Things that are just bafflingly expensive

15. Real ale in supermarkets.

22 Art materials

24. Coke

Taking the car to the Hebrides on the ferry

A camping holiday (£900 for two weeks touring scotland)

I wish it was cheaper to holiday at home.

assuming we're taking 'bafflingly' to just mean 'cynical rip-off by the sellers'

Train ticket pricing is far more baffling than airline pricing. With the latter, it's usually just a case of the earlier you book, the cheaper it is. With trains, certain tickets become available at certain times, two singles are someetimes cheaper than a return, sometimes it's even cheaper to buy two separate A-B and B-C tickets than one A-B-C one when you need to change trains.

Yes yes but the point is, there is surely a sizeable middle ground of people like myself and perhaps CJ who would be prepared to overlook a price increase were it not so HUEG - thus being spurred into tightwad-based action and leaving their bloody Revels where they are

Personally it is baffling why Real Ale costs less in pubs than generic industrial lagers (Fosters, Stella etc.) and keg Guiness (the bottle conditioned guiness the exception here) when it costs much more to make and keep in good condition. Of course the reason for this is the marketing costs of these products, and I'm not complaining. I can envisage a time in the future when Ale becomes the premium product in price terms though.

No, we're talking about things where the price just makes no sense. Either because the whole industry keeps something artificially expensive and no one can be bothered to start a price war, or because they're considered a delicacy, or because there's wildly inconsistent pricing policy, or something like rail fares which is just absurd.

some airlines (esp the budgety ones) seem to just quote your fares as a combination of singles these days. but yes it's easier with planes unless you're mixing and matching airlines (but i don't think that's the same with mixing train companies).

otm. and it's shocking how much you can be ripped off if you don't 'shop around' for the best priced ticket. For instance my monthly visits to Bristol could cost me £82 if I just asked the teller "return ticket to Bristol please", but booking online and looking for certain types of tickets I end up saving about thirty quid.

Who does that? I thought everyone took it to A Little Bloke Down The Road.

(although, saying that, I have been pleasantly surprised by how competitively priced the dealership has been in doing some work on my BMW)

how does that not make sense (to them)?

You don't. Popcorn + pick'n'mix are freely available to scoff at will to fill up your container with in the main concourse of the cinema. (at least where I live, anyway)

xpost to Stevem

i.e

Panda cola

are you buying the tickets from the teller in advance though?

Panda cola

Yes there is a funny 'if it's that cheap it must taste shit' thing with this.

Fentimann's glass bottled cola is 're-assuringly expensive' otoh.

I dunno if it's me being pedantic or if you lot are talking about a different drink altogether, it's CrabbIe's not Crabbe's :)

u pedantick

xp ginger wine a grand contender for the 'bafflingly cheap' thread (which I think did get started)

Coffee Table Books of Photography

The most expensive paper money can buy (and the accountants will approve) plus 12 rounds of color correction to print a final print run of maybe 3500 copies IF YOU'RE LUCKY that will never ever earn out the advance paid to the author even if you priced it at $150, which you can't because the market won't bear it. So you price it at $80 or something instead and hope for the most devoted devotees.

They are just really expensive to make and only purchased by a tiny fraction of customers so there's no volume to amortize the costs over.

Yeah, I read this thing about Steidl and how a few evergreen sellers in their catalog (like Robert Frank's the Americans) basically subsidize every other photography book they put out

God bless 'em

1. Truffles. Please explain why they go for such an astonishingly high price.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 5 January 2007 10:50 (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-21/truffle-boom-brings-la-dolce-vita-amid-italy-s-economic-slump.html

had truffle not so long ago but it is a source of intense annoyance and regret that I forget what it was like

Was the flavor strong enough to cut through the camambert and chocolate?

After one listentaste I think that 'solid' is the best word to describe this albumfoodstuff

― paolo, Monday, 22 September 2014 17:38 (1 minute ago)

yeah but didn't quite breach the red mullet

i had forgotten you had a thing for redheads

lol

so the carpet did match the drapes?

jfc

Very approrpriate dn

honest question: is this some "impz in your brain" thing that makes you set yourself up for this kind of teasing/jokes?

literally chose a strong-tasting fish at random

my epitaph

honest question: is this some "impz in your brain" thing that makes you set yourself up for this kind of teasing/jokes?

― sarahell, Saturday, 25 October 2014 22:34 (1 minute ago)

'When seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.'

otm

many avians are dissatisfied when "breached" with something sardine-sized

:O

what if it is trawler-sized, and what come tail-flickeringly from its dispensation outlet are correspondingly scaled-up so as to be sardine-sized

sorry that's the worst post ever but it's all that sarahel deserves for this grotesque impropriety >:|

imago is this what you mean?? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-vs8fwgwk0

paulinho

sorry that's the worst post ever but it's all that sarahel deserves for this grotesque impropriety >:|

― pecker shrivellage (imago), Saturday, October 25, 2014 3:06 PM (5 minutes ago)

that doesn't even come close to being your worst post ever

at "Oh! Didn't even tell you" I laughed very hard

i have no fucking idea what that means