People

who use long words for effect seem to wallow in pretentiousniscioucityitiousness.
(roysin, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 17:51, Reply)

People who think Latin puns are funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!onethousandonehundredandeleven
You get them sometimes among the prospective Oxbridgers. They think they're so fucking clever, making some stupid remark in a dead language that no-one outside of Oxbridge understands anyway, and then laughing to themselves like they're fucking geniuses.

There was one lad I used to go to primary school with - he came back in the sixth form (he went to the big posh private school for secondary) and was in my A-level Maths class. I'll call him Adam for the usual reason. One of the first things he did in that class was to make some 'witty' remark in Latin - I think the word 'molestus' was involved somewhere - and appeal to me, as a fellow 'intellectual', to join him in his mockery of the coarse uneducated proles. I didn't rise to it and acted(?) stupid, even when he explained it. He finally despaired -
Adam: "But you did GCSE Latin, didn't you S___ (my real name)? [thinks: My god, I thought he was an intellectual!]"
Me: "I never got taught puns."
Adam: "Oh. [thinks: What a bore! I shan't be going to Oxford with HIM!!!]"

And after starting on such a great note as that, Adam did so much stupid stuff when he was at our sixth-form (like turning one girl into a lesbian after he hit on her) that it's well beyond the scope of a single QOTW. (By the way, he didn't get into Oxford. I don't even know if he got into medical school. If you're at medschool and think you know him - he'd be in the second year now unless he took a gap year - drop me a line and I'll tell you some of his other snafus.)

And I swear if I ever hear another Latin pun, I'm going to maim or kill the smug bastard who told it before his laughter dies away.

Et hoc veritus est.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 17:48, Reply)

Pretentious Names
Not art, but here's a short list of pretentious and unoriginal naming foolishness:

- Hyphenated surnames: pick a name already, Mrs. Washington-Brown, why are you wasting our time?

- First initials: J. Stuart Wankerbottom, you are a pretentious prick.

- Families whose first names all begin with the same letter. Judy, John, Jack and Josie. Christ.

- People named after crappy american cities: Madison, Cheyenne... how about Walla-Walla?

- Parents who get cute with the spelling of mundane names. "OK, we'll name him Ronald, but we'll spell it Ronyld". Excellent.

- People who insist upon pronouncing their mundane names in a "special" way: "That's CLOW-dia, not Claudia".

And then there's Cirque de Soleil...

Yours Truly,
J. Dallas "Splatpig" Gerhardt-Mosely
(Splatpig, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 17:41, Reply)

Dear Biscuitbuscuit
are you Sue MacGregor?
(Pope Benedict XVI, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 17:25, Reply)

dear the goat
john humphries is not a nice person in real life. I've worked with him once and that was plenty.
( biscuitbiscuit is in ur garden, watering ur plantz, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 17:21, Reply)

John Humphries
I'm sure he's a nice person in real life but when being interviewed he comes across as thinking whatever he utters should be forged in bronze and mounted on a plinth

..and Umberto Eco - not as clever as he likes to think he is
(anyone read Foucault's Pendulum? you can keep the receipt on the book but you'll never get that time back!)
(Pope Benedict XVI, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 16:47, Reply)

Oh dear
It's all gone a bit Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, hasn't it?
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 16:28, Reply)

Tate Modern Toss
They had a big fucking semi-circle hollow tube (http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5651/marsyas023ct.jpg) in the exhibition hall once. My mate threw a tennis ball through it & as we waited patiently for it to drop at the other end a security guard collared said mate and slung him out. Pretentious cunt AND art.
(makavel1, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 16:24, Reply)

chriswakey
I'm afraid not - it's a necessary evil of having done an English degree :-(
( rubberduck should only be used after consulting with your GP, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 16:11, Reply)

No, I reckon that it's been inundated more by...
...uppity elitist pillocks who, rather than post an entry that has some bearing on the QOTW, would sooner just bitch about everyone else's instead.

Shite, that includes me now - thanks a fucking bunch m8 :/
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 15:48, Reply)

Am I missing something here...
..or has b3ta been inundated by BORING 16 YEAR OLD CUNTS who need to get out more often?

Jesus, go and do something illegal, you bunch of massive WANKERS.
(Fonkadelix is fucking bored, pass the crack pipe Mavis., Mon 3 Oct 2005, 15:31, Reply)

The Entire Edinburgh Fringe
I've seem some utter crap there. One I went along to on the premise that it was one lass and she might get her knockers out. she did, briefly, but only after an hour of whailing over the chechs raping her identitzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Anything with the terms "A modern interpretation" is a student who's seen Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet.
(Seaneeboy, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 15:10, Reply)

Not so cosmic comedy
I used to co-run a comedy club and a more unfunny miserable experience you could not wish to suffer in the name of entertainment. I was awful and so was the venue.

As well as a small number of really great performers who have gone on to become moderately successful (a success I can claim no contribution to, in fact probably the opposite), there was an extremely high quotient of outright losers. I strongly believe that many of them were performing stand-up because it's cheaper than therapy. I had to put up with endless amounts of pretentious (and unfunny) twaddle from overly opiniated idiots and moderately posh London kids pretending to be working class. And they all thought they were Bill Hicks. They weren't even Dennis Leary. Do you have any idea what it's like to sit through a night of between six to twelve acts all parading the same nicked Bill Hicks, Woody Allen or even PJ O'Rourke gags? It's not good I can tell you.

The most pretentious act was this utter loser who basically ranted and shouted for about seven and a half minutes, overstaying his welcome by about seven minutes. The climax of his act (ahem) was to flick wall-paper paste at the front row of the audience while shouting "Take my spunk you Bitches!" Only it wasn't actually as funny as that and the two girls he sexually assaulted in the front row really failed to understand the postmodernism of it all.

He claimed it was "performance art" as I dragged him off the stage. He said that "art required physical boundaries to be crossed" as I pushed him out the back door of the gig. I really hope he appreciated the unsubtle irony of me kicking him down a fairly long flight of stairs after that. I can honestly say that watching his ugly mug bouncing off steps, walls and then falling into a bloody heap at the bottom of the stairs ranks as one of the highlights of my short-lived and not very successful comedy career.

I'm better now. Mostly.
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Mon 3 Oct 2005, 14:50, Reply)

Pretentious ballet
Mr Pie took me to the ballet one Valentine's Day. Mozart's Requiem (excellent piece of music, but not really the sort of thing that's easy to dance to).

The only thing on the set was a chair stuck high up on one wall (which 'Adam' and 'Eve' later looked at). It opened with all the dancers running in and putting their shoes at the front of the stage and got weirder from then on.

We spent the first 20 minutes trying to follow it and then got too tired.

The best bit was when Death's umbrella caught fire. Primarily because it signalled the end of the ballet and we could go home.
(Pachey, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 14:21, Reply)

Pretentious Banana
In the 70's I saw a "theatre group"

Five people walked around the stage for twenty minutes saying "Andante Cantabile" (This is a musical term meaning at a sweet walking speed.)

On stage right was sat a woman, sewing zips into banana skins.

I paid to see this. 25p. A rip off.
(Shashi, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 14:18, Reply)

Hmmm, B3ta asking it's regular contributers for examples of pretentiousness,

I'm assuming passport photos will be accepted?
( ..wil, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 14:01, Reply)

Leave it out!
Hester Blumenthal. Unbearable at the best of times, but in a recent column I was quite impressed. He was suggesting that people used dandelion leaves in salads. Being a bit of a food-for free fan I thought 'nice one'.

However.

He then went on to advise his readers that dandelions could be obtained only by mail order from Selfridges, though Harrods occasionally stocked them.
(clapper, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 13:49, Reply)

Death in Venice
Will someone tell Dirk Bogarde to give that boy a haircut...
(Glen Moranjie, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 13:48, Reply)

WTF....
..is it with fashion magazines etc that have articles on how to wear your cardigan!?...Gohdamnit. Just put the damn thing on!....

And modern dance.....spasticated jerking movements are meant to mean something!?.....

And modern art. A tap running. For fux sake...its an effin tap.....
(Oops....did I say that out loud cos I really bloody want to., Mon 3 Oct 2005, 13:27, Reply)

Is it Art or is Nathan Barley?
Went to a club in London once, I think it was called 'Omsk'. The delights on offer included

a) coked-up dickheads playing 2 records simultaneoulsy, at the wrong speed, while doodling on an overhead projector

b) In fact that's all I can remember about it. Probably the worst night out I've ever had. And Time Out raved about it....
(yesyesyes, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 13:02, Reply)

My First Serious Girlfriend...
...(me 16 she 15 at the time - I'm 33 now) was, with hindsight, an intolerably pretentious twat who has left me with a lasting and very strong dislike of luvvies and other such stuck-up arty types. I mean, the girl grew up on the same rough-as-fuck council estate as I did, rubbing shoulders with scrotes, slappers, dealers and care-in-the-community types. You'd think this would instil a sense of what-really-matters, but no.

Instead she developed and displayed a feigned fondness for all kinds of stuff, including classical music (which she pretty much knew fuck-all about), 'contemporary' poets (a reading taste she seemed to think gelled seamlessly with the Mills & Boon bollocks she read the rest of the time - she used to spout dramatic lines from those at me expecting to be taken seriously), amateur dramatics (christ on a fucking trike), topical debates (which for her was pretty much the same thing as amateur dramatics) and last but not least, she read the Guardian (at 15 - a habit basically copied from her dad who was, to be fair to the bloke, a supercilious prick) and crowed proudly about it when it came up in conversation (which it did - often).

What else? Oh yeah, she went to tap-dancing class twice a week with equal levels of proud crowing and added tap routines to demonstrate her skill, whether they were requested/appropriate or not. Tap-dancing though, for fuck's sake - Lionel Blairy-type noisy shoesegs shee-hite.

Oh, I also loathe Vivaldi, Hallmark posters, Garfield and Dirty Dancing because of her but then that probably would've been true now even without her help.

In her favour though, even at 15 she went like a train - probably explains why I overlooked her appalling luvviness for so long. Despicably shallow I admit, but I was in good company for it, trust me.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 12:58, Reply)

How about...
The Talented Mr Ripley - thats a load of Pretentious bollocks...

see, I don;t piss about with my answers - thats so unpretentious, it almost makes a perfect circle back into pretentious again...

and so does the above paragraph...

semper fi
(Rockster77, Mon 3 Oct 2005, 12:22, Reply)

King Lifting...
Haha, Balue... King Lifting is a band from my sixth form college ... well, they've left now. I hate to say and though those lyrics aren't very good... their songs are quite good. =D

Once... there was a piano suspended from the ceiling that would occasionally let out LOUD discording notes. I haven't seen it and it seems fairly pointless but unfortunately rather cool at the same time.
(ladyintheradiator, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 19:55, Reply)

In reply to Pigmash
I remember that! Is called 'the Tree' or something isnt it?
I liked it. It basically stating a photo of a tree isnt a tree, just a flat piece of paper with coloured dots to create the illusion of a tree. so a glass of water on a shelf could be a tree or anythin....something like that...

(slams head in door)

The blue triangle in the Tate modern (just a drawing of a blue triangle) proberly was the shitest thing there
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 17:00, Reply)

Ryuken-Kai,
you do have to pay to get into the Turner Prize (although that's obviously at Tate Britain), and the occasional installation (like the Time Zones thing last year) at Tate Modern. I can't remember any giant cones though.
( stevierar, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 14:49, Reply)

Uni
I do a contemporary music course, it's all a bit wierd but it's usually pretty interesting and good fun. But sometimes the lecturers show us some documentary on some artist or other to try and give us ideas, but one of them just made half the class sick, partly out of disgust, partly out of rage.
Basically there's this bloke called Franko B, and his "art" consists of him bleeding in various ways. In a protest against the gay marriage laws, he painted himself white, cut into his wrists, stuck a pigs heart in his mouth and suspended himself above a circular canvas for a few minutes. Not long enough in my opinion, as he survived. Quite what that's got to do with the legally recognized unions of two consenting adults I have no idea. We also didn't know how we were supposed to incorporate those ideas into the stuff we come up with. We came round to the idea that the lecturers don't like us very much.
(BassNinja, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 14:40, Reply)

Normanator, Laurie Anderson is AMERICAN, not Scottish
Please check your facts before posting and making yourself look silly (and rather paranoid).
(Chuckman, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 12:25, Reply)

Maybe its just me but...
My beloved other made me sit down and watch reservoir dogs the other day. Personally a load of men in a big white room, randomly shouting at each other and waving guns, ending in them all shooting each other - thats pretentious bollocks in my book!

*pop*
(JezziTheWonderKitten Not very wonderful but 100% kitteny, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 12:25, Reply)

The stranglers
Some of there later stuff was a load of shite
particulary "la folie" which is sung in french
($wift, Sun 2 Oct 2005, 11:26, Reply)