Blog has moved to…

This blog has moved to www.tessadunlopblog.co.uk

Jack and Tony hand in hand.

I’ve had it with the Chilcot Inquiry – another toothless talking shop designed to purge our national conscience in the face of an illegal war. Today we learn Jack and Tony were in it together, our Prime Minister consulted at least one person. Hurrah!

History will be less kind. There is no running away from what Blair did in our name. At least in ’68 when the horrors of the human meat grinder that was the Vietnam War became apparent L B Johnson had the decency to withdraw from the presidential race but not our Tony in 2005. There were no weapons of mass destruction yet he had the gall to stand grinning in front of the electorate, anticipating a third term win. Worst of all is that middle Britain gave him just that.

Shame on us.

 Tessa Dunlop

The class war – its a dirty business.

Poppy is visiting. Poppy is so posh she even thinks the queen is common. (Too many pastels and a dubious heritage).

Mwarrh Mwarrh. I meet her at the door. Poppy is unsettled by my middle class claim.

‘Darling’ she says ‘you can’t be middle class, you have a dirty house.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You know what they say! The uppers and the lowers are united by three things, irresponsible breeding, dogs and dirty houses. And you, my dear, most definitely have the latter.’

I move strategically to hide the sink.

‘So am I lower or upper?’

‘Well you round your vowels and you’re married to immigrant so I guess you can choose.’

I politely get rid of Poppy and call mum for clarity.

‘Oh dear. A dirty house! What will people say? It’s always blamed on the mother.’

So that settles it I guess, after all no middle class girl is badly brought up.  I’m a member of the dirty lower upper class. Ok? Yah?

Tessa Dunlop

Wolfgirl

It was werewolves today on the Fred MacAulay show, (BBC Radio Scotland). I waxed lyrical on the mythologizing of the wolf and why we have turned this now virtually extinct creature into a satanic blood sucker. Fred had a David talking about the Hollywood construct that is the Year of the Werewolf while I tut tutted about our sanitised western world where we have killed off all our wolves and rely on a fat producer in Hollywood to ply us with cheap thrills. Give us back our medieval forests, the big bad wolf and Little Red Riding Hood cried I – all at once middle aged AND middle class.

Where was my inner wolf?

Help! I thought and offered to bite Fred as a parting shot. Surely good middling girls don’t bite older men?

Tessa Dunlop

It’s all take take in my middle class world

Gordon Brown is talking to the middle classes today. I wonder how many of us will be watching him with solidarity in our hearts, a sense of well being inflating our chests. Fresh from Waitrose I will put on the radio (he’s more convincing out of vision) and listen to him address the hard working families of Great Britain. In contrast it is of course with a Toff-like arrogance that Tory Osborne clattered our personal wealth this week – no more tax credits for spongy middle earners, no more free money for Johnny and Samantha’s gap year funds. Ah me and that I suppose is the difference between Labour and Conservative, wannabe middle and upper middle – the former believe in hard work for everyone (and state top-ups) and the latter, well paid work for the important few (and hand outs from daddy, mummy and various miscellaneous dead relatives). As for me, my father died in the summer and Mara was born before the £250 baby bung was cruelly cut. It’s all take take in my middle class world.

Tessa Dunlop

Post Christmas Guilt

Not up-dating my blog for a month I now realise is the equivalent of not writing my Christmas thank you letters.  The longer I leave it the worse it gets. There’s a little guilty-wilty voice – ee-ee-ee – you haven’t up-dated your blog, you haven’t up-dated your blog, you haven’t written your thank you letters, you haven’t, you haven’t you naughty girl!

Write after me:

I will do my best to do better

 I will do my best to do better

 I will do my best to do better

I must do my best to do better

Amen

Tessa Dunlop

Cutting costs Darling!

With a whiff of starry France, napkins in subtle beige and the sparkly decor a far cry from its beefy cousin’s plastic tat, Pret a Manger has earned its place as the nation’s respectable coffee joint. Countrywide, smooth talkers and ex-Oxbridge regularly meet over parsnip snacks and hot falafel wraps.

In the Soho branch James offered to pay for me (extra hot, tall skinny latte plus love bar). The barista asked if we were going to eat in.

‘No.’ Said James. How disappointing I thought – it was raining outside.

And with that he shrugged off his Aquascutum overcoat and perched his preppy rear on a shiny stool.

‘But James! You said we weren’t going to eat in.’

‘Dear Tess, only mugs pay the VAT.’

‘And if we get caught?’

‘Do I look like the sort of person they’re going to throw out?’

All blonde and foppish with a sudden daring pink flush in his cheeks I had to concede James’s seat looked safe.

He will, I realise, be less affected than most by Darling’s post-Christmas VAT rise. But then, James is middle class. (Maybe even upper-middle).

Tessa Dunlop

Out and Proud

 He’s called Ben, lives in Barnes and was wearing a Christmas jersey before Christmas. In his spare time Ben is the treasury official for his local green party and, like many vegetarians, has slightly yellow teeth. As a rule he avoids caffeine after midday.

Ben is the first person I’ve ever met who declared himself proud to be middle class.

Tessa Dunlop

P.S. Did I mention he was an awfully nice man?

Prison paradise

My mother (Anglican and well-meaning) writes to the errant youth of today who populate our local jail. She was delighted yesterday to receive a reply. It was four pages long with good spelling in a neat hand. She read her favourite paragraph to me down the phone.

To be honest Mrs Dunlop jail is far too easy for everyone. You get Sky TV remote for TV, pool tables, table tennis, Play Stations, DVD players, access to a great gym, play football, there is a canteen every week where you can buy crisps, sweets, juice, tuna, noodles etc and tobacco for smokers. Some prisoners purposefully commit an offence so they can come back to jail. That actually does go on!!

‘It’s a puzzle’ she sighed, ‘I don’t know why they don’t model prisons more on the traditional boarding schools that served us all so well – plenty discipline, lots of sport and a jolly good thrashing when things get out of hand.’

Tessa Dunlop

 

Foxy Knoxy

Can’t believe I asked if you can be sexy and middle class given the protagonist at the centre of yesterday’s media circus. For two years now Amanda Knox has been tried on Facebook, in court, in public. She was every bit the wholesome girl-next-door with a peaches and cream complexion, several languages, a love of the Beatles and parents who were prepared to mortgage their picket fenced homes to see justice done. But now Foxy Knoxy, the world’s preppy middle class focus point (pin-up?) has been convicted of murder and sexual assault. Not so sexy then. Mind you, would we care as much if she wasn’t so solidly, unforgiveably middle class?

Tessa Dunlop