"Radicals were the kind of people one didn’t have to dinner."

Nice banner along the top of that page.

I was truly delighted when the title worked for me - what a relief...
those dinner parties were soooo boring .

I remember my first dinner party as a young married woman in the UK. After dinner the conversation became quite interesting, and I joined in. The lady of the house told me us ladies should retire and powder our nose (not in the modern sense of the term ) and leave the men to port and cigars and intelligent conversation.

I was fuming... and couldn't believe, that in the 70s women were still expected to behave in that way, be pretty and shut up.

And when that sketch was done with Harry Enfield was shown on TV, I knew the woman was me. Will try to find it and post. Thank goodness I went back to Uni and found interesting people to talk to

http://youtu.be/LS37SNYjg8w

there you are, brilliant

Nigel Farage really gives me the woolies

youtu.be/LS37SNYjg8w

granjura, don't you mean he gives you 'the willies'?

I did, honestly my English is getting worse by the day- been back 4 years to French speaking land )- and thanks for the link that didn't work.

This might be better...

Sorry - posted too soon!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8injvP1lJ8I

Won't bother in future.

Ana nooooo your kinked worked, MINE didn't .. and my thank you was genuine. OMG my English is getting worse if you misread my post. Sorry... and thanks again.

Really frustrating that there is no edit function here. Link!

I meant thank you for the link that corrected mine that didn't work. Thank you

It wasn't being a radical that stopped me from being invited. My cooking on my one attempt to return dinner invitations when we moved to a village was such a disaster, it put an end to these awful events - & we didn't have any silver either.
At other times, if I was seen talking with a group of female neighbours in our street I was accused by their husbands of holding a women's lib group on account of being the only one who did paid work. The same happened at work when three of us women broke through the glass ceiling (fairly low then, early 80s) & became managers. Every time we were seen talking together our male colleagues accused us of plotting against them, poor dears.

Sorry, granjura, didn't mean to sound so snippy - misunderstandings all round...

I remember the kind of conversations... What do you think about xyz Jane?
Reply 'ah John thinks that ....'. Me 'and what about YOU Jane, what do YOU thing about xyz?. Reply 'well, John says....'. Me 'that is really interesting. But what is your opinion Jane about xyz'. Reply 'oh me, I don't know.. I don't think about things like xyz. Over and over again. Early seventies in Midlands suburbia. And realised that in my native mountains we were much more used to discuss everything and anything, for the mundane to the sublime, via politics, of course A great shock to me at the time.

When I moved to Bristol to work for the DHSS, my then boss invited all of us medical officers to dinner in his lovely 3storied Bath crescent house!
After pre dinner sherry, then a three course meal , all with different wines with each course, the ladies "retired" to the lounge for coffee and liqueurs while the men had their brandy, port and cigars!
I was flabbergasted!
My, then boss was an ex RAMC colonel and still used officers mess traditions!
To be fair, he had been involved in the 'Bridge too far' affair at Arnhem!
And been a fugitive for many months. BUT! This was in the late 80s-90s!

To be honest, I'd have preferred the port and all the wives were non medical! All the men were the doctors!

I was NOT HAPPY!

Doctors, dentists, Circuit Judges, and all members of a famous organization well known for their induction antics and funny handshakes... if you see what I mean.
Flabbergasted indeed.

Hang on! A lot of my relatives and friends to say nothing of my Gardner, are members of the pinny brigade!
The majority of them are very nice people!
So are the judges I work with every day!

granjura your posts are so intelligent and incisive. I know you don't live here but you do cut through so much crap from others. Please don't stop posting (as I think you threatened to do recently) because I love reading your 'take' on things.

Hear, hear, Sel!

Ana thank you for your 'hear, hear.' but you'll be accused of being a cheerleader by those of a floral persuasion

My MiL, visiting when we were first married, told me off for disagreeing with something DH had said in a discussion. My role, apparently, was always to agree with him in public. not a piece of advice I have followed!

I do so agree about dinner parties too - shades of "Abigail's Party"! I used to be so daunted by them, married at 19 and landed into a life I'd only experienced vicariously in novels. Lovely, now, not to give a s...t.

I used to go to dinner parties for single people in London. They were quite expensive, so the people who attended had to be quite well-heeled. I used to sit getting more and more angry as the rants started against immigrants, single mothers, the unemployed - all the usual targets. After several glasses of wine, I would start to ask them how they arrived at their views, did they know the statistics, did they know anybody in their target groups, etc. Needless to say, I did not meet anybody I wanted to see again amongst that lot of smug, self-satisfied prats.

Sounds as if they'd have been terrified to meet you again, Greatnan!

But Greatnan, you missed a great entrepreneurial opportunity!

'Civilised dinners for well educated and (fairly) well heeled radicals.

Meet your soul mate and start the revolution.'

Galen, I am not getting into THAT discussion ... done it before elsewhere and you wouldn't believe what happened.
Senior one) and policemen (especially senior ones) should not be members of the 'pinny brigade' as you call them- at least without it being declared!!!