Name that shop!
I have a great fondness for peculiar shop names. The punny ones are entertaining enough, but my real favourites are the ones with unusual wording or surprising honesty.
In the former camp, we have:
"Yotgrot — purveyors of old and new marine stuff" (Paarden Eiland, Cape Town)
There's a sense that the creativity ran out just one word too soon, but that only adds to the appeal.
and:
"Superbonbon — mighty restaurant of wondrousness!" (formerly of Melville, Johannesburg; now sadly retired)
It was indeed wondrous, for the 13 months it was open. The menu, featuring "quail! saketini! coco pops!", put dessert at the top, so you knew how much space to leave. But alas, the owners got bored and went on to do something else.
And in the "surprising honesty" camp, we have a couple of hairdressers in London:
"Spendloads Please!" (somewhere in south London on the number 42 bus route, I think)
and the more worrying:
"It Will Grow Back" (Dalston, north London).
Anybody else?
10 comments:
Passing the hairdressers "Burke and Hair" in Richmond always pleases me, as I try imagine what horrors lurk within. Burke and Hare were of course the 19th century Scottish bodysnatchers.
And of course there's always some annual award for best shop name in London. "Curl Up and Dye" was a recent nominee, I recall.
There was "Good Food" or something equally asinine for a Chinese takeaway near Catford. If they have to tell you it's good, it might not actually be good.
A friend sent me a link to "Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn".
---X
Oh, wow. To both of those. Wow.
Hmmm. As found in various Malaysian malls. For an accessories store, deeperandharder; for a sex shop, I Need House.
My personal favourite: Walk In and Rent a Book. No beating around the bush for them, nosirree.
Nadia's library is the best. However, if you've suffered a trip or fall at work and you are seeking compensation, you probably couldn't do much better than calling Weiner & Cox, attorneys at law.
---X
Or if the fall is *really* bad, your family may need to call the undertakers. Human & Pitt (in Wynberg, Cape Town) have it covered.
See, now I'm getting lost. I don't get SQ. And I only see two puns. It's not nice making me feel stupid on my own blog, you two. Explain yourselves.
(CUM, by the way, isn't that local. I've seen them here too. Can you believe they put that all over the world and don't think anyone will notice? What a sheltered life these evangelists do lead...)
Ah, I guess it's a question of counting. I was going with the aero/hairo and the dynamics/dyenamics as the salient points.
"Spendloads Please" is even better when you realise that the shop is in Spenlow Place, Bermondsey. :o)
Wow! Thass brilliant. Thank you!
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