Signings of the times: the fading art of the signature

The recent MCH blog about initials made me think of the time I – and I suspect many others – spent practicing fancy signatures during my childhood. Taking note of adults’ styles, and autographs pictured in books, I’d experiment with loops, italics, underlines, i-dotting/not dotting, and wavy lines rather than actual letters, until I felt I had exhausted every calligraphic possibility. It wasn’t a question of wanting an autograph for when, as was surely inevitable, I became a pop star or professional footballer; I saw it more as an accouterment of adulthood, like being able to drive, or a capacity for enjoying strong cheese.

It is a sad thought that this small joy may be lost to kids in the future, as the signature is clearly dying out, constantly losing ground to the password, PIN and names typed in emails. It’s a shame because signatures are a little expression of our personality; think of a relative and close friend and you’ll know how they write their name – and quite probably think of it with some fondness. Enjoy writing those cheques while you can.

Some dried fruit nibbles with that petrol, please! Discovering Britain’s most middle-class motorways

“When was the last time,” asks the website of Westmorland Ltd, owners of Tebay and Gloucester Services, “that you stopped at a motorway service area and enjoyed homemade food, stunning mountain views, a duck pond, well-stocked farm shops …and not a slot machine, franchise or man with a clipboard in sight?”

If you doubted that some motorways service stations, and indeed the motorways they straddle, are more middle class than others, then that paragraph should put you straight. The facilities alone would be enough to distinguish them (the M3’s cool, modern Waitrose branch at Fleet, the M74’s Abington with its survey-topping toilets), but there are other factors too: the countryside they pass through, the towns in which they terminate, the kind of cars you’re likely to see.

And then there are the little quirks that make all the difference to aficionados; the M4 could hardly be anything but mc given it has a services called “Heston”. The Middle Class Handbooks top five middle class three-lane drives are, in order:

1 The M40
To Oxford and the Cotswolds via Bucks, passing classic art deco architecture and RAF Northolt? Might as well have a Royal Warrant. Head and hard shoulders in front of the rest.
 
2 The M4
Mainly for its status as the superhighway for the middle-class West Country heartlands
 
3 The M5
Not only a Cornwall-Devon link, but also has Gloucester Services. Lovely.
 
4 The M11
Four words: Stansted, Cambridge, Birchanger Services. And such a nice length
 
5 The M6
For Tebay services, and for the novelty of the lorry-free West Midlands toll road

Abrandoned! The sudden, fickle rejection of once-loved pioneer brands

The other day I was having a very middle-class conversation about soup, with a work colleague who is very finicky about her food. "Well, I don't buy Covent Garden Soups," she said, when I mentioned my liking for their chicken variety. "Far too salty."

I was mildly irritated by what I felt was a small show of soup-upmanship, but I also noted that this was a common kind of rejection, i.e. the self-styled connoisseur ostentatiously rejecting a brand that was once a pioneer. Think of Stella Artois or Starbucks, or perhaps even these days Green & Black's chocolate and Innocent Smoothies; the sales might be holding up, but the more fickle, discerning customers are looking for the new, more extreme, up-and-comers.

This is because in this era of a mass middle class, the most significant class divide in terms of taste is between not middle and working, but middle-middle and lower-middle. One might call this King's Hill syndrome, after the lower-middle residents of King's Hill in Kent, who emerged as the least popular characters in Grayson Perry's All In The Best Possible Taste. The middle middles enjoy appropriating elements of working class culture (football, fry-ups, even the odd post-pub kebab) but when they see people of similar income but less exclusive tastes buying their old pioneer brands, those brands can be tainted for years - until, of course, they fall so far down the chain they can be reclaimed. It's all quite enough to get one reaching for a stiff Bombay Sapphire. 

What does Santa expect from the modern middle-class home?

When I was a kid, the food that one left out for Father Christmas on the 24th was straightforward - sherry, mince pie, possible carrot for Rudolph. In recent years, however, things seem to have changed. “Reindeer food” (aka oats in a gift bag sold at Christmas Fairs for 50p a go) has become popular; whisky is edging out unfashionable sherry, and my own daughter insists on cups of tea. This leads me to wonder what the good MC person should leave out to feel they are au courant, and to not disappoint Santa? A hearty home-made soup in a John Lewis flask would be practical. Brief instructions for the Nespresso machine might be appreciated if he’s flagging. And perhaps sherry might once more be acceptable if one made it a Pedro Ximinez in a bit of artisan glassware. 

Obviously any carrot should be organic, but what else do you reckon, middle-class revelers and wassaillers?  Do let us have your suggestions and secrets. After all, we wouldn’t want your house to have nicer gifts than ours, would we?

FIVE MC NUDGES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED PRONTO

This clever use of a thank you on speed-limit signs is impressive and modern in its approach to anti-social behaviour, and a good example of what is called "nudging". Feeling inspired to emulate it, we have been trying to think of ways to combat certain behaviours that annoy us; we haven't got far with the solutions yet, but the top five problems and needs are clear.

1. A sign that allows one middle-class parent to tell another middle-class parent, without any un-middle-class conflict or rudness, that it's really annoying when they pick up their child half an hour late from a "playdate".
2. A form of ticking-off for people who take tickets in numbered queuing systems, and then wander off so everyone has to wait while their number is called and not answered.
3. A way of encouraging people who have filled up their car at a busy petrol pump to pull forward so that the person behind can fill up. As opposed to waiting for ten minutes while said person goes in to pay, and then DELIBERATES OVER THE BLOODY HARIBO OR ROAD MAPS OR DECIDES TO WRITE A NOVEL OR WHATEVER IT IS THEY DO IN THERE WHILE THE REST OF US ARE LEFT SODDING QUEUEING. Sorry. 
4. A discouragement, possibly a new sales tax, on people using debit cards to pay for items that cost about  99p or something.
5. A form of football-style red cards for dads in parks engaged in over-competitive games of football with 4-year-old children. Not necessarily for sending them out of the park, but for reminding them that they should be blushing at behaviour so widely regarded as a joke.