Much amused by Ms Hyde’s latest...
Jan. 23rd, 2020 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersOp-Ed in the Graun:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2020/jan/23/want-to-know-what-racism-feels-like-ask-laurence-fox
Harrow is a great, old school. Shakespeare may not have gone there; but Byron and Churchill did.
Forty Years On... Harrow was arguably a more fashionable school than Winchester; and of the big three (Eton, Harrow, and Winchester) Harrow was both a sophisticated metropolitan establishment that most definitely wasn’t Westminster (which was the fourth school at the top table), and Harrow was Eton’s foil and rival. Winchester and Westminster were (and are) both “clever” schools with a strong intellectual ethos. Eton and Harrow both called themselves “comprehensive” schools in as much as they educated folk of all abilities regardless if they had the correct entrance criteria. The jokes were that this criteria used to be either a parent at the school, or a grandparent in the House of Lords, or owning a bank... and then the name down from birth for whichever house your parents have placed you in, iirc.
Anyway, rumours were that Young Fox had a difficult time at Harrow and didn’t get on with authority or the stultifying atmosphere of a school that still teaches Latin and Classical Greek. Maybe it’s not the school’s fault. That Cumberbatch chappie seems like a good egg of the best kind. (And he’s a thespian too.) And as much as his music really (really) ain’t my thing, James Blunt is a pretty decent sort of cove.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2020/jan/23/want-to-know-what-racism-feels-like-ask-laurence-fox
Wherein she calls Fox’s alma mater, Harrow, a minor public school. Much mirth about chez Ninefingers at that description, tinged with a sort of sadness. Of the Clarendon nine Eton, Winchester, and Westminster have retained their positions. Rugby and Shrewsbury are no longer fashionable, being a bit far from the smoke. Charterhouse is on the cusp, as it has always been. But Harrow, poor old Harrow.
Ampleforth became quite a fashionable school for a bit among the C’tholic upper classes; but it’s a bit far from the smoke too. Harrow should be thriving. Instead, Marlborough has become quite fashionable for the gentry.
Harrow is a great, old school. Shakespeare may not have gone there; but Byron and Churchill did.
Forty Years On... Harrow was arguably a more fashionable school than Winchester; and of the big three (Eton, Harrow, and Winchester) Harrow was both a sophisticated metropolitan establishment that most definitely wasn’t Westminster (which was the fourth school at the top table), and Harrow was Eton’s foil and rival. Winchester and Westminster were (and are) both “clever” schools with a strong intellectual ethos. Eton and Harrow both called themselves “comprehensive” schools in as much as they educated folk of all abilities regardless if they had the correct entrance criteria. The jokes were that this criteria used to be either a parent at the school, or a grandparent in the House of Lords, or owning a bank... and then the name down from birth for whichever house your parents have placed you in, iirc.
Anyway, rumours were that Young Fox had a difficult time at Harrow and didn’t get on with authority or the stultifying atmosphere of a school that still teaches Latin and Classical Greek. Maybe it’s not the school’s fault. That Cumberbatch chappie seems like a good egg of the best kind. (And he’s a thespian too.) And as much as his music really (really) ain’t my thing, James Blunt is a pretty decent sort of cove.
