The Professional Middle Class, Apply by October 2012

Here in Tolly Maw we live more rigidly within the class system than most and I hear that the same is to be brought into place more widely across the country. Computer programmers have been annoyed since 1986 that not being an accredited profession they are at best upper working class.  Conversely boho busking-writer types share the pain being as they are big-shirted middle class fops as likely as they are to die immediately of brain-syphilis as they are to shop at Asda.

To ascertain who counts as being a professional, and thus middle class, a new government body is soon to be unveiled. Whilst formerly wearing slightly scuffed brown shoes and not punching people was enough, new guidelines that have been leaked to me here in Tolly Maw suggest that even owning a book will no longer count. From next October a professional is expected to drive a Ford Capri through a plate glass window and only exit the car on the far side before rolling over the bonnet. The new middle classes will now greet the sight of any woman with a creepily raised eyebrow and unless one wishes to wear a brown leather jacket and polo-neck jumper the then current uniform will be for sports jackets and jeans. What this means of course is that being a Top Gear presenter will be officially posher than a high-court judge, in a basque, on the day his hermaphrodite daughter marries Prince Ludo of Jibrovia, her first cousin, on a bed of really old diamonds, wearing a swan, on a peasant shoot, and that not being a typo.

So good luck with that. I’ve got a big shirt to wash.