What pretentious businesses have you come across?

What pretentious businesses have you come across?

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Kermit power

Original Poster:

28,642 posts

213 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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On my commute to work, I go past a furniture shop in Clapham which purports to sell "Inspirational Outdoor Furniture".

OK, I get what outdoor furniture is, and it's made pretty bloody obvious by the sun loungers and patio tables in the window, but how the hell is a piece of furniture supposed to be inspirational???

Am I supposed to look through the window and think "Yeah, that's my dream! I want to be a deckchair!"??

Is seeing an eye-wateringly expensive parasol supposed to inspire me to become a FTSE 100 CEO?

Maybe it's supposed to inspire me to move to a climate where I can spend more than a couple of weeks a year actually using outdoor furniture?

Whatever their thinking, it just struck me as completely pretentious. Anyone else seen anything similar around them?

Shakermaker

11,317 posts

100 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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I overtook a (dirty) 10-year old Passat with taxi plates, with the sign proclaiming it to be an Executive Car Service.

Europa1

10,923 posts

188 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Artisan bakeries and craft breweries.

foggy

1,158 posts

282 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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www.floating-point.co.uk

Book your floating session online at Berkshire's only dedicated float centre.

JagerT

455 posts

107 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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mike74

3,687 posts

132 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Europa1 said:
Artisan bakeries and craft breweries.
There's an ''artisan cake baker'' in my town.... buys all her cakes, buns etc from Costco and just displays them in vintage rustic baskets for 4x what she's paid for them, the local mugs can't get enough of them.

Puggit

48,430 posts

248 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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foggy said:
www.floating-point.co.uk

Book your floating session online at Berkshire's only dedicated float centre.
My wife, and all of her friends absolutely love the float tank at Nirvana Spa, also in Berkshire. Quite a clever ploy to latch on.

Yipper

5,964 posts

90 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Pretty much any retail service business that is vaguely high-end. The "suits you, sir" crowd in clothing boutiques, jewelers, airport stores, headhunters, hotels, private / public planes, car showrooms, etc. etc. Low-skill, high-snobbery cringe for most of the time.

Wacky Racer

38,143 posts

247 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Anything with the word "Designer" in it.

Pair of Sunglasses ten quid.

Exactly the same pair but "Designer"....£120.


Willy Nilly

12,511 posts

167 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Most of the shops and businesses in Leigh on Sea.

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Kermit power said:
On my commute to work, I go past a furniture shop in Clapham* which purports to sell "Inspirational Outdoor Furniture".
<cough> Balham <cough>

Look at you, trying to glam-up your commuting route! wink

austinsmirk

5,597 posts

123 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Watches. There's even a forum on here about them.

HappyMidget

6,788 posts

115 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Greg66 said:
Kermit power said:
On my commute to work, I go past a furniture shop in Clapham* which purports to sell "Inspirational Outdoor Furniture".
<cough> Balham <cough>

Look at you, trying to glam-up your commuting route! wink
Isn't Balham the "Hip Place To Be" these days? Clapham is old hat. Though St. Reatham on the Hill is obviously better tongue out

MX51ROD

2,745 posts

147 months

Kermit power

Original Poster:

28,642 posts

213 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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HappyMidget said:
Greg66 said:
Kermit power said:
On my commute to work, I go past a furniture shop in Clapham* which purports to sell "Inspirational Outdoor Furniture".
<cough> Balham <cough>

Look at you, trying to glam-up your commuting route! wink
Isn't Balham the "Hip Place To Be" these days? Clapham is old hat. Though St. Reatham on the Hill is obviously better tongue out
I don't know, I just ride through it! biggrin

It's in a dip. One side of the dip it's definitely Balham, and the other is definitely Clapham, but I've no idea where the dividing line is.

Wacky Racer

38,143 posts

247 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
quotequote all
austinsmirk said:
Watches. There's even a forum on here about them.
Indeed.

Anyone who spends more than £100 on a watch needs to give their head a wobble.

My last watch cost £6 and lasted twelve years..

nerd

Cold

15,237 posts

90 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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BMW showroom. To me it's a diesel company car seller. Even the (now diluted) M brand can't save it from such drudgery.

J4CKO

41,499 posts

200 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Locally we have an "Artisan Market" and to be fair, there is some nice stuff but I avoid it now as end up spending a load of money on some expensive and weird cheese, some deeply mediocre beer, Chilli sauce I never end up eating, some drastically overpriced sweets and she usually buys a bit of driftwood with a picture on it or some nonesense.

You get suckered in with a "free" sample, then feel obliged to buy a loaf for £3.

I got into an argument with the guy who did the Roast pork things, it was a fiver and it was a cheap and ansty doughy white bread roll full of cold, inedible gristle served with all the care a bored kennel hand can muster, it was almost five quid, I went back and he offered to replace it and I said I wanted my money back as the rest didnt look great either, he said no and was a bit arsey so i just tossed it onto the counter and said to the rest of the folk in the queue not to bother, I dont mind paying five quid for something nice but when it is sub par Icomplain, I had been looking forward to it, went next door and got a burger which was much better.

Artisan my arse

texaxile

3,290 posts

150 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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The stalls at a majority of the ones I've been to have been staffed by young men wearing beards, huge earlobe earings, sleeve tattoos and tight jeans, or girls with purple hair, dark lipstick and tattoos on their hands.

I'm all for private enterprise and wish them every success, but I'm not buying the whole "artisan" thing, it's basically what local farm shops used to sell much cheaper and better presented back in the day, but without the 90% mark up which these shysters are charging. For example, how is the "artisan" "organic blackberry jam" any different from the "blackberry jam" my mum makes from the blackberries in her back garden - apart from the £4.89 price tag that is?.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 23rd January 2017
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Kermit power said:
HappyMidget said:
Greg66 said:
Kermit power said:
On my commute to work, I go past a furniture shop in Clapham* which purports to sell "Inspirational Outdoor Furniture".
<cough> Balham <cough>

Look at you, trying to glam-up your commuting route! wink
Isn't Balham the "Hip Place To Be" these days? Clapham is old hat. Though St. Reatham on the Hill is obviously better tongue out
I don't know, I just ride through it! biggrin

It's in a dip. One side of the dip it's definitely Balham, and the other is definitely Clapham, but I've no idea where the dividing line is.
h

It's all fairly arbitrary. I think the parade of shops tagged onto Clapham South tube is Clapham, then one drops off the edge of the map into the BalhamAbyss.

I used to ride that way sometimes in the evening to get to Balham pool, aka verruca-ville and home of used sticking plasters that have sunk to the bottom of the pool. Used to hate riding down that hill past the Inspirational shop since cars would happily turn into or out of side turnings regardless of bikes. Or so it felt.