The lower middle class of army officers and bureaucrats who rose in the revolution have joined the gentry they were supposed to have ousted , adopted their haughty ways and now share egypt 's spoils with them .
Small wonder producers want to cast him into the past , installing him as an emblem of the lost generation , fated to be sent off to war , pickle his promise in gin or preside over the sweet , sad decline of the landed gentry .
He compared the situation to the foot and mouth crisis when farmers were forced to cull their cows to stop the disease spreading . " It is for trees what foot and mouth was for cows , except there is no compensation for the landed gentry , " he said .
