I live around the corner from one of our major boys' public schools. The lads are all right. They tend to obstruct me in the bakery, but that's just their sheer mass. Some I like more than others. For example . . .
A few of the sixth formers come to school in cars, and, having only recently gained their licences, the novelty of over-revving has not worn off. The other day, one beetle-browed youth, having just sent a few important text messages on his mobile, pulled away from his parking space with a furious smoking of tyres. As he did so, he was watched from the pavement by a couple of his fellow pupils. "I hope he realises," said one of them, "that every time he does that, he's wiping pounds off the value of his tyres." I preferred the boys on the pavement to the one in the car.
It's quite poignant to watch them pretending not to be public schoolboys. They call each other "man", for instance, as in: "Have you finished your Latin prep, man?" Black Americans began calling each other "man" to counteract the slaves having been called "boy". Why should English public schoolboys do it? Answer: inverted snobbery, which accounts for a lot in our populist, ironic era. Here are three acts of inverted snobbery that I alone have committed in the past month.
1. Read Call for the Saint by Leslie Charteris and left it on top of the pile of books by the bed, in full knowledge that my wife is constantly showing guests into every room of our new house.
2. Attended the launch of a new, literary novel with Autosport sticking out of my jacket pocket.
3. Purchased a second-hand, veneer-fronted amp of Seventies vintage to act as the basis of my new sound system, because it reminds me of my dad's valve radio, it lights up inside like a little grotto, and will flummox and annoy any technically sophisticated person who sees it.
The trouble is that, in order to be a true inverted snob, you have to profess downmarket tastes and opinions while possessing all the credentials to be a snob of the primary sort. Here I fall down, having been educated at a secondary modern. But the boys at the public school around the corner will be able to play some great games as they get older.
