As someone who grew up on a diet of Mighty White glued together with Shipphams fishpaste, I can’t quite get my head around fancy sandwiches.  It was fine when shop-bought sandwiches had two or three things in them – ham and salad, cheese and pickle, prawn and mayonnaise - but then adjectives took over the world, and suddenly ham was beech smoked or exotically crumbed or hand carved from the succulent leg of the happiest pig in Wiltshire.

But it didn’t stop there. Oh no. Now sandwiches have gone all gastro, with ingredients like refried beans and beetroot and watercress and other stuff that has no business being in a sandwich. For evidence, I refer you to this article in The Guardian, entitled “the ten best sandwich recipes”. Here’s the ingredients for the first one:

80g montgomery's cheddar, grated
10g comté cheese, grated
10g ogleshield cheese, grated
2 slices of Poilâne sourdough bread
2 tsp mixed chopped white and red onions, leek and crushed garlic

I’m concerned it might be a bit bland. Maybe a touch more ogleshield, and some fishpaste? 

Flickr: Kake Pugh

But let’s not forget someone else for whom Eurovision offers a not-to-be-missed opportunity – the Well-Travelled MC. He or she has not only heard of Malmo, they’ve also been there, drunk their bodyweight in Aquavit and missed the last train to Stockholm. 

So when you’re watching the Eurovision finals tonight (and you will, you know you will), keep an ear out for the MC in the room. He or she can be identified by the sharing of their extensive European knowledge, in the form of gap year anecdotes, geographical trivia and random historical facts (particularly relating to former Yugoslav nations).  A few examples are below:

• “Did I tell you about the time I went skiing in Bulgaria? So much cheaper than the Alps”
• “Extraordinary to think that technically Yugoslavia no longer exists”
• “I stayed in Hungary when I went InterRailing. You’ve never really had a goulash until you’ve been to Budapest”
• “Did you know that Azerbaijan is not actually in Europe, just in the European Broadcasting Union?” 
• “Terrible how things are in Greece. It was all fine when we were in Kefalonia.”

Just for info, the correct response to all of these is “Really? How fascinating”, before turning up the volume on Greece’s answer to Madness.

This year’s Apprentice features among its female team the most preening and distastefully-dressed group of business Barbies ever to “grace” the show; the flesh, sky-high-heels and predictable cattiness is reminiscent of the days when producers were trying to keep Big Brother afloat with glamour models. Luisa might have attracted most of the bad press but it’s the sight of the overly made-up mass pouting in presentations that is really depressing.

This was once the reality show that the middle classes could enjoy because it had some intellectual content, and the BBC is making a huge mistake if this direction is to be permanent. The producers seem to have forgotten the best-loved female contestant of all time was a flat-shoed, un-made-up down to earth lass from Birmingham. Bring back the Badger, we say.

We just can’t get enough chorizo

While cider sales plummet

We blame the mildly annoying ice-in-the-pint-glass malarky

Could it be time for the shandy’s glorious revival?

Yes, @DaniBevins, it really could be

M&S new fashion range seems to be going down well

Phew, keen to get things back to normal ASAP

Great Gatsby themed everything

Enough art deco already

Pound shops thriving in MC areas

There’s still kudos in being a bargain hunter

Morrisons and Ocado going into business together

Ooh, Waitrose, watch out

Larders

We are so feeling the love

Citizens Advice urging ban on cold calling

And not before time!

WHSMith

Ridiculously horrible but basically the heart of today’s sad high street

]]>http://www.middleclasshandbook.co.uk/journal/rss-comments-entry-33725810.xmlClass PhwoarMaddie YMiddle Class HandbookWed, 15 May 2013 08:17:35 +0000http://www.middleclasshandbook.co.uk/journal/2013/5/15/class-phwoar-kleenex-collection-cubes.html371902:4022692:33717056I feel a little bit silly for getting so excited by some boxes of tissues, but seriously, these limited edition Kleenex are the loveliest, most exciting tissues available to humanity right now, and they need to be brought to the attention of team MC. The tissues themselves are nothing for your nose to get inordinately excited about. It’s the boxes – sorry, “cubes” is what they’re calling them now. There are three main things that push these into Class Phwoar territory:

• They come in a variety of limited edition designs. Who doesn’t love a limited edition version of a really boring item? Feels like you’re really living for now, doesn’t it?
• The designs are generally seasonal and/or on-trend. It’s always satisfying to live by the seasons, and why the heck should that stop at your veg box?
• The designs are actually really nice and interesting – and genuinely add something to the home especially if you get a few and stack them up artfully somewhere. There’s a Mondrian one going at the moment. Catch it before they refresh the designs for summer.

But there’s a hidden extra level of phwoar on offer here. If you order them online with your grocery shopping, which I’ve been doing, you don’t know which design you’re going to get – it’s not necessarily the one shown on the website at the time you order. It’s like a lucky dip. Too exciting!

If you live in a city, parking is a problem. If you’re middle class and live in a city you’re faced with a double problem. How can you lay claim to your rightful parking territory without appearing rude?
The answer is the over-polite ‘no parking’ sign. You’ll find these signs discreetly attached to garage doors and gates in well-heeled areas. Rather than a straightforward ‘no parking’ message they’ll tell a story. They will appeal to your sense of fairness and explain precisely why their need to park is greater than yours.

• ‘Please Do Not Park Here. Doctor requires 24 hour access.’
• ‘Please do not obstruct access to this communally owned garage’
• ‘Elderly infirm relative requires access day and night. Please park elsewhere.’ 

The font and the size of the sign toes a tricky line between noticeable yet unobtrusive. They generally bear the mark of the local ironmonger, but even if they are homemade, they were clearly not dashed off in a fit of rage with a load of cheap paint from B&Q. (See fig 1)

An MC ‘no parking’ sign doesn’t scream ‘get off my land’, it coughs politely and asks if you wouldn’t mind awfully going elsewhere.  

Fig 1. Non MC No Parking Sign

We Brits spend roughly £40m a year on scented candles, a figure that has been steadily growing, and now we demand more from them than simply making a room smell nice. They’ve become a go-to for enhancing our mood or helping us wind down after a hard day. And, of course, they are yet another way of subtly displaying our cultural values. Here’s how to make sense of the scents:

Self-actualisation – Cire Trudon

Burning a scented candle is essentially a decadent act, and nothing smells of decadence like a French luxury brand once favoured by Marie-Antoinette.

Esteem – Jonathan Adler

Adler’s edgier scents in funky pots – ‘Tomato’, ‘Pepper’, ‘Earl Grey’, ‘Bubblegum’, ‘Hashish’ – have a slight frisson of ‘will this work?’ And of course, like salted chocolate or strawberries with basil, they do, and in the most satisfying of ways. They let visitors know that we have already done the nursery slopes of ‘Fig’ and ‘Moroccan Rose’ and are ready for the thrills of some olfactory black runs. See also Malin+Goetz’s ‘Mojito’, ‘Black Rum’ and ‘Tobacco’ candles.

Love/Belonging – True Grace

This quintessentially English candlemaker allows us to express key parts of our personalities with fragrances that sound like Farrow & Ball paint colours – ‘Library’, ‘Curious’, ‘Seashore’ – but makes them seem unpretentious (no one’s fooled) by putting them in tins. For example, ‘Parlour’ supposedly evokes ‘Walking into the cottage, welcomed by the scents of wood fires, a jar of flowers on the table, a fresh pot of tea and fruitcake from the familiar tin in the pantry.’ They know us too well.

Safety – Diptyque 

It is impossible not to love Diptyque’s classic candles. Or to fail to recognise them in someone else’s home. Trademark fragrances such as ‘Figuier’, ‘Baies’, ‘Feu de Bois’ and ‘Roses’ are the sorts of things you can confidently buy as a present for someone you don’t know that well. See also Jo Malone.

Physiological –'own brand' and/or Glade

Supermarket own brand or brands more readily associated with plug-in air fresheners. Especially if they are poorly sealed with a plastic lid or cellophane. These tend to come in unexciting fragrances such as jasmine, rose, winter spice, or vanilla, or fragrances that echo air-freshener/fabric-softener scents – sea breeze, cotton fresh. These candles emit smells that are mildly more pleasant than those they are trying to mask (damp, cigarettes, pets, fried food) but which do not necessarily enhance one’s sensory pleasure. If someone gives you a Glade ‘Garden Sunshine’ scented candle as a gift, they are trying to tell you something.

Bubbling under – Price’s

Could there be a scented-candle backlash on the horizon with a return to plain candles made by a no-nonsense firm with form? Tall, tapering candles in actual candlesticks on the dinner table or short fat altar candles used en masse to bathe a room in a warm glow rather than overpower it with scent, perhaps? A candle that smells of wax? It’s a revolution waiting to happen.

Remember when this was the business word du jour – when everyone was running around looking for “synergy” or, even better, “synergies”? It made your skin crawl at the time, sure, but we sort of trusted it, didn’t we? We understood exactly the level of bullshit it represented.
 
Where the hell did it go? Surely we need to find whatever it means more than ever in these austere times. Yet, even the naffest of businesses seem to have cooled down on their desire for it. I have my suspicions on what may have replaced it. Has it maybe been pushed out by the rise and rise of “joined up thinking”? What are the new MC business buzzwords you’re hearing around your “space”? Let’s “interrogate” this further, and in “granular” detail, if you please.

Flickr: DaveFayram

The smooth whiteness and trademark blue rims of Falcon’s products chime with the Conran philosophy of plain, simple products that will stand the test of time (in this case since the 1920s); their no-nonsense mass-production honours the Bauhaus ideal. Plus they are highly functional and fairly indestructible, made from porcelein fused onto heavy-gauge steel that’s oven proof to up to 270 deg C and won’t break when dropped on a stone floor or slate worktop. Some might even say the odd chip in the enamel adds character.

This multi-level appeal is born out by the fact that you can find Falcon in the sort of shop that sells plastic storage boxes and rolls of cheap bin bags as well as the sort of shop that sells designer lampshades and Orla Kiely tea caddies, or even in Heal’s.

New colours are beginning to be introduced, but the white and blue remains the original.

www.falconenamelware.com/

I blame The Count of Monte Cristo. I planned to take the Dumas classic on holiday a couple of years ago, but it’s massive. Ryanair would probably count it as an extra piece of hand luggage. So I bought a Kindle, and have never looked back.  Nowadays I’ve always got hundreds of books with me wherever I go, and can happily sit in public reading anything from highbrow literature to complete filth and NOBODY KNOWS.

But oh, the GUILT. I have sold out my local indie book store in favour of evil corporate tax-dodgers. What next? Buying my meat at Tesco? Starbucks coffee? If Jane Austen was still alive, she’d be doing her disappointed face.

But all is not lost. Here’s five guilt-assuaging occasions when only a hard copy will do:

1. Paperbacks for reading in the bath - expensive electronics and water don’t mix.
2. Lavatory reading – definitely not the place for a touchscreen.
3. Travel guides – less likely to result in a mugging, and you can line up all your Sawdays guides on the shelf at home as a reminder of the places you’ve been.
4. Recipe books - following a recipe on an electronic device will leave you with a screen covered in cake mix and a squint.
5. Display books - Russian literary classics and Booker Prize winners are for impressing visitors. They are clearly wasted on a Kindle.