[QUOTE
We can all console ourselves with the thought that no matter how much we don't get certain nuances of British culture, we are not as belligerently tone-deaf as the author of this review of a Betjeman biography:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DTL&type=books
[/quote]
That is a very strange review, and hilariously misses the point of the poem it quotes & derogates. San Fran, was it? I thought they were supposed to be cosmopolitan-sophisticated there, but maybe they're just on something Thanks for the laugh, Chris.
Incidentally, don't bank on Betjeman getting everything right. Not even a refeened petit-bourgeois arriviste would 'beg pardon' for 'soiling the doilies' by putting cakes on them. That's what they're for.