What does middle class mean to you?

Yes, loved Grayson Perry. There's a thread about his programmes.

I'm sorry – I really don't understand the question. Are you asking about lower middle class, middle middle class or upper middle class?

the one in the middle

absent I think the thread has lost its way a bit. It's an invitation to have a light-hearted look at middle class

And your point when?

It always makes me think of that sketch with the "I look down on him because..... " Was it John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett?

Yeah, that's the one Elegran.

I know my place. In the wrong.

It's a bit of fun absent

I wasn't aware of the term 'middle class' as a child but I knew who they were. Those families who had a car, whose daughters went to piano and ballet lessons and who seemed to disappear during the summer holiday at the end of primary school. I eventually discovered that they had gone to private schools

Cleese: (In bowler hat, black jacket and pinstriped trousers) I look down on him (Indicates Barker) because I am upper-class.

Barker: (Pork-pie hat and raincoat) I look up to him (Cleese) because he is upper-class; but I look down on him (Corbett) because he is lower-class. I am middle-class.

Corbett: (Cloth cap and muffler) I know my place. I look up to them both. But I don't look up to him (Barker) as much as I look up to him (Cleese), because he has got innate breeding.

Cleese: I have got innate breeding, but I have not got any money. So sometimes I look up (bends knees, does so) to him (Barker).

Barker: I still look up to him (Cleese) because although I have money, I am vulgar. But I am not as vulgar as him (Corbett) so I still look down on him (Corbett).

Corbett: I know my place. I look up to them both; but while I am poor, I am honest, industrious and trustworthy. Had I the inclination, I could look down on them. But I don't.

Barker: We all know our place, but what do we get out of it?

Cleese: I get a feeling of superiority over them.

Barker: I get a feeling of inferiority from him, (Cleese), but a feeling of superiority over him (Corbett).

Corbett: I get a pain in the back of my neck.

From The Frost Report

I remember the impact that sketch had at the time. Very funny

Has nobody else noticed JO5's link at 18.45.20?
(Apart from Elegran )

Oh! Sorry Jingle I missed the blue words.

Thank you Ana!

I didn't notice it, I am afraid. I had already thought of it.

Very well observed sketch.

It's all to do with what you call your children/kids/sprogs

Wayne, Dwuane, Chardonnay or Kylie?

Aurelian, Rupert, Felicity or India?

When you loose your Child Benefit

So what do Edward, Susan and Elizabeth make me then

Loved that Frost Report sketch .. watched it sitting in our middle class house (detached & in the sth London suburbs) with my working class mum (her dad a 'journeyman painter decorator, she left school at 14) and my 'foreign' dad (lawyer in Civil Service ). I was at a comprehensive school but had been at a private boarding school when parents worked overseas. I was going out with a lad who lived in a council flat and went to a grammar school. Our car was a Ford of some sort and we holidayed in Spain in our touring trailer tent that dad made from a kit. My mum did all her own cleaning and only went to work again ( as a bookkeeper) when youngest child at secondary school. Dad dis the gardening , read The Times and voted Labour.

It's not easy sorting out class!

Me!
And it wasn't easy, dragging myself up by the bootstraps!

My mum aspired to be middleclass so married the public school educated son of an oil company director. Unfortunately, my father was resolutely classless and wouldn't mention his background at all.

What actually defines class today?

Class is still a huge issue in the UK and has little if anything to do with money. The middle class does still fall into three categories, lower middle class, middle middle class and upper middle class. Lots of Nancy Mitford's strictures do still apply, however silly they seem. For example, saying "pardon", "toilet" and "lounge" is still lower middle class; "sorry", "loo" and "sitting/living room" is middle middle class; "what?", "lavatory" and "drawing room" are upper middle class. Net curtains are as much an indication of class as owning a holiday villa in the Marche. In the sketch, Ronnie Barker plays an aspirational lower middle class man. I am not sure whether the John Cleese figure is truly upper class or just upper middle class.

In spite of John Major's declaration that class divisions no longer existed, they do still persist and are still pernicious. Social mobility has steadily decreased over the last three decades; we are all expected not just to know our place but to stay there these days.

By the way, my original question was a feeble attempt at being funny.

What? Are not they all absent ??