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June 16th, 2012

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I like observing how class dividers are different from country to country. If you’d asked me when I was a student in Britain, I would have said, more or less, a privileged or university education. It drew, in my eyes, a clear line through British society. But I changed my mind once I started working. Now, I would contend that it’s whether you earn enough to send your toddler to nursery. The alternative, which involves one of you staying home for three years, really is a grisly prospect.

I’ve never lived in the US or France, but at a pinch I’d guess that it’s respectively healthcare insurance and not having to queue to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Four hours last Saturday! I kid you not, although I did have the privilege of stopping a Russian queue-barger. “Sorry, are you in security?” was my opening gambit, after stopping him with my forearm.  

And in Denmark, it has to be having a car and a summerhouse. Because when I read a feature like the one on summer festivals, I contemplate taking my family to one of these ‘We’re so beautiful, don’t we know it’ affairs by public transport, dismiss it and very quickly realise that I’m in the gutter.

Not that it’s a major source of irritation, but I have recently been riled by how the rich (let’s call them that) are currently trying to scrap a bank holiday Friday instead of a Thursday because they know they’ll take the following Friday off anyway (just like every MP did) and spend it at their summerhouse.

Fortunately, our features this week are not elitist in the slightest. Kids Corner recommends a great place to pick your own strawberries, Select Shopping has found some one-kroner condoms, and we’ve finally found a decent international book club.

Be careful about who you hook up with though – the lower classes (while I’m lower in Denmark, I remain middle in my home country) tend to have frightful taste in literature.