MIKE SAVAGE is Professor and Head of Department in the Department of Sociology at University of Manchester. His most recent book is Social Change and Class Cultures in Contemporary Britain (Open University Press). - ALAN WARDE is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Research in Innovation and Competition at the University of Manchester. His many books include Eating Out: Social Diffentiation, Consumption and Pleasure with L Martens, Consumption Food and Taste: Culinary Antimonies and Commodity Culture, and Contemporary British Society (third edition) with Nicholas Abercrombie et al. - KEVIN WARD is Lecturer in the School of Geography at the University of Manchester.