In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:

One story I tell about my issue with the Sydney mindset is: for my sister's
big 50th, I bought her the complete Oxford in Micrographic form (cost about
$300 - she's a bibliophile). Her husband bought her a $50,000 diamond ring
a humungeous and very ugly single diamond solitaire.

Ahhhh OK... that is definitely NOT the kind of circle I move in -- not as far
as the rock goes anyway. The book thing I *can* imagine!

I have met younger members of the northwest nouveaux riches; they would put a
$5000 diamond on their credit cards, but they would not go to $50K because
their mortgages are starting to hurt now. I am guessing that your sister
lives Mosman way or Vaucluse way, or possibly Northern Beaches. I have heard
of a couple of women up that way who spend their time getting pedicures, and
whose only work is hostessing for their husbands' business dinners -- not even
charitable work, and certainly not raising their children -- that's what
nannies are for. I haven't met them. I have met their employees and their
(significantly poorer) relatives. I think it is rare to find people who are a
total waste of space, though -- a lot of the glitterati do actually help out
with Variety Club and other charities, as do the Old Money types.

The closest I have got to prestige is that good friends of ours (not listed on
the page below) helped in the endowment of the John Lions Chair in Operating
Systems:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/JohnLions/

If I were to move in more rarefied circles, I'd pick the
academia-and-classical-music group, not the Variety Club Bash types. But I
would be much more likely to join the Mighty Duck River Restoration Collective
than help endow a chair.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/