Past lunch Removing junk from attics
Past dinner Clearing debris from cellars
Overnight Weeding in the rose gardens
Two days Wood chopping
Three days Land clearing
Four days Hay making
Five days Roofing work
Six days Estate road repairs
Seven days Sludge digging
Eight days Sewer cleaning
Further incitements to leave can be dreamt up following instructions to servants to leave beds unmade and to turn off both hot and cold water in the guests’ wing and by cancelling lunch after your visitors have missed breakfast. Outright violence although being the most immediately effective, should only, as a matter of courtesy, be resorted to last.
Upon Being Required to Work as a Guest
Pretending dizzy spells acts as a deterrent and feigning rupture provides complete immunity. With long moans as you are carried back to the castle. When the doctor is called to examine you it is merely required to wince when he presses in the area you have selected. A discreet phone call to your lawyer overheard by a servant, concerning your injury, assures you of no further chores and comfortably adds another week to your sojourn. Your host may even invite you to invent horrid jobs to help get rid of the other stayers.
The Willing ‘Let’s Go Gang’ Guest
Even before breakfast this early rising chap will, while doing knee bends in his overalls, ask you straight off where the tools are. And further request to be directed to a job the host’s been meaning to do for a long time. Such as the demolishment of an old shed. Outside of which the impatient guest will announce with a smile.
‘So this is it, just watch me.’
Stand well back as your impresario mounts the structure to give it the works. Remove even further back as he poises there right on the roof smiling down triumphantly. Just before he raises his sledge. And thunderously crashes it down. With the entire roof giving way asunder beneath him.
Let the dust clear first before administering first aid. And remember, even though your worker lies contorted in the rubble, this is a blessing in disguise. Remove him to retire for the week in your best chaise longue, fully contented, and happily injured. Because sooner or later this eager helper would have broken your own arse as well as his.
Upon a Commoner Encountering a Member of the Titled Classes
Be totally calm and nonchalant. Don’t stand on too much ceremony. Use a few opening throw away lines but avoid.
‘Gee it’s nice to meet somebody who really knows their place.’
Instead get straight to the point. Admit that for the time being you are yourself without a distinguishing handle to your name. This is understood immediately by the aristocracy. Indeed they welcome to be surrounded by commoners.
Use his or her title once or twice, then if the conversation is going well, employ the impersonal ‘you.’ But beware there are some titled people who do not like to be reminded that they have one, and they take immense pleasure at being abroad incognito so to speak. It is ill of you then to call them out of the blue Lord or Lady or other titled address. Instead nudge them quietly in the ribs and shake your head knowingly up and down. This of course entitles you to the privilege of being taken into His Lordship’s confidence which can be further deepened should he ask you for a loan. If you are crazy enough to give him one, this will temporarily cement your relationship.
The noble classes are fickle in their selection of friends, always preferring new groups of people who are more easily awed by their rank thus making conversation more amusingly ripe for ripostes. Remember, the titled set, from their long enjoyed positions of superiority, are outspoken and even more so since many deeply resent not having been born normal nobodies. Therefore on no account ask what does it feel like to be a lord, since some aristocracy have rather vituperative natures and his reply may be.
‘First perhaps you might tell me what it feels like to be a fuckpig.’
Upon Being a Member of the Titled Classes
Always remember who you are. This is easy provided you accept your lot in life. And freely acknowledge that through no fault of your own, you gain the respect of others without much effort on your part. As a result you will often be more humane and understanding than more ordinary common folk. And the worst that can happen to you is when you marry beneath you.
Before you know it after the ceremony, your newly titled wife will take to hitting you with the usual curtain pelmets and table sized bronze cast objects of art. And her screams will be heard all over the castle by the servants.
‘You mouse, you absolute mouse.’
Don’t try to live with this. Commoners always expect far more from a title than it can ever give and their disappointment can frequently make them dangerous. Put Her Ladyship in irons in the dungeons. You will be amazed at how quickly this bitch will then learn between her blazes of anger which side of the aristocracy her bread is buttered on.
The Wife’s Disappearance at the Country House Party
Disguise your woebegone depressed spirits. And carry in your search an open bottle of champagne. Knock at the various chamber doors, as it is not done to burst in upon your wife and her companion just to see what filthy minded thing they may be up to. Instead inquire.
‘Hey Louise, Louise.’
Or in pukka.
‘Are you there my dear.’
Then enter gently. Even when she has denied her presence. If she is compromised, shake the champagne bottle vigorously and with your thumb on top, squirt the contents liberally into your wife’s companion’s eyes. Then douse Louise and take a good swig yourself.
Food Throwers
Begun usually by estranged couples, once this victual flinging starts, everyone will do it. And as the first roll is thrown one should step in to quell matters before they proceed further. Since soufflés and other scalding entrées speeding through space are very splattering. With folk jumping to their feet in some pain and angrily upsetting the place settings around them.
An odd singular piece of asparagus if lashed about light-heartedly can at least be delicately picked off one’s dinner clothing by the fingers and should be tolerated by any fair minded host. Or mashed potato which can be removed by knife by scraping. Be cautious with cranberry sauce however, which landing on white garments can in resembling blood, really panic folk.
Should your dinner party have become an out of control concussion match with opponents catapulting croutons and petits pois across the mahogany, don’t fight it, go with it. And when you desire to quell the uprising approach the original perpetrator from behind. There, slowly crown her with the contents of the fresh fruit salad bowl. But be warned. Although this immobilizes and rivets everyone’s attention it also gives them new ideas.
Upon Encountering Strange and Suspicious Noises
Groans and screams accompanying murder and affray and those emitting from lips enjoying a saucy little game are not easy to differentiate and struggles and thrills in either of those two undertakings can sound exactly the same. Thereby giving rise to a plethora of embarrassing incidents whereupon the enraptured are visited out of the blue by other folk not similarly stirred at that particular point in time.
As a matter of courtesy always confront the enraptured in a gradual manner as they are often, as they lie or stand, devoid of covering with parts or parts of parts flagrantly displayed. To them it is deeply unsettling when burst in upon by folk with pitchforks and drawn guns when all they have are whips, dildoes and handcuffs. But where the protagonists are only naughtily locked in love lower your voice and weapon immediately and announce.
‘Holy cow.’
Or in biblical.
‘Jesus Christ.’
Upon Changing Your Sex
Dignity along with a suitable christian name are the key words when you do this. But make up your mind it is for the final time. Nothing causes more uneasiness among your close friends than your delight to appear as a man one minute and a
s a lady the next, unless, of course, all your chums are doing the same. Nor is it becoming to take advantage of your previous gender and if recently male and now female, to be overly coy when the first gentlemen make their advances, or when rejecting a suitor, to suddenly sock or flip the poor guy on his arse. Although provoked to behave otherwise, conduct yourself as a lady at all times.
Women who have become gentlemen should grant all courtesies to their presently opposite sex that they hitherto enjoyed as females. Make sure that those who may have cause to grab or feel your recently added appendages, know what they are in for, if these are not exactly what your normal person would prefer to expect.
Upon Nude Encounters with Servants
Upon a male servant confronting his female employer’s stark nakedness he should take no undue notice of her nudity and on no account should he drop what he is carrying. A butler encountering his mistress in the altogether should address madam as if she were fully dressed. And especially avoid being facetious with the remark.
‘Madam is looking her best this morning.’
When encountering her master’s nudity it is becoming for a female servant to drop whatever she is carrying and then to deflect her glance even when requested to take a closer look or to make comment upon her employer’s gifts of nature. Should His Lordship advance upon her person, she ought to withdraw coyly and giggling. In cases where passions become kindled and ignited, do not overly prolong activities or dally to make small talk when the deed is done. And normal formalities of address may only be abandoned during orgasm. Remember there is a household to be run. And insolence lurks but a caress away.
Upon Being of a Colour in an Area Where Such Colour Is Not Highly Esteemed
Keep smiling. If asked what you are smiling at. Keep moving.
Upon Some Guest’s Kid Abusing Your Chattels
Close upon the offending little bugger and grasp him firmly by the ear until the kid says.
‘Ouch, what are you doing that for.’
Then still attached to his hearing appendage tug him around you in a circle, releasing your grip when his feet leave the floor. Upon the recalcitrant rascal picking himself up, admonish him with your severely wagging finger.
‘I’m not going to let some little bastard like you come in and wreck my god damn house. I’ll kill you first.’
Should the culprits be a pair of brothers getting up to mischief, take each by an ear and run in a forward direction but beware this pair will later be conspiring to set alight whatever they can find inflammable in your cellar or attic. And indeed should you be a bibliophile they will delightedly fuel your library fireplace with your more ancient first editions.
Upon Suffering Social Descent as a Member of the Gentry to the Lower Classes
Soften this by taking employment in a household similar to the one to which you were accustomed. As a married couple you can work as butler and maid and continue your enjoyment of long corridors, stately rooms and open vistas of parkland. Most likely your new employers will be nouveau riche and insensitive to your past dignities, nevertheless you should be sporting about their failings in not being to the manner born. If you have been slung into basement quarters, remember that your waking day is spent above stairs. And that when the master is away, you can enjoy a brandy and cigar in the comfort of the library without that obtuse money making jerk around.
There will be supremely disheartening moments serving at table. Especially when accosting your previous friends who are taking second helpings of the asparagus and who have not yet fallen upon hard times. Being restrained and spectacularly dignified at such moments is de rigueur. Speak only when spoken to. Later on in the evening in the withdrawing room while you’re cutting the cigars and serving the port and liqueurs and when guests are a little squiffy, you may then be a trifle more familiar. While serving the port, it is permissible due to your past elegances to take a sip but remember to comment upon its character and condition thereby still performing your function as a servant of the household. Your cigar sampling should be done in the pantry as it is entirely wrong to blow out your smoke in guests’ faces. Which is more or less a way of telling them their days are numbered before they end up like you.
Now and again you will get aggressively drunk and abuse your employer and point up his lack of manners or breeding. Although this is acknowledged and understood as reasonable occasional behaviour consequent upon your fall from grace, don’t make a daily practice of it. And above all don’t do it in front of other household servants. Although these latter are now your equals, you must continue to lord it over them. Not to do so will produce worse indignities than you’ve already had in your come down.
The Au Pair
Au pairs are usually possessed of extra large appetites and will shortly after they arrive, suggest to you the brands of food they like. Upon a cake being produced in the kitchen, they will take the first wedge out of it before it reaches your guests and the nerviest may even try on your underwear. If you cohabit with them, they will often embarrassingly pretend to be from socially superior families and as they he late in bed will offer quite unbelievable exhibitions of brazen impertinence in being requested to get up. And don’t be surprised if, encouraged by your familiarity, they even further expect you to play the more demeaning roles in your naughty lewd little games.
Upon Inheriting a Title or Gaining Rank
There are still plenty of opportunities in the bath to behave like the ordinary person you used to be. But make it clear straight off that you are no longer just the same old George you were in your previous status. Exact from those around you the suitable and necessary protocol that goes with your new position. For old times’ sake exceptions may be made for your closest intimates to call you in private an arsehole. However, it is recommended not to be too lenient about this, and an occasional reference to your title and rank should be required as well.
Attending the Reading of Wills
This is an awkward time. And on no account slap your thighs and put your head back to roar out loud laughing when you are mentioned as the sole or largest beneficiary under a will and those whom you hate most are the least or are excluded altogether. It is permissible however to assume an air of righteousness and laugh like hell when out of sight.
If the will ignores you or leaves you pathetically entitled, be seen weeping. But do not stand up or bounce around in fury. Instead after wiping your eyes, go into calm consultation with your lawyers near the door where whispers are overheard that there will be an impending legal holocaust with claimants galore.
Upon Encountering Massive Windfalls
Head immediately for the cruise ship. Fully reclined on a steamer chair reading the classics is often where one can best come to terms with mountainous new wealth. It takes time and imagination to groom yourself morally and physically to the enjoyment of spending a fortune. Be patient and sit tight You’ll think of something. Above all do not celebrate or give money away. Thereby you prevent the spreading of the problem you’ve got.
Upon Being Sued
This is often how you meet your first lawyers, a section of the population who charge only what they hope the traffic can bear. Which is a lot. They are employed by people who desperately don’t want to roll up their sleeves and have a fair fight. So get ready for plenty of turpitude and plan for the long haul. It takes time and money to sue you. Before final judgements are handed down your opponent may be crazy, bankrupt or dead. If you can spot a lawyer’s letter without opening it and can return if marked deceased, this is a trump card. If you cannot suppress your desire to reply, then state.
Dear sir,
Only for the moment am I saying nothing.
When the World Rats on You
It’s amazing how good they are at timing this so that they’ll all be together. But before you lose all your faith in human decency, check first to be sure that all windows and other entrances to your premises are securely fastened. Then ask for mercy. This is when they will come at you m
ore eager than ever for the kill. Choose the most unpleasant looking and make sure that he goes with you to your doom. This improves the world. And it is seemly to commit a beneficial act upon your departure. Plus the prospect of going down with you discourages people ratting on you in the first place.
Upon Inlaws Moving In or Trying to Commandeer Your Property
It would amaze you how they think they can present themselves and take over things they decide you don’t happen to need at the moment. Have no truck with this kind of nonsense. And with those who find it rather comfortable to take up residence in your house and intend to settle in, don’t stand on ceremony. Instead fly into an evening rage giving them notice of an early hour the next morning upon which you require them vamoosed or else. This hysterical manic threat worries and weakens them during the night and by the time it’s time to go they’re glad to be gone. Especially if you hint at your recent sleep walking tendency for throttling folk in their sleep.
Upon Stabbing Folk in the Back
Although thought despicable, this low down dirty rotten filthy trick is getting more and more popular with nearly everybody. Especially when it’s your closest friend sticking in the knife. But no matter how this is done, the guy you do it to is invariably deeply resentful since he always thought you were his pal. Try to make him understand how necessary it was and how reluctant you were to do it. Otherwise he might turn around and bust you one permanently in the face.