She died in poverty at the age of 80, a raging snob to the end. Her nursing home served lunch at 12pm. She ate it, stone cold, at 1pm. The duchess had standards.
Both ridiculous and admirable.
She died in poverty at the age of 80, a raging snob to the end. Her nursing home served lunch at 12pm. She ate it, stone cold, at 1pm. The duchess had standards.
Both ridiculous and admirable.
“lunch”? Of Margaret of Argyll in The Times?
“Luncheon”, Shirley.
O tempora! O mores!
Yes, why should she think she could eat lunch at her preferred time? Didn’t she realise the kitchens aren’t run for her benefit?
Don’t you economist chaps have some sort of clever-sounding term for dying in poverty? Something like optimization of resource opportunities?
Seems to me that attaining poverty at the moment of death would be ideal.
“Lifetime savings hypothesis”.
Quite, JuliaM, decent people would have indulged an old lady.
Rhoda klapp, you want to spend the last of your wealth on a great holiday, come home, go to bed and not wake up.
“Seems to me that attaining poverty at the moment of death would be ideal.”
Easier said than done. On a mad whim I gave up smoking and (excessive) drinking, lost weight, took up exercise, Put years on my lifespan. Now? I have the body of a teenager and a bank balance to match.
Moral: Be consistent.
Maybe it wasn’t the time, but the temperature. If you live in a castle, miles away from the kitchens, the food is usually cold by the time it gets to the table, or if it isn’t, it goes cold rather quickly. Particularly if it is served on a solid gold plate (rather good conductor of heat, dontcha know.
@Excavator Man February 2, 2019 at 3:16 pm
Good point. Kitchens were deliberately distant from main residence as kitchen was where most fires started. Also explains why kitchen in back wing of Victorian houses, even small ones.
“She ate it, stone cold, at 1pm”
Perhaps, by then, she’d had enough coq-au-vin…
Didn’t she die ages ago?
Born in Scotland, from a Scottish millionaire family and grew up in NYC. Yet this article is filed under “ The English”?
There is no such time as 12pm… pm = post meridiem which means after midday. Midday can not be after itself!
It is 12 Noon, or 12 Midnight.
I blame the schools.