Keeping Up Appearances - Living the Hyacinth Life
Living the Hyacinth Lifecontains the first half of the last series  of British sitcomKeeping Up Appearances, chronicling the  shamelessly pretentious middle-class Hyacinth Bucket (comic powerhouse  Patricia Routledge), who answers every phone call with her shrieking cry  of "Bouquetresidence, the lady of the house speaking." Her  relentless efforts to be held in higher esteem include buying skis for her  bewildered husband Richard (Clive Swift), not so he can actually go  skiing, but so that he can have them strapped to the top of his car and  look posh. She is perpetually embarrassed by her lower-class sisters Daisy  (Judy Cornwell) and Rose (Mary Millar), to say nothing of Daisy's slobbish  husband Onslow (Geoffrey Hughes). This fifth series also includes the  long-awaited appearance of Hyacinth's more economically successful sister  Violet (Anna Dawson), whose married life is an endless squabble.--Bret  Fetzer