Hi Selma First, pray what gated community do you live in? And "paradise"? The mind boggles! I was able to drive right to your door-step without a gate in sight! (JC please note). There was very wide two-laned open entry to your block of new flats with welcome signs for people to view flats for sale that were quite reasonably priced too. There was absolutely no sign of any 'gatedness' (security consciousness/awareness) or 'gateitude' (attitude) if I can coin entirely new terms just for the hell of it! Further, I could tell very quickly that the location would definitely not need any kind of gates for a long time to come--if at all.
Second, middle classes in different parts of the world will look for 'gatedness' depending on the environment. They most certainly do so in many cities in Brazil because murder rates are among the highest in the world in San Paulo, Rio etc. Indeed, well off middle classes there have to commute by helicopter to feel safe and have to employ armed guards too. In neighbouring Buenos Aires (Argentina) space that is money engendered, separates the poorer people from the better off and 'gatedness' of the Brazilian type seems not necessary--as far as I could tell. Third, in the UK, the middle classes definitely do not "huddle" together. They can afford to stay in more affluent spaced-out areas and particularly well away from council house type of working class areas. The middle classes, and especially those financially well off, progressively move to the more salubrious areas that are determined often by space that money buys, and generally not gates, to keep away the riff raff. In other words, the riff raff are physically distanced from the affluent middle classes and it is quite easy to distinguish areas by social class by just driving through them and I have yet to see a gated-community in my several decades here. In the built-up city, affluent areas generally do not have gates though individual homes may have electronic gates as the increased disparity between rich and poor in Blair's New Labour Britain has been a major contributer to crime. It sure takes quite a while to accurately 'suss' out living complexities in any country. Regards Cornel PS Re your expressed disappointment elsewhere about Dickens and his several affairs, were there not a number of women who colluded in the man's romantic and sexual desires? So, why just deride only him as you do? --- Carvalho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I woke up this morning to read that Britain would be > hit by gale-winds of upto 60 miles per hour. Looking > through the windows onto the garden that forms part > of the gated-community I live in, all seemed > blissfully calm. This, I realised is why the > middle-class the world over, huddle together and > cloister in gated communities. I took my daughter > out and played ball, secure in the knowledge that no > ill could come to our corner of paradise.