-ism
obscurely related to the latest Duffy title, I thought I would set up a ranting space as we do get reactions to Ms Duffy sometimes. I haven't read her poem yet. Everybody on WOL appears to have fallen asleep for a hundred years, or at least a week. What are you all up to?
Feel free to use this space for status update if that is your desire.

Freda I think you've got your Etons mixed up.
I would read the poem first.

Yes the Olympics and Eton do have some thing in common - they both have an 'O' in them.

any more correlations folks?

"The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton."
- As quoted in The New York Times (26 December 1886), and in Words on Wellington (1889) by Sir William Fraser, this is almost certainly apocryphal.

The first attributions of such a remark to Wellington were in De l'Avenir politique de l'Angleterre (1856) by Charles de Montalembert, Ch. 10, where it is stated that on returning to Eton in old age he had said: "C'est ici qu'a été gagnée la bataille de Waterloo." This was afterwards quoted in Self-Help (1859) by Samuel Smiles as "It was there that the Battle of Waterloo was won!"

Later in Memoirs of Eminent Etonians (2nd Edition, 1876) by Sir Edward Creasy, he is quoted as saying as he passed groups playing cricket on the playing-fields: "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo."

- courtesy of Wikiquote

I thought it was Abba, Brighton, 1974 until I looked it up.

Extreme elitism -> or aspiring to be the best - or at least among the best?

Well I did say I hadn't read it. The link didn't work for me. Have read it now. I never knew it was there. Used to teach in Carpenters road back in the 60's and several of the children came from that little network of roads. Fancy that.
Nothing wrong with aspiring to be the best, in my book. Elitism is not about aspiring, its about turning round on the ladder and kicking the people lower down.
Hogging tickets and making money and getting the best because you are rich.

My Concise Oxford dictionary defines elitism as "advocacy of or reliance on leadership or dominance by a select group". This can be met
in all fields of endeavour and may
or may not include those who would selfishly kick away any ladder of opportunity sought by others.