OK, I know this should have been done last week. Just as the Whitney Houston post should have been done the week before. As you may have noticed, I work at my own speed, not at the speed of the internet society, so I will always be more than a bit behind.
“Downton Abbey”, an ITV Masterpiece mini-series ended its second season on PBS last week. As an American wife of a Brit, I was intrigued by the show, but a little afraid to get into it. Then a nasty cold along with a cough that would just not go away (it is still hanging around like a very unwelcome visitor) I decided to give it a chance. I was able to catch up rather quickly with the show since it is only seven episodes per season. Those British love their short seasons, perhaps just to drive the viewers crazy. It is a period costume soap opera, and I was hooked.
- Dressing in formal wear for EVERY DINNER is insane but the norm for the super rich back then. I wonder if that is the norm today, but I cannot see Sir Richard Branson getting into a tux and tails just to have a bit of nosh.
- The rich can actually be nice to their servants! I am not quite sure that is true, this may just be part of the soap opera and possibly some republican wet dream devised to show that the rich aren't so bad after all. Let's not make them pay their fair share, and with the wonderful Earl of Grantham it all trickles down...
- Penmanship must have been quite important back then. Every day letters come for everyone bringing wretched news. But it had to be read, so the penmanship must have been great. Now I know why they kept pushing it on us at school. Though now it might be better to have keyboard typing lessons, or better yet, voice activating lessons. Our kids are so lucky now that they don't have to mind writing their p's and q's so much.
- Smokers are evil. The smokers are Thomas and O'Brien, when they meet outside for a smoke, that is when they brew up their little schemes such as to get the new valet fired. I am sure there are many other smokers in that house, but we are not seeing them light up.
- Gongs are not just for Asian societies, they can actually tell the rich Brits when to get dressed!
- Americans who marry the British Aristocracy and live in the UK may not develop an accent but their method of speaking certainly is “British-like”. Lady Cora Crawley has not developed a Madonna-esque horribly fake accent, but she does speak quite carefully and very rarely in anger. She is definitely not an American anymore.
- On average, servants are more conservative than their masters. Really? It seems more logical that that the less conservative servants did not last long at those jobs.
- There were gay people before 1960. Well, duh. But, it certainly wouldn't have been written about since a love affair between a lord and a maid was the kind of thing that populated fiction in those days. An affair between a Duke and a footman, shhh, that is not spoken of...
- Love is only acceptable to a person who is in your caste. OK not caste, class. Even if you are the “acceptable” male-female paring, you also have to be equivalent in the right sort of way or it will be a horrible disgrace on your family. If your foolish daughter still falls for the gorgeous Irish chauffeur, then you say he is political and a journalist – even if he just got that job two days ago.
- During the first world war, these great houses became convalescent homes for the war wounded elite. It seems that now, we do not do that much for our veterans. Would Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg open their homes today to help a veteran recover? I know there are fewer wounded due to our “modern” and hopefully mustard gas free warfare, but we certainly do not take it as seriously as it was taken during the two world wars.
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