Britains first Finishing school for Gentlemen

[JagLover]

How to carve gentlemen out of 'rude' boys
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
(Filed: 14/10/2005)

You have to learn how to carve the Sunday joint if you want to cut the mustard in polite society.

You also need, according to the proprietors of Britain's first finishing school for gentlemen, to be well versed in ballroom dancing, proficient in self-defence and capable of making small talk and speaking in public.

The first students at a new "etiquette college" in a castle in Aberdeenshire will also learn the rudiments of fly fishing, golf and shooting.

The school opened yesterday following complaints from pupils at a female finishing school that their boyfriends "only grunt" at them.

It aims to inculcate in its customers social skills that once were taken for granted, and to counter an increasingly brusque and "rude" society.

The plan is to send into the world men who are more James Bond than Jamie Oliver, more Noel Coward than Noel Gallagher.

For £650 a head, the students will also be taught during a three-day course how to "meet and greet" and how to "send and reply to invitations".

By lunchtime they could perform the Tony Blair "power handshake" - firm, but not too firm, with a twist of the wrist to keep his hand on top - and had been taught which knife and fork to pick up.

In the afternoon, they moved on to public speaking, basic car maintenance and networking, which included a guide on how close you should stand to a new acquaintance - 6ft is comfortable, 2ft is virtually assault.

Then there was advice on how to use body language to escape bores at parties, and how to tell whether a member of the opposite sex was attracted to you.

The school, which will be held once a month at Lickleyhead Castle north of Aberdeen, was set up by Diana Mather, a former BBC presenter, and her business partner Penny Edge.

They already run The Finishing Academy for girls, in Cheshire.

Under the motto "teaching life's essentials", they aim to attract a wide range of "unfinished" men.

Mrs Mather said: "People are so rude and arrogant these days. Everyone is out for themselves, it is all 'me, me, me'.

"Good manners are ageless, classless and timeless and we were inundated with requests from wives, girlfriends and mothers to create a finishing school for men.

"It is about teaching people self confidence, and we will deal, for example, with people who find themselves in top management positions but come from a very different social background.

"It is also a sad fact that good manners and the simple business of saying 'please' and 'thank you' used to be taught at home and at school but rarely are nowadays."

[AlexH]

I think its a bloody good idea; in fact, I thought of it myself a while ago. There are so many life skills that you don't tend to learn from school, parents or peers and just pick up as you go along, so wouldn't it be great to actually learn them all together as soon as you're old enough to appreciate their use. I can think of lots more things they could add to the curriculum, but good luck to them.

>> Edited by AlexH on Friday 14th October 11:41

[nonegreen]

eh?

[FourWheelDrift]

It's a real life "School for Scoundrels"

[timmy30]

A gentleman always lets the lady finnish first

[JagLover]

I wonder if they teach how to get in and out of a car

[funinthesun]

Moderately related story...

have a friend , Dave, who is Half jamaican and half Gahnaian( sp?), he's 6'4" tall , and at the time of this tale he had a full head of dreadlocks...

in a bar in Brixton with another friend , and we were gettting some drinks while dave was over the other side of the bar, we saw a big black guy go over to dave and start talking to him, this lasted about a minute, then the guy just turned around and walked off shaking his head, so we wandered over to dave and asked what the other guy wanted and why he walked off like that, apparently he had started talking to Dave in a very thick jamaican/south london accent, and after a while Dave had just said , look i'm terribly sorry but i cant understand a word your saying( dave is from gloucester and has had a full public school education, uni etc, and has a very home counties accent ). we absolutley cracked up...

cant judge a book .. etc..

[thanuk]

Seems like a good idea but how much can you learn in 3 days?

[speedy_thrills]

That’s a good idea, the only problem is it will show some of us up for the classless scum we are.

[cosmoschick]

JagLover said:

I wonder if they teach how to get in and out of a car

Namely, an Elise!

Suave and sophisticated men (who play rugby!)

[r988]

thanuk said:

Seems like a good idea but how much can you learn in 3 days?

Thats what I thought, they would get maybe 30 mins on each subject listed there, hardly comprehensive. I reckon they would need at least 3 weeks, especially for that price