Quote Originally Posted by Jock Scot View Post
Some shed blood ,sweat, and tears whilst also using the brain that they were given and yes the occasional advantage(some of those are rather doubtful) of bith to maintain what they consider is their duty to conserve. Some are even rather good at it.
And for the rest the National Trust exists. An organisation that exists to rescue the brain dead from the consequences of their own mismanagement. As long as they were born to the right family of course. After all, it is not their fault, centuries of inbreeding have brought us to this .
That was meant tongue-in-cheek, so immediate apologies to anyone upset by it. I realise there are instances of genuine misfortune amongst the tides.

However, while I agree with the aim of the National Trust (preservation of very important buildings) and I can see the historic links that families have to the ancestral pile ("wot-wot"), I can't quite get my head around the moral ambiguity of why a charity should fund people to stay in their own home when a similar family in a different house gets no such support. IMHO the Trust should simply offer to buy said pile for an approriately large sack of wonga, and if occupancy is desirable, rent it out to a nice nouveau riche essex footballer and his WAG who may even end up looking after the place better. After all the original ancestor of the family was probably a Yahoo too.....

Back to the original question, for those who still own the family castle, Jock and Macmillan have pointed out how it is done, basically as inventively as possible, with your fingers in as many pies as you can. One of the best examples of the type (the business model as it were) is the Marquis of Bath, who has part of his house open to visitors, has a safari park and a tv program about said park amongst other things. His estate is called Longleat. As a bonus the guy is absolutely, endearingly, completely barking mad (and is a fascinating character). For example he wanders around his stately home painting 60's psychadelic style murals on the walls. He has had 74 "wifelets" (He feels it is insulting to call them mistresses or concubines). Also, I love this quote about how he embarrasses his kids, mentioning his daughter Lenka:
“They have told me that they are embarrassed sometimes,” he admits. “Especially Lenka – she would criticise me for my polygamy. And when she was younger she would ask me not to wear handbags,” He giggles gently.
I would love to know, from a purely curious point of view of course, how he first broached that subject (and I don't mean the handbags) with his wife.....