It's official: we are all middle class. At least, most of us are. According to new social grading data, 54.2 per cent of us are now anchored in non-manual professions, the group fondly known by marketeers and TV schedulers as ABC1. Blue-collar workers (to use another marketing term), who in the Sixties made up two-thirds of us, now count for only 45.8 per cent of the population.

But there's more. Just as you relax with your glass of shiraz and switch on Radio 4, I must warn you that being bourgeois is not quite enough. There is a new arena for the haute bourgeoisie these days, and it is the land of the "mass affluent".

Mass affluence is not some sort of pandemic. According to the insurance group LV= (no idea what the = sign means; fairness, maybe?), "MA households" bring in more than around £60,000 a year, but, more importantly than that, they are the owners of common totemic items. The list is not made up of obvious signs of wealth – flashy jewellery, fur coats, sports gear or electronics – but things that represent personal space and how we use it.