The shoe shiner at my firm today explained to me that Americans really like getting their shoes shined whereas the British don’t have it done. The reason for this, she explained, can be found in British public (i.e. private) schools where only “fags”, as she put it, shine their shoes and then all the other rich boys beat them up.
Americans, by contrast, she explained, love getting their shoes shined because they are “fond of animals” what with all that killing and beef and skins. Also all the horse riding out and about in the free. “We don’t do all that in England.”
ABEV: a bird's eye view 
A couple of years ago in Vienna a diplomat pulled a gun and shot at (didn’t hit) the shoe shiner in the Marriot hotel in a bid to convince the latter to end his lunch break and start shining shoes. Apparently, Americans aren’t only ones who like a nice shine.
http://wien.orf.at/stories/96595/
Your firm employs a shoe shiner? What’s next–a firm tailor? A firm chaplain?
A “public” school “fag” is not what you think.
Justin,
I think The Firm has a chaplain, a soothsayer, and a vampire.
We have a shoe shiner downstairs in our building, but I never get my shoes shined. I guess I still have some brit in me after all.
I think The Firm has a chaplain, a soothsayer, and a vampire.
Sounds like a place i worked once. ๐
Well, we really do have a firm chaplain. The Easter services were yesterday at Spitalfields Church.