Word: genteelism
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...Union decision had been so sudden and quiet even within the company that executives, asked for corroboration over the weekend, denied any knowledge of it. The denial made no difference. Whether because it wished to re-emphasize its position as a pace-setting copper producer or because of some genteel arrangement whereby it drew the task of moving first, Union had decided on a price hike. Within two days, companies in two other large copper-producing countries, Chile (560,000 tons annually) and Zambia (750,000 tons annually) upped their price to 42? also. Smaller copper countries followed suit...
...long ago, gallerygoing was a genteel affair. To and fro across carpeted floors swept the art lovers, sipping sherry. Safely up on the wall were the paintings, framed and titled, with prices on request. But no longer do the panes of varnish give onto idyllic visions of pinky Titian nudes, fluffy Millet sheep, plush Poussin valleys. Nowadays, avant-garde gallerygoing is more like the full 100 yards, with the visitors swivel-hipping through art works that threaten to tackle the visitor's body as well as his sensibilities (see color pages...
...whose masterly style of address covers and serves a cold-spirited egotism that blights every living thing within its reach. George Lockwood is first seen as he supervises the building of a manor house for himself outside the town where the murderous skulduggery of Grandfather Moses and the more genteel avarice of Father Abraham have made the Lockwoods one of the richest families in the area. But his chief ambition is to be the first Lockwood gentleman...
...Right Honourable Gentleman, by Michael Dyne. They don't write plays like this any more. Thank goodness. Gentleman is a neo-relict from the mothballed fleet of melodramas that Shaw laid to rust when he attacked the theater of genteel piffle. Those bygone plays were Victorian clutched-handkerchief-and-smelling-salts operas. With more calculation than wit, Playwright Dyne drapes sex in bombazine, drops gossip in pear-shaped tones, dredges up his plot from an actual 1885 scandal, and clearly depends on fresh memories of the Profumo affair to titillate his audience and breathe secondhand life into his play...
...espionage here appears as an unromantic, ethically dubious business, transcated by people of limited talent and honesty. A vestigial branch of British intelligence, large and powerful during the war but fallen into genteel desuetide, receives a report that the Russians may be assembling a missile base in East Germany. A charter-plane pilot is induced to veer off-course to photograph the countryside and a middle-aged courier, sent to Finland to retrieve the film, is run down by an automobile on the way to his hotel. His death may mean that the Russians really are up to something...