In the halycon days of golden Albion, the stoic visage of the nation were our noble aristocracy, while the multitudinous hoards of tarnished labourers turned the handles of mighty industry with quiet, invisible dignity.

Alas, modernité! Today, nouveau nouveau riche imposters swarm Kensington and Chelsea, donning the Barbour jackets and Hunter wellies of the upper class – with barely an acre of ancestral grouseland to their name. To help us navigate this topsy turvy Where’s Wally kingdom – we asked etiquette expert Dalton Piercy for his advice on spotting a social climbing commoner:

Listening to the shipping forecast

Gentlemen prefer to navigate primarily via the humours; navigational aids have been unfashionable since Viscount Bilsbury rejected the sextant in 1803. 

The Shipping Forecast is considered especially unsportsmanlike, and helming a pleasure craft into a tragic maritime disaster is practically a rite of passage for the upper crust.

Breathing through one’s nostrils

The truly posh breathe through the mouth. Air passing through the nostrils is viewed as unsanitary and vulgar, while mouth-breathing aerates the teeth and more efficiently ventilates acrid gases.

Nostrils may be used to vent smoke past dusk, especially when wearing a smoking jacket – even OG HRH King Charles has been seen using his nostrils at the occasional evening function.

Consuming herbs

The upper class consider flavoursome food to be gaudy and unwholesome, prefering a plain and practical diet. 

They subsist mostly on a paste of ground barley, usually fed through a tube directly into the stomach. For additional vitamins, they may consume a malty byproduct of ale production called “grusk”, which is usually smeared lightly onto the gums .

Wearing fine linens

The upper class abhor gentle, soft fabrics, and prefer rugged and sturdy garments

A horsehair cilice is favoured, providing continual mortification of the flesh. When worn from childhood, the cilice causes the development of a thick and gnarly hide.

Owning curtains 

A gentleman is not ashamed of his body, and prefers to roam his extensive grounds undressed. His sturdy figure should inspire fear and awe in the servant classes. Curtains are shunned, and windows are slightly convex, magnifying his noble frame to guests and onlookers.

Using decimal numbers

The Royal Family famously deny the existence of the metric system, and exclusively use fractions. For distances, the pre-imperial “creft” is preferred – roughly the length of three mature boar. Liquids are measured in “thumbs”, and mass is never acknowledged.

Integers are avoided, and multi-digit fractions are admired. Port, for example is usually served in 11/82 thumb carafes.  

Drinking water

Water is the lubricant of jobbing rustics – the posh prefer alcoholic drinks, which they usually call “quaffs”, never “booze”.

Scrumpy is drunk at breakfast, mead at lunch (brunch is always shunned – too American), bitter at supper and WooWoo over pudding. 

Alcoholic drinks are encouraged during pregnancy, school hours, and long drives. Temperance is looked upon as a lower class perversion, and even as a violation of natural law.

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