Had a chatty chap chumming me home last night and then Lo and behold he appears behind me this morning. So I thought I would alert him to our excellent forum. His response took me aback slightly
"What is it they are complaining about?"
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Tae see ourselves as others see us
(59 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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"What is it they are complaining about?"
Fair question, I hope you told him.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I once mentioned the forum to someone I know on Twitter, and he said...
"Ah, the Edinburgh middle class cyclists forum", or something to that effect.Posted 9 years ago # -
I've had it up to here with that chatty guy Gembo met last night.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Well Gembo's jokes ARE pretty awful. Exhibit A.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Ah, the Edinburgh middle class cyclists forum"
Where are the other ones?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Wonder if that's what the Eeninoo will describe it as the next time they reference it?
Perhaps buying and mirroring it on innercitycyclingedinburgh.info would ameliorate the impression. Probably just end up attracting hipsters.
Posted 9 years ago # -
No swearing and no personal insults does make you quite middle class.
Also we are possibly a shade less blokey?
Posted 9 years ago # -
"No swearing and no personal insults does make you quite middle class."
Really? (Well I suppose there was that 'reality TV' posh bloke living in poverty on his genteel estate.)
"Also we are possibly a shade less blokey?"
Than? (Still haven't found notmiddleclasscitycyclingedinburgh.info.)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Less blokey than the comments on road cc, I do not read other bike forums as they are not pedantic enough for me
Posted 9 years ago # -
Maybe having no swearing and no automatic-signature/footnote-containing-bike-specifications-and-strava-ratings helps make it less HNNGNGNGNGGRRR. Maybe because it's primarily a chat-forum rather than a chat-forum appended to a news/reviews site or a discipline-specific-magazine site. I meant to go and check a couple of the others to see if any of the NEPN wheelsuckers are on them complaining about people complaining to them about their wheelsucking.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Good point I checked EdinburghWheelsuckers.com and they have been complaining about middle class pedants complaining about being wheelsucked. Calling us wimps and whingers.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Can a forum be middle class (or any class)? This being Edinburgh there is only one way to find out:
"So CCE, you have been in the forum business for a few years now and seem quite successful. Can I ask what school you went to, as you seem quite familiar."
Posted 9 years ago # -
If it's pedantry you're after, I understand a Cycling Forum beginning with a Yet, possibly including Another letter in its acronym, is in the running to win the British Isles Pedants Championships. However I cannot confirm this, as naturally I spend all my web forum time here, no two-timing no siree.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Every comment I make on here is essentially a complaint about my own tendency not to celebrate the child-like joy of pedalling a bicycle.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"So CCE, you have been in the forum business for a few years now and seem quite successful. Can I ask what school you went to, as you seem quite familiar."
A few years ago I worked for a well known Edinburgh institution where, for the first time, I came across the distinction between having been to School and having been to a school. Few things in my life have made me keener to learn to field strip an AK47.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Mine are all about the difficulties of carrying foccacia home on my Pashley whilst sipping a chai latte.
Actually, I can see their point..
Posted 9 years ago # -
A few years ago I worked for a well known Edinburgh institution where, for the first time, I came across the distinction between having been to School and having been to a school. Few things in my life have made me keener to learn to field strip an AK47.
I feel sure I have been asked a few times which school I went to. It is such a weird question (for me) I don't really remember who was asking. I have only recently realised that there was probably some sort of significance to it. Personally I am a bit surprised they needed to ask but maybe they were just confirming?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Personally I am a bit surprised they needed to ask
Imagine the scenario. You're a former pupil at a private school in Edinburgh. A colleague was not a school chum at the alma mater, and has an accent that can't quite be categorised. How then to know if he/she is "one of us" or "one of them"? Politeness aside, one simply must ask, then the matter is settled once and for all.
You can see how frightfully difficult all this must be, can't you? Picture the after dinner cocktails if "one of them" is invited by mistake!
Posted 9 years ago # -
after dinner cocktails
@crowriver - you have revealed yourself to be one of 'them'. Perhaps you might be more comfortable with a bottle of beer in the kitchen?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Perhaps buying and mirroring it on innercitycyclingedinburgh.info would ameliorate the impression
I live in the New Town. Can't get any more inner city than that in Edinburgh. ;o)
On the whole School thing, I'd be interested to know in which industries/lines of work it's particularly prevalent. It may be I'm a bit blinkered on it, or perhaps that I work for a larger-scale outfit, but having worked here for 17 years I have never been asked which School I went to.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Nothing shows the difference between Glasgow and Edinburgh more than the motivation behind the question "what school did you go to?"
Personally, I get sick of people who don't complain about stuff that's rubbish. They, more than the people in charge, are why stuff is rubbish.
I also find it a bit strange that there are cyclists who don't think money should be spent improving the safety of cyclists, but then I don't understand people who shrink-wrap themselves in lurid colours and sponsor's logos and grimly cycle everywhere like they're being chased by baddies either.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@IWRATS, ah, right you are guvnor, it's a fair cop. Have I tugged my forelock in a sufficiently grovelling manner, sire? I'll just be fine in the scullery, your lordship.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@crowriver
You may borrow my AK47. I stripped it last night.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Because of my BBC radio 2 accent accidentally gleaned from Scottish (Glasgweigien) parents cancelling out the horrible north east accent I should have got, I find that I am often the target of assumptive and accusatory statements like
"you must have gone to fettes then"
or
"Which school did you go to" from people who didn't goto these schools.Perhaps they're desperate to prove that I'm NOT one of THEM.
Works both ways perhaps.
How could I possibly have a background with yachts and have travelling if I went to a rubbish comprehensive school in Hartlepool...
Saying that I am HORRIBLY middle class...
Posted 9 years ago # -
FWIW, in my experience the really posh people don't ask these questions. They simply don't have to, and are usually (again in my experience) quite comfortable rubbing shoulders with those lower down the caste system (as long as it's only temporary, you understand).
The worst snobs (again in my experience) are the less comfortable, rather more precarious people slightly lower down, somewhere in the upper division of the middle classes. The kind of folk who are jockeying for position, advantage and power, often in the professions or management roles. Of course, it does depend (to some extent) on the person...
Posted 9 years ago # -
My sister was old enough to have developed a lovely north-east accent before we moved south, but I was only 2¾ so hadn't picked it up yet.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Oh, and for those wondering where the 'School" question gets asked, over the years I've never been asked directly (it must have been obvious I was an imposter) but anecdotally I have heard tell of others (often those who went to "middling" private schools) being asked the question (presumably by those who went to "prestigious" private schools). Contexts in which this question was posed include: the BBC, NHS, academia, armed forces, legal profession, and financial services.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@calmac I think I know the forum to which you refer. I followed a link to it from a negative comment about one of Magnatom's videos on Twitter. Just awful. I presume they would call themselves "roadies" and they see all complaints about and attempts to improve dangerous road conditions for cyclists as reflecting badly on them. Weird macho nonsense.
Posted 9 years ago # -
One of my neighbours is a retired painter and decorator. He quite often says things to me along the lines of 'you'd mibbe no ken that seen yer a toff'. He reckons I'm a toff because I say 'window' and he says 'windae'.
People who have been to School do not ask me which school I went to as I am clearly a jumped up Jock.
Posted 9 years ago #
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