I was listening to a middle class do-gooder on Radio 4 yesterday. You know the sort of person. They believe we should all eat organic food and knit our own electric cars.
She was asked by the presenter if the local, grow-your-own-food schemes she promotes didn’t demonstrate a class divide. Wasn’t it another example of middle class do-gooders at work?
‘No!’ she brightly proclaimed. ‘For instance, in Stroud they have got local low income families involved…’ And who are they? You got it – MCDGs.
Such schemes will only be truly classless when people from all walks of life decide to join them of their own volition, not when a MCDG pushes them into getting involved.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve nothing against mcdgs. I have every respect, for instance, for Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whatsisname. But I do think it’s sad when people don’t realize how patronizing they’re being.
When I had an allotment in Barkingside (north of the torrid jungles of Ilford and south of the footballers’-wives country of Chigwell) the inhabitants could be divided, roughly, into four groups.
The people conspicuous by their absence were what used to be called the working class, who were too busy engaged in conspicuous consumption, polishing their nails while watching 60-inch plasma TVs.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t think we had any patronizing MCDGs at our allotment: they were as scarce on the Blessed Plot as shell-suited chavs. Everyone at the allotment just mucked in with everyone. Perhaps the Knit-Your-Own-Birkenstocks Grow-Your-Own-Muesli Raffia-Mafia brigade felt themselves above such things…
I think the thing about allotments is they are very individualist, where MCDGs like to be in groups so they can organize other people (preferably the proles).
I think that MCDGs (I call them Guardianistas, actually) consume food, rather than produce it. They see themselves as connoisseurs, and have probably never ventured outside Islington. They have wonderful farmhouse-style kitchens, but would never dare get them dirty with actual food. Why bother, when the restaurants in Islington are so good?
@Henry: A geographical observation – could it be that the Guardian’s mancunian origins are confirmed by a district in Manchester being called New Islington?
@Brian D: wow. that’s one of those creepy things that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Now, do you want to see something that’s really scary?
Henry – is that a threat or a promise?
Just a figure of speech, Brian, culled from The Twilight Zone.
I’ve never liked twiglets. Or marmite. (But great advertising.)
Ah, Marmite. The glue that held the Empire together.
@Henry. With full circular cultural reference here is the Guardian article on New Islington. The bizarre thing is that the residents (former social housing occupants and not MCDG’s) chose the name for themselves!
Fascinating article, Brian, thanks for the link. A better solution would be to transport all the proles to Australia, except that Richard P. Grant is already there.