Vets, hairdressers, and other bastards who only tell you the price when it's too late

15th October 2025

COMPETITION watchdogs are to make vets publish price lists, because they along with these bastards have been getting away with it for far too long:

Hairdressers

Barbers have a price list on the wall. Your upscale hairdresser offering you a matcha tea and a sympathetic chat? Who’s more of a friend stroke therapist than a hairdresser? Who caresses your troublesome curls so caringly? She doesn’t display a price. She just says ‘That’s £135’ then waits for her tip.

Vets

The assumption is that you love your pet so much that when you rush in, finally making the link between missing Warhammer figures and why he’s off his food and has a lumpy, sharp stomach, price is no object. It’s your assumption too, until you get a bill for £4,855 and realise that your love has clear financial limits which you cannot here-and-now admit to.

Bars

Technically even a working men’s club in Swansea is coy about the price, but it’s the high-end ones that truly horrify. First they apply the pressure to seem like a sophisticated, urbane couple for whom figures are a mere trifle, then they charge you £40 for two double vodka cokes. You hand over your card with a smile that cannot seem in any way genuine.

Mechanics

Sure, there’s a price for MOTs listed on their website. That will be the price, if everything passes. If it doesn’t? Then look forward to an itemised and entirely improvised bill of wild creativity, charging £25 for a replaced windscreen wiper blade and a full £145 for carburettor encyclement (hydration) and for you to pay it blindly, only swearing when you’re accelerating away.

Oasis

Not just them, obviously. Every twat in the live music business who can fill so much as a room has a little surprise saved up for you at checkout. ‘I’m afraid there are only Platinum Party Packages left,’ your laptop murmurs, ‘but if you’re a real fan then you’ll be delighted with our exclusive merch offer. Besides, you did promise your son..?’

Funeral directors

It’s terrible, to lose someone. So terrible there’s an entire industry calculating you’ve been left a bit of cash and won’t make a fuss at them charging £120 to plug the USB holding the Powerpoint of photos you’ve created into their own laptop, and then there’s the hearse, and would you like us to provide flowers? Do you dare make a scene, ma’am? No?

The 6Music dad's guide to pretending you've heard all the Mercury nominations

15th October 2025

THE Mercury Prize is announced tomorrow, and nobody will be asking your opinion because you’re 53. Nonetheless, prepare for imaginary conversations with this guide:

Pulp – More

A nice easy one to start with because you’ve actually heard this. Why wouldn’t you listen to something that reminds you of being 22 and thin? Music peaked with Britpop, so More is easily album of the year because Blur and Oasis haven’t released anything.

Wolf Alice – The Clearing

Their fourth nomination without a win, so clearly what the Mercury judges put on when they’ve got guests round but aren’t really that into. Safe to say they’ve lost their edge, as it’s unlikely anyone will say ‘What do you mean?’ when you say ‘They’ve lost their edge.’

Sam Fender – People Watching

Listen, we all like Bruce Springsteen but there’s no need to try and make a career out of it. And frankly he’s a bit too good-looking to win. Ideally all serious artists should look like Tom Waits so nobody will accuse you of only being into them for the image.

PinkPantheress – Fancy That

Feel free to pour scorn all over this sample-heavy, twenty minute ‘mixtape’. The Mercury panel are just trying to be down with the kids and it’s pathetic. Your disdain definitely doesn’t stem from being worried you’ll be accused of fancying her.

Pa Salieu – Afrikan Alien

Disparaging modern hip hop is your brand, but without sounding middle-aged and insular. That’s a risk here so make a big deal about loving the afrobeat elements of this record; a genre you’ve been into since Vampire Weekend invented it.

Martin Carthy – Transform Me Then Into a Fish

Too tedious to listen to, so talk up the importance of the artist. Make clear that you’re aware that this 84-year-old was a direct influence on the young Bob Dylan. ‘It’s effectively a lifetime achievement award,’ you would say if the office’s Gen Z intern asked.

CMAT – Euro-Country

Talk about how she builds on the country/pop crossover popularised by Beyonce last year but filters it through a European lens, and don’t admit you got all that just from the title.

Joe Webb – Hamstrings & Hurricanes

Tell people this is one of your favourite jazz albums of the last decade. It wouldn’t be a lie, would it? For extra points, claim you can hear that Webb is playing the piano in Welsh and feign surprise that others can’t.

Jacob Alon – In Limerence

Start by admitting that their gentle folk is genuinely lovely. Then point out that the trouble with anything that reminds you a bit of Nick Drake is eventually you stop it and put Nick Drake on. Then recite everything you learned about Nick Drake from July’s issue of Uncut.

FKA Twigs – Eusexua

Yeah, you really dig the skittering rhythms of tracks like Perfect Stranger. And there’s undeniably a pure kind of joy to be found in the album’s repetitive trance-like beats. She’s an extremely attractive former model? You hadn’t noticed, you lie unconvincingly.

Fontaines DC – Romance

This is awkward; actual proper guitar music that you should have been keeping up with. God, you’re old. Anyway, just say that their authenticity shines through and they might be the real deal, but you’re reserving judgement. Got away with it.

Emma-Jean Thackray – Weirdo

You really respect the craft and the fact that she recorded it completely on her own. However, because it’s borne out of grief, you find it too harrowing to listen to. After all, you did recently lose someone. Nobody has to know it was your daughter’s goldfish.