[Q] From Ben Ostrowsky: “In a letter to the editor published in the New York Times on 29 September 2008, Lindsay Gray commented: ‘In Britain, we have an expression, “kippers and curtains,” for status-seekers who would bankrupt, even starve themselves, in order to project an image of affluence.’ Can you explain what, if anything, kippers have to do with curtains — and how these are related to status-seeking?” [A] Thank you, and by extension Lindsay Gray, for reminding me of this British working-class expression. Alex Hannaford remembered it in an article about her childhood in the East End of London that appeared in the Evening Standard in September 2003: “There used to be a saying ‘all kippers and curtains’, which ...