What is the most pretentious thing you've seen someone do?

[kinzarose]

Inspired by another thread. When I was at university there was an older lady who thought she was vair posh, was very keen to have her designer labels on display and loved name dropping brands into conversation. We had a group tutorial over lunch once, so we all ate together. This woman took a two foot (yes, literally) wooden salt and pepper mill out of her bag, stood up and started grinding pepper onto the shop bought sandwich she had with her. It was just the most pretentious thing ever, she was a "food snob" apparently 🤣

A colleague of mine had his wedding announced in the New York Times. (It was sent around the whole team)

And I worked with a guy who had a comb for his beard. One that he brought to work. A very fancy comb. Cost a fortune apparently. He would sit there every day and comb his beard.

You meet some pretentious people in advertising

@ISeeTheLight

A colleague of mine had his wedding announced in the New York Times. (It was sent around the whole team)

And I worked with a guy who had a comb for his beard. One that he brought to work. A very fancy comb. Cost a fortune apparently. He would sit there every day and comb his beard.

You meet some pretentious people in advertising

Someone combing a beard makes me (not envy)

@Mammyloveswine

Can I offer myself as the parent of a PFB? Told my mother in law I gave my newborn his last feed listening to classical music... I lasted about 3 days then just watched shit on Netflix..

Now he's 6 and I let him watch shit on YouTube whenever he likes 🤣🤣

What a total twat I was 🤣🤣🤣

That's utterly brilliant, good on you!

Love the way you're able to laugh at yourself, I had equally ridiculous expectations, like my baby would be dressed in white (WTF!) and I'd never use TV as a "babysitter".

@immersivereader

Young child in a (not particularly) posh restaurant: "Mummy, what are working-class people reeaally like?"

^^ brilliant

My mum tells me a story about her and my dad (both Northerners) were in a restaurant in Tunbridge Wells or some such place and overheard a woman nearby say : 'There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Northerners'.

I told her she such have said :'Well there's a fucking lot wrong with southerners!!' à la Vera Duckworth

You do know it's Royal Tunbridge Wells, don't you?

And the place is jammed packed full of Northerners! It's clearly verrry naice.

As a kid, I remember the wife of one of my Dad's colleagues talk about her a car (a Jeep). She pronounced it "J'eep". So, "darrrrling....can you move my J'eep?". She was a seriously snotty cow: she spoke to (and treated) the staff who worked in her house like they were dirt (and encouraged her children to do the same - I remember hearing them and being shocked). She used to buy stupidly expensive designer gear and then talk non stop about how expensive it was. We didn't see her (and her family) again after a few weeks. Turns out that the colleague had committed a huge amount of fraud/embezzlement, and he lost his job/got into deep shit. Hideous, nasty family.

A mother at my sons primary school (v cheap indie) used to ostentatiously (as in hold them up so we could see the cover) read classics whilst waiting for end of day.

@evilharpy

I haven't read all of the replies yet but I look forward to it

A friend of my mum's who is an insufferable snob is originally from Ireland but lives in England and her children were born in England. Her daughter got engaged in England to an English man. The mum placed an engagement notice in the very down to earth local paper in her home town back in Ireland that included the daughter and husband's degree postnominals:

The engagement has taken place of Miss Ivana Huginkiss B.A. to Mr Seymour Butz B.Sc.

I have never seen the like. We all howled when we saw it.

And one for my mum - god love her she's very much in awe of People With Money. She differentiates between (what I'd call) upper middle class and above and middle middle class and below by how she refers to her families.

For the lower classes she just refers to "family", as in "her family is very nice".

For the upper middles and above she calls them "people". "Her People are very nice." Or even worse "She comes from very nice People".

I have no idea where she got this particular notion from!

My granny who had an Irish background also used those terms.

@TicTac80

As a kid, I remember the wife of one of my Dad's colleagues talk about her a car (a Jeep). She pronounced it "J'eep". So, "darrrrling....can you move my J'eep?". She was a seriously snotty cow: she spoke to (and treated) the staff who worked in her house like they were dirt (and encouraged her children to do the same - I remember hearing them and being shocked). She used to buy stupidly expensive designer gear and then talk non stop about how expensive it was. We didn't see her (and her family) again after a few weeks. Turns out that the colleague had committed a huge amount of fraud/embezzlement, and he lost his job/got into deep shit. Hideous, nasty family.

How do you pronounce J'eep??

@tommyhoundmum

190190tnt

I insist on calling my home a flat when people try to
"elevate" it to an apartment.

I ask for fizzy water in restaurants. This is confusing for waiters from other countries, who only know the word 'sparkling' for it.

@TSSDNCOP

A mother at my sons primary school (v cheap indie) used to ostentatiously (as in hold them up so we could see the cover) read classics whilst waiting for end of day.

God that could be me. I park outside school 20 mins before the end of the day with my book club books because there is no other way I'd read the bloody things otherwise. (Current book is Hamnet by Maggie OFarrell).

Round where I live - buying period properties and turning them into modern grey and glass monstrosities with huge, naff concrete fountains and fake grass.

Prison grey interiors with fishbowl walls break my heart. I can already see the "how did we let this happen?" articles in ten years time when everyone is trying to restore some character back into their homes.

[quote Moonshine5]@dayswithaY
"adequate comensurables. I think she meant food"
Howling[/quote]
She was probably trying to say 'comestibles', love it when people get their one upmanship wrong!

[quote EmeraldShamrock]@TheDramaLlama123
Said child might have money they've no manners that's for sure.
Obviously picked up her attitude from home.[/quote]
Yeah, very true, was mortifying at the time but what my DCs last in material things they gain in manners and kindness

My DD in Sainsbury's: ''Oh ffs they haven't got any loose leaf Earl Grey. Why do you keep coming here when we've got a Waitrose?''.

The other day at a mums meet up with a few new mums. One mum going on and on about trying to find a new house. The amount of times when mentioning the seller asked for more, she had to repeatedly drop in ‘The house was 2/3 million euros..or whatever (waved hands dismissively in the air) and he was asking X amount more!

@VickyEadieofThigh

We have really dear friends but she (for it's a he and she couple) has this one weak spot which is denying they ever watch TV. You only have to recommend something and it's automatically "Oh, we never watch television, if I had my way we wouldn't even have one, we're far too busy reading our books."

It usually only takes about 15 minutes tops before she's relating all the programmes they've watched recently - and we've occasionally estimated that in a given week, it adds up to more than we do (and we're TV fans).

Reminds me of a couple we knew a few years ago. Her version of their journey back to the UK, little traffic, kids wonderfully behaved on the 5 hour drive, at the ferry in plenty of time, first car off the ferry. His version of the journey, nose to tail traffic all through the Ruhr, kids turned the back seat into a mini Somme, made the ferry by the skin of their teeth, almost last off because the car in front's driver lost the keys! Visiting for a birthday barbecue, a lecture on the advantages of raw food, nothing processed was allowed inside their door, he came up from the freezer with a couple of boxes of Birds Eye burgers and some frozen chicken nuggets!

Not somebody I know for real just something I read about in the newspaper years ago.
When mobile phones first came out Chilie (I think) introduced a law very quickly making it illegal to drive while talking on the phone. Police decided to have a crack down one day and pulled loads of drivers over, they found a significant percentage had just toy mobile phones that they were pretending to use. The police couldn't do anything to these drivers and having toy phones wasn't illegal.

I told my fil this and he said it was a thing in America when air conditioning in cars first came out to drive around sweltering with car windows up so strangers in the street would think you had air conditioning.

@CounsellorTroi

My dad would find it upsetting too, apparently it used to mean I'm pregnant.

I think it still does in French, saying Je suis pleine means I’m pregnant!

Does it translate as I am really stuffed?

Great book! Loved it.

Friends lived in a (small) detached house in a reasonably posh area. One day they were unfortunately burgled. When recounting the story they felt the need to quote the policeman who visited them as apparently saying they were targeted "because this is a very affluent area". They repeated this several times during the course of the conversation in case we missed it!

@meganorks

When travelling on honeymoon I took the most pretentious flight of my life. The way out was fine. But on the way back it was out and out posh twats. When I booked it was £10 more for business class, so I picked that. When we got the desk we went straight up. But they were having some kind of problem with their computer so it was taking ages. During that time two old couples approached and queued behind us, but the man serving us asked them to queue in the other line (which wasn't very busy!). The one guy was outraged "what, here? In economy!?". They got in that queue but then the guy started huffing, puffing, and muttering about how awful it was. Then eventually he just stood behind us again. We had 2 toddlers so I think he assumed we hadn't actually booked business. At one stage I stepped to the side slightly to had a child back to my husband and this guy stepped forward and slammed his passport down on the counter. He was quickly told "sir, please step back. I am still serving this customer. I will call you when it is your turn". Cue more huffing and puffing. When we got to the gate, for some reason they took everyone through and down to another area even though the buses weren't there to take people to the flight. So this area was really busy and loads of people were really loudly moaning, huffing, puffing, tutting, like everyone needed to know there opinion. When they called for families with young children I said to my husband we should just wait as there was no way to the front. But some non-twat guy spotted us and said 'they just called for families, come on' and started telling people to get out the way. But my god, the glares! Then on the bus I was listening to some woman bang on to someone about how it was absolutely worth paying for business class for the peace and quiet. She mentioned her seat number.....same row as us! To be fair, the kids were very quiet and well behaved. Throughout the whole process there were just loud, self entitled twats who clearly thought they were more important than everyone else and all the delay was infinitely more awful for them. My 3 year old and 1 year olds were better behaved than all of them!

I recall reading about the emergency at Heathrow regarding cabin luggage, there's been an intercepted terror attempt and no-one was allowed to take anything into the cabin, one woman asked 'That surely doesn't apply to Business class!' and was appalled to find she was treated like everyone else.

@Kendodd

Not somebody I know for real just something I read about in the newspaper years ago. When mobile phones first came out Chilie (I think) introduced a law very quickly making it illegal to drive while talking on the phone. Police decided to have a crack down one day and pulled loads of drivers over, they found a significant percentage had just toy mobile phones that they were pretending to use. The police couldn't do anything to these drivers and having toy phones wasn't illegal.

I told my fil this and he said it was a thing in America when air conditioning in cars first came out to drive around sweltering with car windows up so strangers in the street would think you had air conditioning.

I wish that British shops would realise the need to keep windows and doors closed for air-con to work!

I will only buy the designer clothes in charity shops. Total snob eh

A young bearded man with a top knot outside a pub in Shoreditch smoking a pipe vape.

Me and DH were crying with laughter.

@GatoradeMeBitch

Round where I live - buying period properties and turning them into modern grey and glass monstrosities with huge, naff concrete fountains and fake grass.

Prison grey interiors with fishbowl walls break my heart. I can already see the "how did we let this happen?" articles in ten years time when everyone is trying to restore some character back into their homes.

I've been viewing a few properties recently with a view to down-sizing and I am fed up of being told It's ready to move into, totally redecorated. When I reply that actually it will cost a fortune to redecorate they don't seem to understand that 50000000 shades of grey isn't always a good look.