am i a snob ?

[mrsfuzzy]

just because i'm a home owner, like all types of culture, hate junk food, don't smoke, but i don't go telling all and sundry, how to live or how my because i like culture and national trust stuff , not everyones cup of tea but that's fine, family not exactly rolling in money and live within our means - not always easy, i chat to anyone and most people would say i'm happy to help out with baby sitting, pet sitting etc, but my neighbour reckons i'm a snob because i listen to jazz and she has heard in my garden. i don't play my radio very loud at the best of times.
she is quite miserable and complains to everyone who will listen about life, weather immigrates the lot. not bothered if i am a snob, rather be happy than not.

[Hurryhurryhurry]

How can you like all culture?

[JPinkertonSnoopington]

I have checked out both and love them too. At present I can only really download Amazon Prime albums as I am trying to save some money.

Have you come across the singer Kurt Elling? He is absolutely brilliant – can do ballads, swingers, scat, vocalese; you name it. A good album of his to start with if you don't know him is "Live in Chicago". He appears live, back at the bar that he used to gig in before he became well-known. He's got a sly sense of humour as well!

[JPinkertonSnoopington]

Navy – have just checked out Robert Glasper and love him – his voicings are beautiful and unusual. Will probably download some of his stuff, and check out the other musicians you mention.

[JPinkertonSnoopington]

Don't know about a sound biological reason for rejecting some jazz – but I can tell you there is one kind of jazz I just don't get. It is free jazz whose pioneer was Ornette Coleman. It has been described by a musician (can't remember who) as sounding like "a fire in a pet shop" which is a pretty horrible image, but quite accurate. My name for it is "squeaks and squawks". I can't understand where they're coming from. I do love modern jazz (of a kind known as "straight ahead" jazz) when it is based on chord progressions or modal scales because I can hear the chord progression or the scale underneath what's being played by all the musicians, so can tell if they are playing well or badly. Miles Davis's album "Kind of Blue" is a good example of modal jazz and it is a lovely recording.

But it is still "I don't like free jazz" rather than "free jazz is rubbish", because I know I don't understand it. I went on to YouTube to listen to Ornette Coleman again and I dislike him as much as I had before! I wasn't in the best of moods to start with, because today I am in a lot of pain with my bad wrist but listening to that stuff made me want to kick something (not the cat as I love him too much to do such an awful thing).

The other thing that is giving me the Complete Ump at the moment is speech to text on my tablet. It is useful at present as I can't type, but it keeps getting things wrong then I have to go back and correct it. Sometimes I swear at it and that appears on the screen too!

[clarrrp]

I hate jazz.

But my GF and I had a bottle of champagne with our maccy d's in the garden for breakfast yesterday. Not sure what that makes me. lol

[TheoriginalLEM]

"difficult " jazz! I do think its a visceral reaction though. There is probably a sound biological reason for Jazz rage. Just as there is a reason that other music is soothing or uplifting.

I do like ella and miles though.

I don't think one's taste in music is a reflection of one's class. I like country and western and im dead posh i am.

[TheCladdagh]

Yes, jazz is both Ella Fitzgerald/Duke Ellington/Miles Davis and what a previous poster aptly decribed as 'noodly'. I grew up in the vicinity of a famous jazz festival and I fear it put me off 'difficult'/improv jazz for life. In fact, hearing it puts me into an immediate rage. If Derren Brown were trying to programme me to faux-asassinate someone, all he would have to do is play me five bars of modal jazz and I'd be murderous.

[unexpsoc]

"nah .not a snob. just appalling taste in music. Theres something about the lack of melody in jazz that gives me The Rage."

Almost got lynched outside Waterloo station. Saw a jazz quartet doing their "thang" on the steps.

"Wow, what great musicians you 4 are. Now, if you could only decide on the same tune to play wouldn't that be much better"

I can run when I need to.

[AnnieNoMouse]

I think it's the type of pants one stands out in the street that signifies social class. Primark, M&s or Rigby and Peller MrsDeVere?

[purplebud]

I've had some lovely customer service in Aldi as a mum of a very sleepy dd who was one years old and just wanted to nap in the trolley seat - a lovely young man supplied a pillow for dd to rest against whilst I was shopping!

[Peyia]

OP, you ask if you are a snob but finish the post to say you don't care?

I'm also confused by Tracy!

[JPinkertonSnoopington]

People like you give me the rage. I'd better not say anymore…

[TheoriginalLEM]

nah .not a snob. just appalling taste in music. Theres something about the lack of melody in jazz that gives me The Rage.

[JPinkertonSnoopington]

I have just got back from doing my big shop at Lidl. I also shop at Waitrose for odds and sods that Lidl doesn't have, for example stir fry vegetables. When I was last in Waitrose (a few days ago) I had a nasty encounter with another customer. I thought I'd stepped into her path and said sorry. She said "that's all right" but then went on to say within my earshot "Retard. Get a life". As you can imagine, I was rather upset.

While chatting with another customer in Lidl, I mentioned this incident. She was totally shocked and indignant, and went on to tell her friend with whom she was shopping, who was also indignant on my behalf. Made me feel a a lot better about it. Snobby people would've expected the insulting woman to have been shopping in Lidl and the pleasant women in Waitrose. As Chuck Berry said, "It goes to show you never can tell".

My exceptionally snobby brother (who shops at Waitrose) once said to me " I don't shop in Tesco because I don't want to mix with the hoi polloi". Well, judging by the calibre of shopper in Waitrose that day, he'd better stay away from our local branch! (Anybody would think that he doesn't come from the same working class family that I do – mum always used to say that he thought the stork had dropped him down the wrong chimney! Idiot.)

Snobbery, whether Inverted or overt, is just plain daft. Why not enjoy the things that you like and ignore other people's opinions? The posh /naff divide seems quite arbitrary anyway – I don't like prosecco because it's too sweet for me so drink cava. Apparently this puts me beyond the pale. Do I give a shit? No!

[kawliga]

poster: I read English at Cambridge and have impeccable grammar, unlike my neighbour who writes 'of' instead of 'have', reads trashy chick-lit, and instead of getting her news from the broadsheets she spends all her time scrolling up and down the Daily Mail sidebar of shame looking at pictures of vacuous celebrities. She thinks I'm posh just because I don't have a local accent and everybody says I sound exactly like Joanna Lumley. AIBU to think that I'm not a snob?

MN: YANBU! Nothing wrong with having different standards.

[WhatALoadOfWankers]

Or what's normal to you may be different to others claddagh

[TheCladdagh]

Isn't the problem with 'different standards' that the idea of a standard implies 'higher' and 'lower' ones?

[WhatALoadOfWankers]

Is it snobbery or just different standards ?

[pensivepolly]

kawliga you are exactly right
Mrs DeVere you are very funny!

[kawliga]

Well you obviously care very much what your neighbour thinks of you. I suspect you would like to be thought of as a snob because many people mistakenly feel this is some sort of compliment. It isn't. You don't sound like a snob but you do sound overly pleased with yourself as if your choices are somehow superior and comment-worthy. They aren't.

This. This is the only answer to give to all the people who come on MN asking if they're snobs - they are always very pleased with themselves.

It's like posters who start threads saying 'am I a snob because I don't follow the kardashians as do the great unwashed?' or 'am I snob because I don't wear designer clothes or post my fabulous shopping on facebook like all the chavs do?' or 'am I snob because I wear tatty old fashioned clothes and drive an old car, and not shiny new clothes and cars like the ghastly nouveau riche?' etc.

Usually such posters will also comment on their accents, which, we will be informed, are not regional. 'My friends think I'm a snob just because I use received pronunciation' etc.

Clue: you may not be a snob, but you are smug and superior, which is probably worse.

[MrsJayy]

Oh dearie me she was standing outside in her pants she sounds a delight MrsDv