Help in The Home Part 1

In the hierarchy of domestic servants the top man is the butler. In books he is generally even more important and more intelligent than his master.
The most famous fictional butler is certainly leeves.

P.G. Wodehouse created this servant, 'with a brain that made his head bulge out at the back', in the twenties. But, as a matter of fact, even then very few people in Britain had servants.

Nowadays you might even find a cabinet-minister doing the washing up.

A middle-calss family often has a cleaning-lady. She comes for a few hours a day to clean the house and do the ironing.

There might also be an au-pair girl. This is a a good arrengement for everybody.  In return for a little help with the housework and the children, the au-pair girl gets a room, her meals, a modest salary and time off every day to attend a language school.

Living-in maids, housekeepers, valets and butlers are a thing of the distant past in England.

However, there are no butlers in the queue at the Job Centre.

They all work in Hollywood now.

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Myth and Reality

Sisyphus had to roll a heavy stone to the top of a hill. When the stone rolled down to the bottom he had to start again.

The Danaids, fifty young virgins, had to fill fifty bottomless jars with water.

These were punishments in the life after death, according to the Ancient Greeks. And also symbols of a life of never-ending work and frustration.

Ancient Greek mythology is at the base of all European culture.

But the British have found a powerful symbol in a piece of 19th Century engineering.

The railway bridge over the River Forth in Scotland was built in 1890. Is is 2,529 metres long and contains 84,000 tonnes of steel.

It is repainted continuously to prevent rusting. The process takes three years and they use 54 tonnes of paint for one coat. When the painters have finished, they start again.

Faced with a never-ending job an Englishman will often say: "It's like painting the Forth Bridge" =)

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