ENTERED a room? Concerned not everyone in it know you were born with coal in the bath and hatred of Thatcher in your heart? Let them know:
Food and drink
Shudder at a proffered glass of wine. Instead ask ‘Got any ale?’ and insist on drinking it warm, from the can. Explain that you don’t believe in allergies, but truffles, saffron, or swan vol-au-vents would be wasted on you, such is your mouth’s instinctive rejection of all fancy shite. Enquire as to the location of the gravy fountain.
Heroic underdog story
Whether job interview, date or conversation at the bus stop, your heroic tale of growing up in a terraced house in Watford and going to a shitty school is always relevant. Yes, you always knew you were better than your childhood holidays in Butlins and successfully escaped the cycle of poverty, but you still dance to Black Lace when pissed.
Work
Unlike the posh who wouldn’t know an honest day’s labour if it slapped their moisturised faces, you come from a long line of toilers. They slaved all day in factories and fields purely to earning their descendants working-class credibility. When conversation turns to minimum wage over the port and cheese, tell them they don’t know what work is.
Accent
Make it strong to the point of incomprehensibility. Ideally it should be a Birmingham accent, the last regional dialect that hasn’t been detoxified by a pleasant celebrity, but as long as there’s a yawning polite silence after your every utterance it’s working.
Specialist vocabulary
In much the same way as gay men in the 1950s would throw in the odd ‘bona’ you sniff out fellow plebeians by ostentatiously referring to dinner as ‘tea’. Revel in the confusion this causes, pitting the poshos against the lower orders in the style of Petrograd 1917 or the miners’ strike. And to think that your grandad once called you a ‘soft lad’.
Dress
Like Jacob Rees-Mogg cosplaying a Dickens villain, you can use clothing to signal your starting point in life’s hierarchy. Vest, pigeon on shoulder, trousers ragged at knee and face daubed with coal dust should be subtle enough. And pin your Labour Party membership card to your second-hand jacket, even though you secretly vote Tory for tax.
