Pre-occupation with Class

I couldn't have said it better myself. Terence Blacker in the Independent looks very sharply at the truest and worst sterotype of the British: their snobbery. He lists a plethora of examples, which I shall not name here, and he does not address why class should be so close to the forefront of British thinking, but it is interesting.

In response to the section lower down in his article, I have not noticed "a plague of ladybirds" (ladybugs, for you Americans) in my Scottish garden. Two years ago, when our garden was a jungle, we had plenty. But since we've cleaned up the garden, re-laid the turf and started mowing the lawn on a regular basis, the ladybirds have been missing. I bought 25 online earlier this summer, May perhaps? to feast on an actual plague of aphids I had in my border. It was like putting a fat person in the middle of an all you can eat buffet. They stuck around for a while, while the aphids disappeared. Then they vanished. Lack of food? Found another source? I don't know. But I saw one yesterday on a leaf, a little red bead in the sun, so they can't have all gone.