England's upper classes.

 There he is; above. What a lot of people might think is an eccentric Englishman, or even an upper class Englishmen. Well he is neither.

That is Mister Jacob Rees-Mogg.

His father was a journalist, and editor of a newspaper and then the Chief Executive of Channel 4 Television. The poor fella, his father, had an unfortunate lisp which made him very easy to impersonate. The staff of Channel 4 would mimic him all the time.

Channel 4 was a groundbreaking television service introduced into the UK in the early eighties. A lot of it was experimental and it was part funded by the government and the other ITV stations. One of the regular late night programmes was a relaxed discussion kind of chat show with people sitting around shooting the shit. Most of the time these people would be fairly well known in their field and some would be celebrities. Also because of the late hour a lot of those were, to put it mildly, shit faced. The show was open ended and would end when the conversation ground to an halt.

One evening, Oliver Read was one of the guests and was sailing three sheets to the wind, drinking and cursing: effing this and effing that and the insults were flying with some sober person trying to talk sense to him and telling him what kind of an arsehole he was – if ever you've tried this, or had someone try and tame you when you've been pickled, you'll know all about it.

I was watching this with glee when suddenly it all went off. The continuity person was explaining why it had been taken off and then, suddenly, it came back on again.

What had happened was some wag had called the Channel 4 switchboard impersonating William Rees-Mogg and told them to end the programme – 'take it off' he said. Now William the father (not the son or the holy ghost) was The Lord Rees-Mogg. He didn't inherit this title, so he wasn't landed gentry, an aristocrat or even upper class. But he thought he was and taught his son, laughing boy Jacob, to do the same. William was a 'life peer' which meant his title died with him so poor old Jacob would have to be a Mister, not a lord. There are not that many inherited titles left and the life peerage was introduced by Harold Wilson's Labour Government in the 1960s.

Jacob will probably get kicked up to the House of Lords when his time comes. The House of Lords is the second chamber, in the UK, rather like the senate in the USA. One difference – The Lords, in The House of Lords are selected. I have no problem with this as the senate, in America, has an election every two years. One third of them have to stand every six years but as soon as most of them are elected they are fighting the next election. That's why most of the Republicans voted not guilty in Trump's last impeachment. To me the House of Lords doesn't have that incentive and, even though they can claim £350 a day expenses, it's worth it even if they all went in every day. The total added together is a teeny weeny bit of the British economy and the government borrow at a very low rate – in fact the bonds they are now selling (which is one way they borrow money) offer zero interest. The bank rate at the moment is 4.00% and reverse repo rate at 3.35% so don't tell me they don't lend some of the money they borrow - the banks charge around 30% on some overdrafts.

Back to Jacob:

Most, if not all, of the upper classes are Roman Catholic, even though the Queen, who is head of the Church of England, is a Protestant. The public school for Roman Catholics is Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. The upper class people I know all went there but I don't think many of them profess to be descendants of Charles II.

Jacob is a Roman Catholic. His father was born into an Anglican family but his mother was an Irish Roman Catholic (as I was) so that is why he is of that faith and not because he was a Baron.

The Rees-Moggs, for some reason, go for strange names: Jacob's sister is Annunziata, which is fair enough, but Jacob's children, of which there are six, has the sixth child named as Sixtus. Rather like the parents of another member of the same government, David Davies? Little imagination.

When announcing his birth Jacob said that Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher, a brother for Peter, Mary, Thomas, Anselm and Alfred.

Give me a break!!

Jacob has the attitude of an eccentric but it is practised. I have known and worked with eccentrics and they are not practised, they just are.

When the Coronavirus pandemic started last year we were advised by the government to wash our hands frequently, wear masks and keep at least six feet away from other people.

Jacob's solution was to tell us to 'sing happy birthday, twice, as you wash your hands; that should do the trick.'

For some reason Jacob, who is leader of the House of Commons, had to take over a debate and here he is conducting it:

A few weeks ago when they were debating the new fishing policy, because of Brexit, and because they dumped the fishing industry under a bus, he said the fish now being caught are British fish.

When I first moved to America I got a job selling tickets at The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Hollywood Bowl and one of the perks was free tickets. It wasn't that easy as I was a telemarketer and had to make loads of calls to sell a series of tickets. It was good if you sold them but they're not all tickets to see Yo Yo Ma or Rod Stewart, who are easy sales, but maybe a series of Mahler Concerts, a series of Schubert concerts etc. 

The first thing I learned was that the Americans pronounce most of the foreign words in their native pronunciation. The first one was brochure; the first time I offered to send one to someone they didn't know what I was talking about. I would say browsher but they wanted bre-shure. The French words kept cropping up: Maurice, filet etc although they had their own way of saying Boulevard as Bullavard and Louis as Lewis.

I found it fascinating and when I ordered Mexican food I found out that Tortilla was torteeya etc. They didn't pronounce Picasso with a Catalonian accent though.

The first time I got back to the UK I had dinner one evening with a few people and one of them was an upper class bloke and I was talking to him about the French pronunciation and then . . . . of course he wasn't impressed. And then it hit me - the colonial attitude kicked in – they didn't use French accents as they thought the Americans were plebs for doing so. 

It was the same as when they invited the middle classes into their big houses in the country and laughed at the way they dressed, the way they held their knife and fork and laughed to themselves when they referred to the lavatory as the little boys room or, heaven forbid, the toilet. You can think of the worst curse word and the upper class county set mother would sooner they asked for the shit house than use the word toilet.

Of course it can be useful to know some of these things and as an actor you have to know certain manners and etiquette when playing different roles especially in rep. Whilst living in Los Angeles we dabbled in antiques and got to know all the dealers, who were really actors, singers and writers. One of them, a girl who had small business, was also producing a play and one day she said that she knew an upper class Englishman who wanted to do business with her and she wanted to introduce us. He came along and he had the swagger, the swish of the scarf okay, but he kept calling Sri Lanka, Ceylon. And stressing it, complaining that it should be called Ceylon. He also used the word toilet. I told her he was a phoney. A couple of weeks later she told me he had disappeared. He didn't swindle her out of any money but let her down badly about some money he was to provide – I was right.

So when you look at Jacob Rees-Mogg, with his top hat and lazing about in the house of commons, boasting that he's never changed a nappy in his life just don't believe what you hear or take it with a pinch of salt as you sing happy birthday twice, when washing your hands.