Self-respect and interpersonal skills? Forgo them with a matured trust fund.
I wish I’d asked the name of the taxi driver who refused to leave me standing on my tod in Farringdon. As well as possessing a fine command of most of the expletives in the English language, the guy was a true gent. Quite unlike the pointless, vile nonentities en route to Russell Square who enriched my life with their bigoted take on existence that I thought (mistakenly) had been razed to ground level with the Empire.
I’m sure it’s incredibly amusing that insecure public schoolies are kindly enough to advise passers-by to end their miserable lives before dismantling their peers and tagging slurred judgement on their perverse (and presumably, expensive) sexual lives – John, whoever you are, you probably should get tested as well as getting that hole in your thigh sutured by a medical professional – but my serf’s sensibilities were enraged by their female company who threw a note at the driver at the end of their 200 yard journey, adding with contemptuous complacency: ‘Don’t worry about the change. No, it’s alright…daddy gave me twenty grand’.
My amazement was short lived as I recalled a column that used to take a social stereotype each week and gently probe them with satirical syntax for the amusement of the reader. Whatever happened to that? Never mind, in it’s absence Tilly – let’s call the cash dispenser that in place of ‘random girl in a taxi’ – is a perfect example of her kind, having spurned the social path of capitalising upon her excellent start in favour of getting bombed on Bollinger and flinging notes around like a trench-coated patron in a ‘gentlemen’s’ bar. Cheers to Tilly: I salute your blonde hair, cafe-au-lait subtle spray-on tan and dependence on your abudanct patriach.
Socio Path #1: The trust fund parasite
Today did not start well for Flora and her playmates. The driver failed to turn up at the specified time and – how tremendously frustrating – couldn’t promise to get her to her first engagement, blaming lots of traffic near Holland Park. It’s the third time this has happened this week and she’s beginning to suspect that the pesky man doesn’t actually want to do his silly little job properly and get her to lunch before they stop serving the set menu at Piccolo’s. Just as well Melissa is as understanding as she is tardy.It seems to be getting tougher, this life thing. Since graduating from Exeter it’s all been the same; Aunty Sally calls bi-weekly to find out how her ‘man-nabbing’ is progressing and – since she worked out how to email on her mobile – has been flooding her Blackberry with homemade lists of most eligible men in the West London with military precision and compulsive regularity. Sweet really, but Flora is finding it increasingly difficult to keep Jimmy, her on-off-on-off bit of rough guitar-playing dreadlocked lover a secret from the rest of the Deacon clan. Not that they’d ever mind her having friends from ‘diverse backgrounds’; Mummy was very keen for her to volunteer her time helping the unfortunate when she was at Rodean but Flora can’t imagine her parents being able to understand, let alone accept, Jimmy’s Mersey mumble and dubious table manners.The job thingy is exhausting too. Having accepted Uncle Peter’s kind offer to help out a bit in his little gallery on the South Bank, Flora doesn’t quite have the heart to tell him that she’s not really that into pictures and that she really should do the LPC that she’s been enrolled on in September before her ‘study fund’ runs as dry as the Pimms mix that Tobin and Marie insisted they get in. Ooh, time to pay the taxi and Tobin’s left his wallet in the club again. It’s okay; Daddy gave her twenty grand, remember?
