To wonder who the hell buys souvenirs?

[Orangeanddemons]

Am currently on holiday in Cornwall. I love it. But every shop is crammed full of the most random souvenirs at top notch prices.

Things that totally bemuse me.:

A fake metal Merlin type figurine with a real crystal ball
A jewelled dragon hatching out of an egg
A china Cornish pisky pushing a wheelbarrow
Random little sayings on notices
Strange faerie type things with lots of hair.

I never see anyone buying any of this stuff. Yet every shop is stuffed to bursting.

Cornish violets perfume

MassaAttack - I fear it was real. It showed the collapsed ruins of the World Trade Centre while a truly terrible representation of a fireman (think plastic doll here) waved an equally amateurish reproduction of the American flag. We bought it in the Empire State Building gift shop.

I'm not sure if I'd feel compelled to buy one, just to prove it was real, or if I'd be so appalled that I wouldn't be able to take it to the check out.

Shoplifting might be a compromise.

I often wonder the same. However these shops provide us with free family entertainment on wet days. We play a family game called "Find the naffest souvenier".

Last week DD found a delightful glass ashtray surrounded by badly glued on sea shells. The glass bit had an old faded photograph of the British holiday resort with 1960's style cars parked along the seafront - you now cannot park along. Ford Anglia and Austin 1100's galore! The shells look like they had been added by a bored 5yo in a mass glueing sesh.

Another of last weeks finds included an giant sized dream catcher. The central circle was just under 1 meter in size and featured photgraphed indians. It was available in a selection of colours - red indians in red, orange, yellow, green and pink. Then with the matching feather and quality plastic beads beneath.

Cornish violets perfume reminds me of my childhood and seems very high class compared to the shit we found last week.

Yabu!

Kids love this stuff.

My 10 and 12 yr ild nieces would spend hours choosing, and spend all their holiday money!

My mother, and sends them to me so I can give them to charity or throw them in the bin

We play a family game called "Find the naffest souvenier"

Join the club ... I do the same at Christmas, keeping an eye out for the tackiest decoration so far produced

I hasten to add I've never actually bought one of them, though ... at least, not yet!!!

DP and I went to Lourdes which is just full of hideous religious tat (think light up pictures of the last supper, a Jesus squeezy soap, that kind of thing). We had a competition to see who could buy each other the worst t-shirt. I had to spend the rest of the day in a tie-die t-shirt depicting Jesus riding a wolf.

You can't beat Italy for splendidly tacky religious souvenirs. Pisa has a whole street of shops selling all manner of unimaginably bad but award-winning stuff.

the best souvenir I ever bought was from Rome. It has the pope and St Peter's in a snowglobe. The pope is bigger than St Peter's.

We also have competitive tacky souvenir buying for friends.

We have Wall O' Tat at work. If you go on holiday you have to bring back the tackiest souvenir you can find.

It prompts a lot of conversation from visitors to our section.

I used to collect those pewter wizard/dragon/unicorn figures when I was about 17, so I would have been all over Merlin and the hatching dragon at that age.

I love a good fridge magnet. Somewhere I have a bagful that I've mislaid since we moved house; I can't wait to find them again and rekindle memories of all our brilliant holidays.

When people go away I ask them to buy me the tackiest thing they can find. I have a resin cast wall plaque from my Dad which says BENIDORM in red in the middle, surrounded by poorly rendered reasons to go to Benidorm. Also a hideous cruet from Tenerife from my sister. I went to her house yesterday and she has an equally foul 'Tenereefey' ashtray. Sometimes you just have to!

Tea towels. Always tea towels

I love browsing those type of shops. We also get a fridge magnet and mil a tea towel.

Although once we had a day out in Canterbury. There was shop selling everything with 'I heart london' we bought some bits, and then went home, to London.

DP & I always buy a magnet when we go abroad but that is it.

But funnily enough I had the same thought as you yday. I was at Kew Gardens and saw a glass bowl for £550. Who the f**k goes to Kew for a day out and buys a £550 bowl?!!

Children, crazy people and my MIL. Of course she is also a sub-set of crazy people

I LOVE souvenirs!

I had the most beautiful pink acrylic Eiffel Tower. OH broke it. He said it was an accident

He also broke my pottery Spanish Donkey. That was an accident as well.

I don't see the point in tasteful souvenirs. I can buy tasteful gewgaws at NotOnTheHighStreet or Pedlars.

I want oddness and weirdery with the name of a resort painted on the front of a bizarre object.

My DCs love it all too, and I love having the things they've chosen in the house, it brings back memories of happy family days out and holidays. I used to love them as a child too. I don't like being given them by other people though if I haven't been on the holiday. I buy fridge magnets and have started collecting postcards with maps on, which my DGM used to do too.

Agree about Pisa, we spent a very happy hour or two gawping at all the tat as well as the tower last year.

One of my ex boyfriends worked in a place where they had the 'tackiest souvenir' competition and a huge 'Table of Tat'. I used to love trying to find THE tackiest souvenir when we were on holiday - but used to send him to the counter to buy it

Oh my elderly Aunt, my not so elderly Aunt (hence me having a drawer of tat) and everyone under 15

I loathe tat yet once found myself the manager of a museum gift shop. It became a game and my boss would insist each time that I'd gone too far but the dodgier the item, the faster it sold. My best ones were:

• Coal dust mixed with a kind of resin and cast into shapes. I sold everything from miners to bunnies on the lids of trinket boxes.

• China sheep with wool stuck on them. They had very scary expressions. Oh and their legs were attached with wool so that their feet dangled when you sat them on a shelf.

It's a tradition & competition at my work place to buy each other the most tacky souvenirs possible.

So far, the co-worker who bought the 2 ft penis bottle openers is winning.

A 2ft penis bottle opener??? A Jesus squeezt soap???

Even though I love looking for these things, I think I'm getting out of here ... it's getting to my gag reflex!!!!!!

I love a Tea towel and a Fridge Magnet.

I love a nice museum gift shop. Over priced notebooks and pens etc are my speciality.

I live in cornwall. I've never seen any of this stuff.

Hester is right, you need to come further west. It's all silver jewellery and seascapes down here