Pre tension
Newtown Civic Centre Sydney around 1990 methinks. Two mediocre punk bands played then a soecial surprise performance piece was staged. The piece consisted of several very fearsome looking lesbians smashing the shit out of these two old twin tub washing machines as a more petite member of their group shouted anti men slogans into a mike whilst an intense industrial tape loop played in the background. The night descended into a shambles after that when the next band came on and the room divided into lesbians vs others. Washing machine parts and Strongbow cider bottles were hurled across the hall and you can guess the rest
(rodgerroop, Thu 6 Oct 2005, 0:34, Reply)

The Arnolfini in Bristol
Nice building, good caff, good bookshop. But the art they put in there is some of the wankiest, po-faced self-important up-its'-own-arse shite I have ever seen, this includes several degree shows ( including the one I was part of ).
( uncle bastard is twanging a dan moi, Thu 6 Oct 2005, 0:16, Reply)

I used to teach drama
Drama itself tends to attract pretentious people, and drama teachers are no exception.

I used to teach in community/achievement centres in deprived neighbourhoods which meant I could teach pretty much what I liked - no curriculum for me!

So what did I teach these 10-year-olds who we'd dragged in from the local crack den? Pretending to be a tree? Guess the animal?

No, I insisted on doing Shakespeare and the concept of satire.

And you know what? The kids loved it. : )
(Pachey, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 22:37, Reply)

University - home of pretentious bollox
If you want pretentious bollox, go to Uni. There's lots of it about. I went to Oxford and on the whole I met some v nice people but I didn't half see a lot of pretentious wankers: 1) girl who used to dance in the quadrangle semi-naked in the rain, because she said it was the Muse caressing her skin encouraging her to paint.
2) I was tutored by a certain well-known Irish poet cum critic who regularly appears on the Late Review / Newsnight Review and he wrote/writes the most appalling poetry. Never understood any of his lectures or tutorials. Everything had to be related to Ireland in some tenuous way. But to be fair to him he wrote me a nice letter after my Finals.
3) Lots of "normal" paupers pretending to be friends with rich people who own half of Cornwall and pretending they like them and braying loudly cus they think it's ironic.
Sigh....I loved being a student. Not.
(SpongyMonkey is an honorary East Anglian on, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 19:26, Reply)

Meltyyyyyyyyyyy
A couple of years back the girlfriend dragged me to a University drama show that one of her friends was taking part in.

After an hour of shite about two girls living in a flat, the ladies involved came to the front of the stage, stripped
naked and proceeded to wank each other silly while the lights strobed and they screamed that the world was melting.

Best £2 I ever spent.
(electrichamster, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 17:01, Reply)

Jamie Oliver!
..no, seriously!.. I mean, Spag-Bol with ground NUTMEG!!?.. Who is he fucking kidding!
( mikenco, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:59, Reply)

At Reading festival
in the olden days when they had a cinema tent, they used to show 'art house' films of absolute toss between the the maine presentations.
They must have thought a bunch of pissed up stoners would be the only people that would sit through that shite.
How wrong they were...
( Monsieur Monster I heard Seriously talk the first time. in here., Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:55, Reply)

any youth drama production
you know the kind of thing, you're at some school concert to see your mate play the piano, or play in his band, or sing a song or something. midway through the concert some of the people doing Drama will put on some serious play, involving pretentious crap like having someone next to one of the actors putting their hand on his shoulder and saying what he's thinking.

one i saw recently was like this.

one 'actor' pointed at someone in the audience and said "bang bang you're dead". then someone else said it, then someone else and then there ended up about 10 people shouting it and pointing over and over again with a crescendo until the sound was annoyingly ubiquitous.

then suddenly they all stopped.

and the first one said "bang bang we're all dead"

that was it. it got applause.

apparently it was something about gun culture. sounds like a load of old bollocks to me. i hate drama.
( Spunky McPunk http://facebook.com/despondentrock <--my band!!, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:52, Reply)

iPod

... when St Steve presented the first ipod i thought: so what, it's another mp3 player, it's not gonna change anything. (thus steves praise being pretentious bollocks)

how wrong i was. again.
( bierbelly, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:40, Reply)

My oh my...
Imogen Heeps album.

Bought it today and am BITTERLY disappointed. What a waste of money.

Ugh.

If you've read my blog, you'll know that already...
( Argh. There be scallys in the ranks., Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:26, Reply)

Apples
On my Graphic Design Degree course about 8 years ago, we had a couple of short projects based around certain words. One of those words was 'junk'.

I was too lazy to do anything so on the morning of my presentation i grabbed a bag of mouldy apples from my kitchen (from an ill-attempted health kick) and I wrote wanky phrases on each one in marker pen.

My tutor liked it haha, the daft 'apeth.
(Evilhorlix, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:26, Reply)

stoned watching tv
The most pretentious crap i have personally witnessed was my now ex bf, sitting in front of the TV with his friends and fellow band members, smoking pot and complaining how the world didnt understand them.
For years*...

They are probably still there....

*Dutch social system

(Sad thing is they were quite good, but they rarely had gigs since they were stoned and watching tv most of the time)
(bovine intervention, Wed 5 Oct 2005, 16:21, Reply)

Oh god...
There are two kinds of art student here at Kutztown.

1: The kind that wear black and go on about how their life is pain, blah blah blah, and

2: The kind with no higher brain function. Needless to say, I am of this group.

So my very first day in classes, I have Two-Dimensional Design. Lovely, you might say. Sounds like fun.

NEG.

The other students are in a circle in the back of the room, around the teacher's desk. I push through, and what do I see?

There is the teacher, sitting on top of her desk in a Buddha pose, painting her arms and talking about how every line breathes.

I can't beleive I'm paying $20,000 a year to listen to this crap.
(Sir Dixon Dongs Good evening, gentlemen., Wed 5 Oct 2005, 15:21, Reply)