A few more days in the Oxford Bubble

Good morning folks!

In exchange for helping out with the BNC Open Day on Thursday, I have got free accommodation in Oxford this week, which I have chosen to take advantage of.

It's given me the chance to catch up on a bit of work, and make sure all is in order before I finally leave Oxford for the summer. I've also enjoyed the opportunity to see a few people - I had a quality coffee with Mr Youthblog this morning (thanks Ian!) and Mrs JP is working in Oxford so of course I've enjoyed seeing her.

I was reading Anthropax's blog yesterday and came across a post he'd written about the Daily Mail. He seems to have quite a detailed way of categorising people (I particularly like the idea of having a 'middle-middle class' category) and this has got me thinking about whether or not it is right to attach such labels to people. One argument is that there will always be a class system based on such things as the food you eat and whether or not you say 'napkin' or 'serviette' , but that different classes are no better or worse than others. I also thought that one of the aims of socialism was a 'classless' society, but some of the ardent socialists I've come across disagree. What do you think? What happens if, like me, you use both 'napkin' and 'serviette'? Answers on a postcard (or, alternatively in a comment below).

Back to work...

Comments

Anonymous said…
I tend to use 'Napkin' for cloth, and 'Serviette' for paper.
Tue Jun 28, 06:34:00 PM GMT
Anthropax said…
I would recomend a couple of books. 'Watching the English' is a good book by Kate Fox, and a slightly rarer one called 'Mind the Gap'. I would recomend the first one in particular. It seems clear that we can't just go with an almost Marxist 3-class system. There are more differences, mainly between the levels of the middle class.
Tue Jun 28, 06:42:00 PM GMT
JP... said…
A good academic always refers to books...
Tue Jun 28, 10:12:00 PM GMT
Anthropax said…
I was only giving James some advice if he wanted some books on the subject.
Thu Jun 30, 09:26:00 PM GMT
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