One of my favorite TV shows is Keeping Up Appearances. It depicts a middle class British woman, Hyacinth Bucket ("It's Bouquet! B-U-C-K-E-T!") who feels that she really is a part of high society. She does anything she can to put on this appearance to anyone willing to notice. From flaunting brochures for the Orient Express and the QE2, two trips that she will never afford but wants people to think they take, telling about her Royal Doulton with the hand painted periwinkles, or demanding that she gets the same milk bottles back every morning (you know that she took extreme care to wash her's and simply doesn't want someone else's milk bottles!).
Then of course you have Martha Stewart. I have only once seen her new talk show and didn't care for it, but I actually like Martha (in a way). Yes, she recommends products that my budget will not allow, but I see myself wanting to be like her (in a way). I would love to have time to make lots of decorative crafts to fill my home (only well made non-tacky items from quality pieces), the perfect spread for entertaining (complete with real silverware, linen table clothes, perfect appetizers that took two days to make, fantastic centerpieces and lots of guests), fresh baked homemade cookies from scratch daily, and the perfect organized & clean home. I know that I will NEVER accomplish this. Unlike Martha, I must clean my own toilets and bake my own cookies, while caring for children and a husband.
In this regard I will only ever be a little like Hyacinth Bucket, that all I am is a middle class woman wanting to be a part of high society. (In a good way, I hope!)
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the show. Enjoy!
Hyacinth: It's my sister Violet! She's the one with the Mercedes, swimming pool, and room for a pony.
Hyacinth: [she pronounces it "Bouquet", and very, very shrilly] The Bucket residence, the lady of the house speaking!
Hyacinth: This is not Chinese take-a-way. This is a residential number and you are speaking to the lady of the house on a white, slim line telephone with last number redial facility.
Hyacinth: Sit wherever you like, dear... *except* there! I always like to face the window.
Hyacinth: I better answer that. It's probably somebody very important.
Hyacinth: Richard a little decorum please, that is not the sort of behaviour one would expect from a person with a reservation for a quailty cruise.
Hyacinth: I want you to instruct your superiors that this is a first class stamp residence.
Elizabeth (her neighbor): Are there any other Greeks coming?
Hyacinth: Hmmm? Oh, no, dear. They break plates. He may have a tanker in every port, but I'm not sacrificing my Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles. [pause] There aren't that many left.
Hyacinth: Now, what should I wear to answer the telephone?
Hyacinth: And you are?... Regional Postal Manager. I guess you will do, though I would have preferred to speak to someone on a national scale.
Hyacinth: How fortunate you are, Richard, to have a wife of impeccable moral rectitude.
Hyacinth: People trying to pretend they're superior makes it so much harder for those of us who really are.
Oh how I wish that show was still on TV...Hyacinth loves her sisters, Daisy, Rose and Violet even though she really dosen't want anybody to know that she is related to them. She has a father that is mental, an average husband that puts up with so much of her snobbish behaver, a brother-in-law that sorry to say is total white trash...the show is so funny.
ReplyDeleteAs for Martha...yes she has great ideas and is a talented person but so many of her projects are too costly to make.
I love Keeping Up Appearances and so does my husband! What a great show! We get a lot of British TV here and I love their sense of humor.
ReplyDeleteDo you know there really are people like Hyacinth Bucket here in the UK? My Great Aunt Nellie for one! I forgot to warn husband about her when we first starting going out together and when we met her accidently one day in town he didn't know what had hit him!
ReplyDeleteWorking Mum,
ReplyDeleteSeriously...I would have had no idea. There probably are people like that here as well.
Nicol, Working Mum is right, there are people like that in the UK. I knew someone called Trotter who insisted it was pronounced Trowterre.
ReplyDeleteLol! Thanks for sharing Paris Girl. That really is funny!
ReplyDeleteI can confirm there really are lots about in England! My dad has a friend who called and asked us to lunch, and my dad said we'd love to come but we had "the schnauzers" (our two schnauzer puppies) and this guy said in his terrible posh accent, "The Schnauzers? Oh, yes I think I've met them, why don't you bring them along too?" - he thought they were some smart German couple or something! My dad played him along until he opened the boot and introduced him to the dogs!
ReplyDeleteI had a British neighbor that hated that show and when I asked her why she told me that it was because her mother was just like Hyacinth. LOL
ReplyDelete