Winston Churchill was not considered intelligent enough to be admitted to Eton, but still a score of British prime ministers spent their early years at Berskhire County College, as did numerous High Court judges, royals from all over the world. the world, actors, dictators of various kinds, newspaper editors and establishment figures. The elitism of the institution is unquestionable, a ten out of ten.
But despite this, and the fact that tuition costs over sixty thousand euros (with no discount for good grades or having older siblings, it is rightly assumed that parents are wealthy), Eton had to delay the return to class after the Christmas holidays because a succession of storms and rainy fronts have overflowed the town’s sewage system, and the use of the toilets by 1,350 boys who live as boarders at the school could have caused greater harm and a deadly hygiene crisis. Everyone received the notification to stay at home (or in their countries) until further notice, in contact with their teachers by videoconference and studying (supposedly) remotely.
In the world there is no valid balance and in some places (like Catalonia) it does not rain, while in others (like England) it rains too much. In recent times Eton has made an effort to modernize, establishing scholarships for bright boys from humble families, celebrating movements such as
Needless to say, the problem has made the influential parents of the future leaders of humanity very happy, and the anger has not been taken so much by the school as by Thames Water, the private water company that supplies London and the largest part of the south of England, and whose lack of investment in infrastructure is well known. Its unsustainable level of debt has led it to turn to shareholders to maintain the pipelines and stay afloat (pun intended), but that is nothing compared to the scandal of having dumped 72 billion liters of putrid water into the Thames since the year 2020. His request to raise rates in the midst of the inflation and cost of living crisis has met, logically, with fierce opposition.
The militant environmentalists of the organization Just Stop Oil have attributed the problem to the effects of climate change and suggested, not without a certain irony, that perhaps, because it is Eton, the British Government will finally realize the consequences of the use of fossil fuels, and take more seriously the commitment to eliminate it completely by 2050. In this way, he says, not only could the planet be saved, but the students of the famous school would relieve themselves without fear of clogging the toilet.
Founded in 1440 by Henry VI (which did not save him from being imprisoned in the Tower of London and beheaded), its credentials are unbeatable, having studied and played the hooligan in its classrooms George Orwell, the economist John Maynard Keynes, Princes William and Enrique, and 20 of the country’s 56 prime ministers, from Robert Walpole to Boris Johnson, through David Cameron, William Gladstone, Anthony Eden (of the Suez disaster) and Harold Macmillan. To “enhance his masculinity,” Arthur Balfour’s tutors forbade him from wearing glasses even though he was terribly nearsighted. He had a hard time and developed the fatalistic thought that “few things matter, and nothing matters much.” Alec Douglas-Home, who resigned from being an earl to occupy Downing Street, looked like a dead fly (not like Boris Johnson), but he hooked up with the school principal’s daughter and married her.
Etonians rally around each other and are characterized by a self-confidence that easily crosses the barrier of arrogance and looking down on others. But if, in order not to be intimidated by someone, all you have to do is imagine them in the bathroom, let alone in an overflowing clogged toilet in the most exclusive school in the world…
