mushy variety.
Well said Winston, I don't buy papers often. I have never brought the Mail for my self. Once for a former boss.
When I was a in the security business I used to have to work long booooring hours, so my paper of choice when I did rarely buy one was the Express.
So spot on their mate.
Aoewn has made an intesting point though, ethnic groups and computers. Why did the ethnic groups not get into computers in the 80's?? Was it an affordability thing?
I teach introductory Java, Games Modification, and basic computer skills at my Uni and I see a healthy representation from the ethnic community. What has changed?? Was it the internet boom striking interest?? Do people beleive the high school myth that computing is siting in lether chairs, pushing buttons and being paid huge sums of cash??
...
Aoewn has made an intesting point though, ethnic groups and computers. Why did the ethnic groups not get into computers in the 80's?? Was it an affordability thing?
I teach introductory Java, Games Modification, and basic computer skills at my Uni and I see a healthy representation from the ethnic community. What has changed?? Was it the internet boom striking interest?? Do people beleive the high school myth that computing is siting in lether chairs, pushing buttons and being paid huge sums of cash??
We might have to look at the income bracket* of the "ethnic community" back then vs. now.
Groups** which may have been struggling then, have come 25 years ahead now, it may be easier to come up with money to pay for things now vs. during the "cold war" era.
Skarpo :-)
*Wow, I was able to use that in a sentence, somewhat correctly!
What disturbs me about WoS Forums is that probably 90% of the member are white, male, English, middle-class, and in their late 20s to early 30s, i.e. the exact people the Daily Mail will be aimed at in 10 years time. Call me a radical, but I think it's a shame the Speccy only appeals to such a narrow range of people.
The Spectrum was released back in '82, so you're not going to get many really old or really young people nowadays who have an interest in things Spectrum. It just isn't in their "time zone". At 44, I'm probably one of the eldest on here! From that time though, there's a certain feel to the music - and LOTS of people on here like early 80's metal/rock. Maiden, Marillion, Rush, Meatloaf, Floyd, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Magnum - the list is quite extensive.
Even though it was cheap when released, 179 quid was still an awful lot of money back then in the early 80's, and even though it went down in price, it was still too expensive to be a mere impulse purchase for many, unless you were pretty rich! I know, because to get the money to buy my first Spectrum, I collected scrap copper and brass from various demolition sites around Bristol, and that was on top of my normal 40hr/week job. My point(s) here are that I'm still active of the Spectrum scene and I'm far from middle class - but those kids that had a Spectrum at 180 quid may possibly have come from a lower middle class background, but I don't think it's any different to kids nowadays having a Playstation 3 for Christmas.
Just how many girls are into video gaming? How many (as a percentage) were into gaming in the 80's? We probably don't have a fair representation of women on this forum that's true, but we do have a few. There are only a few "non white" people on here too, and that is surprising. Back in the days, my local amusement arcade (Mad Harry's in Bristol) was teaming with people of all colours - why we should have so few is a bit of a mystery. There were very few women in Mad Harry's in the 80's, it was 98% male.
I wonder if women in general find video gaming too violent or just plain boring - my wife says it's because women are more intelligent, and therefore see gaming as superfluous. She was smiling as she said it, but she may have a point :(
The odd few who simply reminisce, to those die-hard fans who have a loft full of Speccy stuff - we have them all on WoSF. I don't think it's simply down to a narrow group of people. Maybe NOW, but not then back in the day anyway. People on here all have a "certain level" of intellect too - I don't know if that's innate or just a product of AOwen's theory "middle class" education. Either way, I think the statement made is a little broad and not quite as simple as it first seems. It is a well noticed point tho!
Aoewn has made an intesting point though, ethnic groups and computers. Why did the ethnic groups not get into computers in the 80's?? Was it an affordability thing?
What do you define as middle class anyway?? The middle class seems to be the broadest of all the classes.
When growing up, I live on council estates, my Dad was head chef for Balliol college Oxford.
When I was fourteen my parents had saved enough cash to buy a non council home, we then moved out of council housing.
My high school was a Zoo. It did not give me a proper education. I had to get that myself once I had left school.
What class does that put me in??
Anyway, I think it may have been the upper lower classes and lower middle classes that brought Spectrums??
The miidle middle classes brought BBC Micros, "Because they had them at school and it would be educational, and put our precious little William at an advantage".
I wonder if women in general find video gaming too violent or just plain boring - my wife says it's because women are more intelligent, and therefore see gaming as superfluous. She was smiling as she said it, but she may have a point :(
ive known lots of girls these days who like playing computer games. even in an office enviroment middle aged women compete to get the best score on a flash game. i think like someone said before there's a bit difference between palying games and posting messages about them on the internet.
ive known lots of girls these days who like playing computer games. even in an office enviroment middle aged women compete to get the best score on a flash game. i think like someone said before there's a bit difference between palying games and posting messages about them on the internet.
My ex loved video games, a little too much might I add.
My ex loved video games, a little too much might I add.
Andrew.
did she go on a killing spree?
yeah women say its mainly a nerdy boys pursuit, but they all want a go when your playing something. you do see them in arcades these days too, usually playing on those dance machines, being secretly watched by the local kiddy fiddler.
What do you define as middle class anyway?? The middle class seems to be the broadest of all the classes.
When growing up, I live on council estates, my Dad was head chef for Balliol college Oxford.
When I was fourteen my parents had save the cash to buy a non council home and we moved out of council housing.
My high school was a Zoo. It did not give me a proper edication. I had to get that myself once I had left school.
What class does that put me in??
Anyway, it was the upper lower classes and lower middle classes that brought Spectrums.
The miidle middle classes brought BBC Micros, "Because they had them at school and it would be educational, and put our precious little William at an advantage".
Andrew.
Aimed at me? AOwen or just anybody in general?
Andy, I wouldn't judge your background or you by it.
My own background is another matter. The only people I knew with a Spectrum back in 84 was my younger cousin who lived at the bottom of the same street as me and Niel, a guy who later was to become my best friend. He taught me machine code. He still lives in one of the many tower blocks in what is possibly the roughest part of Bristol, Barton Hill. We're certainly not of anything other than lower working class.
No, it was a generalised comment aimed at anybody reading. I'm just adding to the discussion not pointing fingers.
So maybe the Spectrum was a class-less machine then??? (Looking for comments)
Andrew.
Yeah, I'd say so - back in the day for sure, today maybe the appeal is a little bit more narrow, but as Winston said, in a nutshell, that's the nature of the beast.
When the Spectrum came out I'd left school by a good four or five years. Since then, all the second hand machines I've bought from local people - and that's quite a lot - all seemed to come from ordinary people who lived in streets or blocks of flats. None of them were particularly wealthy. If you had money, you bought a BBC, or maybe even an early IBM machine. The RML 380's were about then too. Question is, was it only posh kids who had Speccies? I don't think so.
When the Spectrum came out I'd left school by a good four or five years. Since then, all the second hand machines I've bought from local people - and that's quite a lot - all seemed to come from ordinary people who lived in streets or blocks of flats. None of them were particularly wealthy. If you had money, you bought a BBC, or maybe even an early IBM machine. The RML 380's were about then too. Question is, was it only posh kids who had Speccies? I don't think so.
Aoewn has made an intesting point though, ethnic groups and computers. Why did the ethnic groups not get into computers in the 80's?? Was it an affordability thing?
There aren't enough of them in the country.
They may well have got into computers in the 80s, but they are such a tiny proportion of the population, that even if every single non-white boy and girl in the UK owned a Spectrum, they would have still been a small minority of Spectrum users. According to the CIA World Factbook, currently, non-white ethnic minorities make up less than 5% of the UK's population today. Indians, the most common group, is only 1.8% of the UK's population.
Therefore it's expected that a fan following for an old 8 bit machine mainly sold in the UK in the 1980s today will be overwhelmingly white British people, simply because such a tiny proportion of the population is non-white. It's not something that's "a shame". In Britain, you'll probably find the majority of rap music buyers are also white, too - simply because over 95% of the population is white and around only 1% is black. Simple mathematics, no great conspiracy.
We also have to remember on affordability - Britain was a pretty dire country in the early 1980s, having just recovered from things like the Winter of Discontent, widespread country wide shutdowns from industrial action, high unemployment, low income and low productivity. I was only a kid at the time, but I can remember how grim Manchester was as we entered the early 80s. (It's funny - I recently saw the nuclear war TV film "Threads" again - just look how grey and dreary Sheffield was in the early 80s - and the talk of the issues of the day, the head of the family of one of the main characters was unemployed).
I don't particularly care for Thatcher, but she was also giving the country a taste of her foul-tasting medicine (which, grudgingly I have to admit got us out of the doldrums). This is why the Speccy did so well in the UK - it did a lot with not much hardware, and therefore was affordable. The rich kids all had BBCs or Commodore 64s. The rest of us had ZX81s and Spectrums - well because the Speccy could do almost as much as the C64, but at a third of the price.
I`d forgot about all the disturbances of the 70`s and early 80`s, being only a kid, I think a lot can be said about whatever age you are, and when you actually got your Spectrum. Where I grew up, it was mainly the working class family`s that seemed to be doing rather well, who`s kids had a computer at all in the early or mid 80`s. Those whose dad`s had buggered off and were from single parent family`s certainly without exception didn`t get even a Spectrum until they got to be a teenager and could either save up for a +2/+2A or get one out of a catalogue. Was the Spectrum always sold in catalogue`s, or was that just a late 80`s thing, I remember having cut out picture`s from Curry`s/Dixons/Boots brochures of Spectrums bluetacked to my bedroom door for a couple of years when I was saving, fantastic to finally get one :) Even today, in my area, less than 10 % of my friends have a computer, and only a couple have internet, but this area`s never bounced back from the mining industry collapse :( (near Ashington etc etc)
I remember from about 84-87 the single most enthralling thing to me was when occasionally I`d go to a friends house and play on his computer for an hour or two, if I`d have had my way, we`d have played on it everyday, instead of rogue`ing round the streets.
I remember from about 84-87 the single most enthralling thing to me was when occasionally I`d go to a friends house and play on his computer for an hour or two, if I`d have had my way, we`d have played on it everyday, instead of rogue`ing round the streets.
Gotta admit though it was fun to smash milkbottles up against a wall until somebody chased you off (or the dozy one cut the end of his finger off.....yep it really happened, the same kid ain't so dozy these days though).
Or throwing stones at posh peoples greenhouses, then peggin' it!
....and who can forget the wonders of sniffing tip-ex thinners off your sleeve hahahaha!
I noticed you said near Ashington further up......You're not from Shilbottle are you............Shudders :lol:
I'm pretty much working class, I come from a single parent family where my grandma did most of the parenting cos' my ma was out working during the day, and out getting pissed at night. I've only seen my dad once, and he was stumbling up a main road at about 3 in the afternoon with a broken nose blood all down his front and a knife wound in his side. When my ma pulled me into a shop (with a force that felt like my arm came off), I said why you hiding from that man, she turned round and said "that's your dad, that's why I'm hiding". Even though my dad didn't have time for me he had time to marry another woman, and now I apparently have a half-sister that I have also never met.
I've only ever worked shit jobs even though in my own opinion I'm far qualified to do better ones than I ever did (it was convenience really, and pure laziness on my behalf....I'll admit it). Although I did have a cushy number working in an office when I was about 21, I kinda fucked that up though. I started it not long after my gran died and I hadn't quite recovered from that when less than 3 months later my step-dad dies on the kitchen floor, in front of me, of the same thing that killed my gran.
After that my drinking and drug taking kinda got the better of me for a while, and I spent about 3 or 4 years dodging between dole courses (which I found embarressing and degrading to say the least), and crap jobs. I'd say the girl I married is part responsible for helping me out of my slump. I haven't touched a line of coke since the end of 2004, I haven't smoked any weed since the week before my 27th birthday (and that was the first joint in over a year, and I only smoked it cos' I got given the skunk as a taster from an old pal of mine). I still strain an unhealthy amount of beer through my liver each week, but only a fraction of what I did when I was younger.
Anyway my mother hasn't worked a single day since her mother and husband died. Sent her over the edge a bit, now she sits in the house all day talking to her cats, drinking and watching C.S.I.
So as you can see I'm a little eccentric to say the least :lol:.
That's a white collar job -- you're middle class, regardless of your family background.
Not necessarily - civil service includes quite a few "working class" jobs.
Personally, I'm quite firmly "middle class", although I actually work too (everything from some application development, to unix system administration, to pulling cat5 cabling through conduits and assembling new racking, and shouting at errant lusers).
I've always thought the term "working class" was a bit stupid - surely, managers and doctors and lawyers work, too? So aren't they also working class? Yeah, I know I know - but I'm pedantic. How would you define a "working class job?" Would you define a bus driver as a "working class" job? If you would, what about an airline pilot?
You seize to be "working class" as soon as your income goes above a certain income bracket (depends on your country) ???
Then again ... it's sometimes also just a state of being, irrelevant to your income. You can be a rich bitch but still lead the life of the "working class" ... question of background and culture also.
Gotta admit though it was fun to smash milkbottles up against a wall until somebody chased you off (or the dozy one cut the end of his finger off.....yep it really happened, the same kid ain't so dozy these days though).
Or throwing stones at posh peoples greenhouses, then peggin' it!
....and who can forget the wonders of sniffing tip-ex thinners off your sleeve hahahaha!
I noticed you said near Ashington further up......You're not from Shilbottle are you............Shudders :lol:
Actually, I must admit that me and my mates weren`t really very good at being rogues :), lol, I for one was always too much of a pussy in case I got caught (a good thing perhaps) ... We did always have a thing about setting the local cornfield on fire, or if we had some go-cart`s on the go we`d pile into the Sports Centre and steal some chairs for seats, then `gan doon` the beach on our new wheels. Happy times :D
Talking about smashing milk bottles, I remember we used to line them up in the local chippy cut and try and smash them with stones, sounds daft now, but it`s funny the things you do just to fill in time as a youngin`... Kids must still be smashing milk bottles in that very same cut, cos I fell down a drain when drunk last year, and done my leg pretty badly with all the glass there, serves me right :D
No, I`m not from Shillbottle by the way, not even sure where it is, though heard of it, I`m from Newbiggin, directly next to Ashington (in fact there so close now, that there`s only a road beween them, so Newbiggin`s gonna get swallowed up by the bigger place :( despite being about 700 years older.
He said he was a civil servant, not that he cleaned toilets at the civil service.
The Civil Service isn't just Sir Humphrey Appleby's ilk.
However, transport workers (which is arguably a service) are also working class.
So why does transport get an 'exception' to be working class - the bus driver is working class whereas the guy who writes the code (who arguably is in 'manufacturing' not 'services') for the microcontroller that runs the bus engine is pretty much always considered middle class? Why is a bus driver working class, but an airline pilot middle class? Why is a plumber working class, but an office junior on half the plumber's income considered middle class?
It just seems like the definition of "working class" and "middle class" is so nebulous that it can mean whatever you want it to mean - generally, if you declare yourself "I'm working class!" you can pretty much come up with an argument to say why you're working class and not middle class (and of course - vice versa). I think most of the definition seems to depend on how proper you speak :-)
Comments
When I was a in the security business I used to have to work long booooring hours, so my paper of choice when I did rarely buy one was the Express.
So spot on their mate.
Aoewn has made an intesting point though, ethnic groups and computers. Why did the ethnic groups not get into computers in the 80's?? Was it an affordability thing?
I teach introductory Java, Games Modification, and basic computer skills at my Uni and I see a healthy representation from the ethnic community. What has changed?? Was it the internet boom striking interest?? Do people beleive the high school myth that computing is siting in lether chairs, pushing buttons and being paid huge sums of cash??
We might have to look at the income bracket* of the "ethnic community" back then vs. now.
Groups** which may have been struggling then, have come 25 years ahead now, it may be easier to come up with money to pay for things now vs. during the "cold war" era.
Skarpo
:-)
*Wow, I was able to use that in a sentence, somewhat correctly!
**Any group, unrelated to race, age, income, etc.
The Spectrum was released back in '82, so you're not going to get many really old or really young people nowadays who have an interest in things Spectrum. It just isn't in their "time zone". At 44, I'm probably one of the eldest on here! From that time though, there's a certain feel to the music - and LOTS of people on here like early 80's metal/rock. Maiden, Marillion, Rush, Meatloaf, Floyd, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Magnum - the list is quite extensive.
Even though it was cheap when released, 179 quid was still an awful lot of money back then in the early 80's, and even though it went down in price, it was still too expensive to be a mere impulse purchase for many, unless you were pretty rich! I know, because to get the money to buy my first Spectrum, I collected scrap copper and brass from various demolition sites around Bristol, and that was on top of my normal 40hr/week job. My point(s) here are that I'm still active of the Spectrum scene and I'm far from middle class - but those kids that had a Spectrum at 180 quid may possibly have come from a lower middle class background, but I don't think it's any different to kids nowadays having a Playstation 3 for Christmas.
Just how many girls are into video gaming? How many (as a percentage) were into gaming in the 80's? We probably don't have a fair representation of women on this forum that's true, but we do have a few. There are only a few "non white" people on here too, and that is surprising. Back in the days, my local amusement arcade (Mad Harry's in Bristol) was teaming with people of all colours - why we should have so few is a bit of a mystery. There were very few women in Mad Harry's in the 80's, it was 98% male.
I wonder if women in general find video gaming too violent or just plain boring - my wife says it's because women are more intelligent, and therefore see gaming as superfluous. She was smiling as she said it, but she may have a point :(
The odd few who simply reminisce, to those die-hard fans who have a loft full of Speccy stuff - we have them all on WoSF. I don't think it's simply down to a narrow group of people. Maybe NOW, but not then back in the day anyway. People on here all have a "certain level" of intellect too - I don't know if that's innate or just a product of AOwen's theory "middle class" education. Either way, I think the statement made is a little broad and not quite as simple as it first seems. It is a well noticed point tho!
(sucks in air over teeth slowly) Wince!
When growing up, I live on council estates, my Dad was head chef for Balliol college Oxford.
When I was fourteen my parents had saved enough cash to buy a non council home, we then moved out of council housing.
My high school was a Zoo. It did not give me a proper education. I had to get that myself once I had left school.
What class does that put me in??
Anyway, I think it may have been the upper lower classes and lower middle classes that brought Spectrums??
The miidle middle classes brought BBC Micros, "Because they had them at school and it would be educational, and put our precious little William at an advantage".
Andrew.
ive known lots of girls these days who like playing computer games. even in an office enviroment middle aged women compete to get the best score on a flash game. i think like someone said before there's a bit difference between palying games and posting messages about them on the internet.
Why's that have you come to fix my car?
I get this treatment every time I take it in for repair. It's at that point I'm told its going to cost me.
My ex loved video games, a little too much might I add.
Andrew.
did she go on a killing spree?
yeah women say its mainly a nerdy boys pursuit, but they all want a go when your playing something. you do see them in arcades these days too, usually playing on those dance machines, being secretly watched by the local kiddy fiddler.
Aimed at me? AOwen or just anybody in general?
Andy, I wouldn't judge your background or you by it.
My own background is another matter. The only people I knew with a Spectrum back in 84 was my younger cousin who lived at the bottom of the same street as me and Niel, a guy who later was to become my best friend. He taught me machine code. He still lives in one of the many tower blocks in what is possibly the roughest part of Bristol, Barton Hill. We're certainly not of anything other than lower working class.
I've noticed that the best graphics artists I know are female, but I'm talking about proper programming here.
The Spectrum only had three that I know of:
Amanda Pandagirl and Tomato girl (Demo coders) and of course, Toni Baker.
No, it was a generalised comment aimed at anybody reading. I'm just adding to the discussion not pointing fingers.
So maybe the Spectrum was a class-less machine then??? (Looking for comments)
Andrew.
Fair shout, I just thought I may have pissed yer off is all. :)
no the speccy had loads of class. in fact it was class. your thinking of the c64.
Yeah, I'd say so - back in the day for sure, today maybe the appeal is a little bit more narrow, but as Winston said, in a nutshell, that's the nature of the beast.
When the Spectrum came out I'd left school by a good four or five years. Since then, all the second hand machines I've bought from local people - and that's quite a lot - all seemed to come from ordinary people who lived in streets or blocks of flats. None of them were particularly wealthy. If you had money, you bought a BBC, or maybe even an early IBM machine. The RML 380's were about then too. Question is, was it only posh kids who had Speccies? I don't think so.
Yes, that's exactly my view of the issue.
Andew.
There aren't enough of them in the country.
They may well have got into computers in the 80s, but they are such a tiny proportion of the population, that even if every single non-white boy and girl in the UK owned a Spectrum, they would have still been a small minority of Spectrum users. According to the CIA World Factbook, currently, non-white ethnic minorities make up less than 5% of the UK's population today. Indians, the most common group, is only 1.8% of the UK's population.
Therefore it's expected that a fan following for an old 8 bit machine mainly sold in the UK in the 1980s today will be overwhelmingly white British people, simply because such a tiny proportion of the population is non-white. It's not something that's "a shame". In Britain, you'll probably find the majority of rap music buyers are also white, too - simply because over 95% of the population is white and around only 1% is black. Simple mathematics, no great conspiracy.
We also have to remember on affordability - Britain was a pretty dire country in the early 1980s, having just recovered from things like the Winter of Discontent, widespread country wide shutdowns from industrial action, high unemployment, low income and low productivity. I was only a kid at the time, but I can remember how grim Manchester was as we entered the early 80s. (It's funny - I recently saw the nuclear war TV film "Threads" again - just look how grey and dreary Sheffield was in the early 80s - and the talk of the issues of the day, the head of the family of one of the main characters was unemployed).
I don't particularly care for Thatcher, but she was also giving the country a taste of her foul-tasting medicine (which, grudgingly I have to admit got us out of the doldrums). This is why the Speccy did so well in the UK - it did a lot with not much hardware, and therefore was affordable. The rich kids all had BBCs or Commodore 64s. The rest of us had ZX81s and Spectrums - well because the Speccy could do almost as much as the C64, but at a third of the price.
I remember from about 84-87 the single most enthralling thing to me was when occasionally I`d go to a friends house and play on his computer for an hour or two, if I`d have had my way, we`d have played on it everyday, instead of rogue`ing round the streets.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Gotta admit though it was fun to smash milkbottles up against a wall until somebody chased you off (or the dozy one cut the end of his finger off.....yep it really happened, the same kid ain't so dozy these days though).
Or throwing stones at posh peoples greenhouses, then peggin' it!
....and who can forget the wonders of sniffing tip-ex thinners off your sleeve hahahaha!
I noticed you said near Ashington further up......You're not from Shilbottle are you............Shudders :lol:
I've only ever worked shit jobs even though in my own opinion I'm far qualified to do better ones than I ever did (it was convenience really, and pure laziness on my behalf....I'll admit it). Although I did have a cushy number working in an office when I was about 21, I kinda fucked that up though. I started it not long after my gran died and I hadn't quite recovered from that when less than 3 months later my step-dad dies on the kitchen floor, in front of me, of the same thing that killed my gran.
After that my drinking and drug taking kinda got the better of me for a while, and I spent about 3 or 4 years dodging between dole courses (which I found embarressing and degrading to say the least), and crap jobs. I'd say the girl I married is part responsible for helping me out of my slump. I haven't touched a line of coke since the end of 2004, I haven't smoked any weed since the week before my 27th birthday (and that was the first joint in over a year, and I only smoked it cos' I got given the skunk as a taster from an old pal of mine). I still strain an unhealthy amount of beer through my liver each week, but only a fraction of what I did when I was younger.
Anyway my mother hasn't worked a single day since her mother and husband died. Sent her over the edge a bit, now she sits in the house all day talking to her cats, drinking and watching C.S.I.
So as you can see I'm a little eccentric to say the least :lol:.
See me? Ah'm like, pure bloody scum me....
Hmmm, can one be "pure" and "scum" at the same time? :lol:
Onwards my working-class brethren!
Not necessarily - civil service includes quite a few "working class" jobs.
Personally, I'm quite firmly "middle class", although I actually work too (everything from some application development, to unix system administration, to pulling cat5 cabling through conduits and assembling new racking, and shouting at errant lusers).
I've always thought the term "working class" was a bit stupid - surely, managers and doctors and lawyers work, too? So aren't they also working class? Yeah, I know I know - but I'm pedantic. How would you define a "working class job?" Would you define a bus driver as a "working class" job? If you would, what about an airline pilot?
Then again ... it's sometimes also just a state of being, irrelevant to your income. You can be a rich bitch but still lead the life of the "working class" ... question of background and culture also.
Actually, I must admit that me and my mates weren`t really very good at being rogues :), lol, I for one was always too much of a pussy in case I got caught (a good thing perhaps) ... We did always have a thing about setting the local cornfield on fire, or if we had some go-cart`s on the go we`d pile into the Sports Centre and steal some chairs for seats, then `gan doon` the beach on our new wheels. Happy times :D
Talking about smashing milk bottles, I remember we used to line them up in the local chippy cut and try and smash them with stones, sounds daft now, but it`s funny the things you do just to fill in time as a youngin`... Kids must still be smashing milk bottles in that very same cut, cos I fell down a drain when drunk last year, and done my leg pretty badly with all the glass there, serves me right :D
No, I`m not from Shillbottle by the way, not even sure where it is, though heard of it, I`m from Newbiggin, directly next to Ashington (in fact there so close now, that there`s only a road beween them, so Newbiggin`s gonna get swallowed up by the bigger place :( despite being about 700 years older.
The Civil Service isn't just Sir Humphrey Appleby's ilk.
So why does transport get an 'exception' to be working class - the bus driver is working class whereas the guy who writes the code (who arguably is in 'manufacturing' not 'services') for the microcontroller that runs the bus engine is pretty much always considered middle class? Why is a bus driver working class, but an airline pilot middle class? Why is a plumber working class, but an office junior on half the plumber's income considered middle class?
It just seems like the definition of "working class" and "middle class" is so nebulous that it can mean whatever you want it to mean - generally, if you declare yourself "I'm working class!" you can pretty much come up with an argument to say why you're working class and not middle class (and of course - vice versa). I think most of the definition seems to depend on how proper you speak :-)
yeah but are you lower class, middle class, or upper class? the question changed ages ago. ;)