I thought it was a joke when I read in the Daily Mail that the Duchess of York participated in an advertisement for English Mentors, a service that promises to help children of foreigners fit into upper-crust British society.
It’s no joke, folks. This venture has a website, which includes details about the mentoring they offer, as well as must-see video. (Love the military guy!) If you’ve got an extra £100,000 sitting around, you can pack off your nose-picking Dmitri or chavvy Brittny to an English country house where a member of the British aristrocracy will show them the proper way to dine, dress, interview for boarding school, and stumble out of Mahiki at 3:15 a.m. without looking bleary eyed. Well, that last one I made up, but you get the idea. Around the halfway mark, I fully expected John Cleese to step in with, “And now for something completely different …”
Here’s a link to the video for English Mentors. Let me know what you think. I loved the little slip of Manchester United near the end of the vid — was this a subliminal message for the Beckhams and the Rooneys to sign their kids up pronto? Or children of Russian oligarchs or Arab sheiks need only apply?
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I am speechless!
As someone who went to a good high school and a bloody good university, I can tell you you don’t need this “mentoring” to get where they promise you’ll end up. Moreover, if you think by plonking down a lot of money the “green wellie brigade” will let you into their inner circle, you’ve got another thing coming. Brilliant marketing ploy though. what’s that saying? There’s one born every minute.
Astonishing! This seems the sort of thing one might have seen 50 years ago, not now when more pressing problems weigh on the planet. I should like to see etiquette and many of these subjects taught in ordinary schools to the masses. Far more important to teach the underprivileged how to get on in the world and live graciously than to teach those who already are in the strata of society who can afford this “mentoring.”