stiff upper lip

In the current, so-called third design generation, the hood slopes down to form the stiff upper lip of a mouth pursed with purpose.

But if you want to climb the greasy pole, it could be best to keep a stiff upper lip, at least in some organisations, says executive coach Shereen Hoban.

Yet speaking to him reveals the specific pressure of keeping terrible secrets in the name of the English aristocracy's so-called "stiff upper lip".

"It's very much having a stiff upper lip," she says.

But she assumed that the stiff upper lip emblematic of elite British society would not make for a compelling documentary — too guarded, too interested in hagiography, too much of an all-around royal pain.