A grand day out

I introduce Shark, Tiger and Squirrel to posh, attending a performance at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

The evening already followed on from a cultured day out at the British Museum with Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Here I photographed the back of Squirrel's head to prove an (upper crust) education is indeed being provided. (As you can see, she last combed her hair in February.)

But I was not told off by the museum guard, not at all, even though photography in the British Museum exhibitions is strictly not allowed. I like to think I avoid any challenge to my actions thanks to my natural command of the situation. A striding-about confident manner and a sense of righteous entitlement that I obviously share with all English posh.

Also I have found the technique useful, of sidling up to anyone in even a minor position of authority and attempting to divert attention from my inevitable transgressions by wheedling and whining, and using my extensive repertoire of grovelling and ingratiating. (And if all fails, I can kick off Tiger so she can create a diversion and I can get away with it.)

My posh also did not glide quite so effortlessly at the Royal Opera House, it is true. I had a fight with the ticket man. He started it. But I am gracious enough not to punch him on the nose. That is another feature of English posh, which I include for the benefit of the American reader in Minnesota. We do not like to put anyone in an awkward situation. Like flat out on the floor, even though they deserve it.

Afterwards myself and my young charges sat outside hunched over a Tesco value meal (cold and reduced) not at all looking like hobos in hoodies, nor fending off an aggressive pigeon, nor commenting in loud voices about how pointless are ballerinas and how they have no bosoms.

Also, I should confess, the performance at the ROH was not Die Zauberflöte so I am maybe stretching the posh. It was Marcus du Sautoy, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science, taking over the underground theatre, running through a set of number-related stories to explain how Mozart was a freemason and hid stuff in his flute. Which opera, incidentally, we are not seeing because I cannot afford to chuck 200 quid on a seat and by the time I got to the website, all the cheap seats without a view were sold.

Anyway, it is something to do with polyhedrons.

Nonetheless, bar for the fight and the small amount of hissing, I conclude that we are probably quite posh today, enjoying the sort of upper-class education usually reserved for young ladies of gentry folk. Oh, except for the tomato dribble down the left bosom, and the squint. Don't count those, either.