Adjectives 10

Ludicrous

Full of ludicrous spa architecture ('sparchitecture') and garishly-painted fairytale towers, Bagnoles' main feature is, surprisingly, a spa. (gabrielquotes.org.uk) 

Spectacularly silly hospital design proposed in 1890s Manchester (It's modelled on the Eiffel Tower.) (@johnb78)

trashy hipster products (M von Aufschneiter)

plucky: our plucky buyers (Homes under the Hammer) These incredible pictures show the moment a plucky seal managed to twist away from the killer jaws of a great white shark. (Daily Mail)

Caught the last episode of Dr Who last night. Usual mix of narrative-free sentiment, bombast and nostalgia. (Lee Jackson ‏@VictorianLondon )

social-welfare expressions (Betty Cornell Teen-Age Popularity Guide)

the remorseless pursuer of unconscious vulgarity (WM Thackeray)

clumsily written, trite pap (ND on Paulo Coelho)

Never in all my life have I seen such a footling procedure. (Below Stairs by Margaret Powell on ironing shoelaces)

hairybod drama recon (Susannah Davis ‏@aethelflaed on Operation Stonehenge)

Rachel Cusk’s last book was “mesmerisingly whiney and narcissistic”. (Times 2014-09-06)

interchangeably banal warbling (Lauren Laverne on the pop music of today)

the demented intricacy of science fiction (NYT on David Mitchell)

insipid Hallmark quotes (@SoluslupusIII See teatowels, quilts etc.)

mild, self-effacing, modest, ostentatiously humane if slightly hairshirt-wearing architecture (Owen Hatherley on the latest generation of non-dom investment flats – looking like good low-rise 60s housing estates, or modernist Cambridge colleges.)

excessive vulgarity (Andrew Marr on “Highland dress”)

high-fibre fun (Mary Beard on the Aldobrandini tazze)

Stephen Fry narrates in tones of sing-song wonder (Radio Times on a prog re whales)

the sort of wholesome casuals sold in Gap or Next (Nigel Richardson, Breakfast in Brighton)

Tom Paine had lived in Lewes in the 18th century and written The Rights of Man, advocating votes for all, old-age pensions and free state education – dangerously sensible stuff, for which he was indicted for treason and had to escape to France. (Nigel Richardson, Breakfast in Brighton)

I looked round Brighton’s fishing museum and it looked a bit Toytowny to me. (Rick Stein)

The first was too hot… The second was too cold… The third had a chummy blurb on the packet that was so unctuous it made her want to throw up. (Goldilocks by Berger and Wyse)

awe-inspiringly wooden (Peter Bradshaw on Grace of Monaco, May 2014)

Re: Bofill's housing schemes. They really were absolutely staggeringly nuts. (Charles Holland)

Alain de Botton’s “smarmy and banal ideas of self-improvement” Guardian April 2014

It's all self-righteous guff, flatulent bar-room moralising. (nonleaguematters.co.uk)

His tone is one of rather soupy contrition… (LRB on the real wolf of Wall Street)

Norman Tebbit once claimed that the 1960s was a third rate decade, full of third rate minds, which were (among other things) smug, wet, sanctimonious, naïve, guilt-ridden and insufferable. (bbc.co.uk)

‏The John Peel tent is going to be vibey, to say the least. (Kaiser Chiefs member)

More here, and links to the rest.