For the most part I find Londoners really easy people to talk to. They are highly experienced in the art of pub banter, they pride themselves on the ability to utter crude witticisms and they are incredibly free with certain four-letter words. In essence, they are my kind of people.
However, there is one subculture within London society that has the ability to irritate and aggravate without fail: posh boys.
There is one particular type of posh boy that I cannot handle. They are the type that treats Australians and New Zealanders as though we are cavemen/cavewomen with little to no knowledge of history and culture. You can tell by the way that they lower their voices and speak slowly when explaining something to you.
“We went to the Tate Modern. Have you heard of the Tate Modern? It is a museum. Have you heard of a museum? It is where they keep art.”
Um, yeah mate. Thanks for that, I would have been struggling to figure out what all the things hanging on the wall were otherwise.
I once had a drink with a posh boy recently who had been dating a good friend of mine. We had just come from a football match at Millwall and were an appropriate level of tipsy and jovial. We were, that is, until Captain Buzzkill came to meet us.
There were a number of typically pompous statements made that night, far too many to mention in print. The critical moment came as we stared across the river at the stunning image of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Monument. Someone asked when the Great Fire of London was, to which I responded with the correct answer of 1666.
“No, no. I work near Monument, it was in the 1800s… Maybe 1880? Perhaps you’re thinking of the invasion in 1066?”
I assured him that I was not and that the Great Fire occurred in 1666 during the reign of Charles II. I became increasingly frustrated as this allegedly well-educated City trader stubbornly refused to believe that he may in fact be wrong.
That is the thing with posh boys though, isn’t it: they have an exasperating tendency not to admit defeat with grace, especially to “convict stock”.
I may not have gone to Eton or had a swanky job managing intangible commodities but at least I knew that the Great Fire of London happened in 1666. It was a small comfort but a very satisfying one.
IMAGE: Via Pixabay