is exclusive, elitist and predicated on the idea that a small sub-group of society have some self-appointed right to decide who's in their gang.

If something is classed as 'cool', 'fashionable', or 'on trend', it's a pretty fair bet that I won't want anything to do with it.

Concepts like 'well-designed', 'functional', and 'well-engineered' have always held more appeal to me.

Mysteriously, this actually is cool in reggae bands. Otherwise, it looks as if your parents wanted you to play an instrument, and you got stuck with the last thing left in the school music cupboard.

I am your elder brother.

I only buy things because I get immense satisfaction at the thought that your preposterous notions of cool will force you into giving up things you love.

...I imagine that the mere fact that I own something is enough to make other people give it up.

I breathe a sigh of relief when things I own go mainstream, because it means I won't get any more "Ooh, look at mister lah-di-dah showing off with his fancy gadget." I no longer get it with the iPhone or hi-def TV and I'm confident I'll be able to relax about the Kindle by the end of the summer.

What I particularly don't want to have is the enthused opinions of that 'uncool' person talking about their iThingy, how cutting edge it is and how fascinating their experience with it must be. Forget it mate - been there and no longer want to be because you are.

...you can kind of come out the other side (albeit into some strange and barren land beyond even 'uncool')

As an example, I used to love both Coldplay and Snow Patrol when they were little known indie fellas playing support slots to the likes of Muse. When they became popular I was both pleased for them (and felt vaguely cool for being in at the start) and then - as their popularity became immense - faintly annoyed that they were no longer 'my thing'. Now they are generally used as shorthand for tastelessness and have become dreadfully uncool - indeed, I've seen them both referred to on these pages as 'music for people who don't like music'. I can't work out if my continued enjoyment of these bands puts me in some hospice for the terminally uncool or whether I might eventually become 'cool' through sheer bloody-mindedness. In the case of Snow Patrol, the point could be moot: their last album was pretty poor.

I'm not convinced I was ever actually cool for liking them, mind, but there was definitely a time when they seemed new, interesting and credible.

Tom Sutcliffe commented on this sort of attitude problem in the Independent recently -

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/thomas-sutcliffe/tom-sut...

Going up to London for a day trip (I live near Winchester and whilst I commute daily most down there don't) and going on The London Eye and then going to see an Imax 'movie'...shudder.

All those with snobbish and judgemental tendencies c'mon in! Pull up a chair and vent..........

pretty rapidly.

I tend not to think of things as cool or not - I'm more likely to think of things that interest me or are likely to bore me. Video games (PS3's, Xbox 360's etc.) are an example. I can understand that they do some very cool things with network play and the games are absorbing but I get bored after 10 minutes so I don't play with them.

I have no idea what cool clothes are any more. I imagine SuperDry aren't cool any more because I know about them. I like t shirts with an intelligent, humorous remark on them. That's definitely not cool.

I foam at the mouth in excitement when I try to explain Sigur Ros to people that haven't heard of them and I know that's not cool.

I'm 6 foot 4 inches tall and wear glasses. That makes me stick out like a gangly sore thumb at any social event. And I bang my head at least once a week. Uncool.

The list is endless.

But I don't give a shit - I am, as they say, cool with that.

Not cool.

ferinstance, my 12 yo thinks any music i like is uncool. She likes tinie tempah....
Gone are the days when i worry whether the vanguards of "taste" sanction my cooldom. That way lies Nathen Barley.

having to share my CD storage with my GLW's John Barrowman, Katie Melua and Michael Buble CDs.

And I recently outed my Coldplay CDs because they haven't been 'cool' for ages. Let's face it, with a lead singer that admits to being a knobhead they can't ever be cool again. And his association with Bono hasn't done him any favours either.

But I've never seen Apple products as being cool. Let's face it, you can't buy cool, you learn it. Herd mentality isn't cool, having a mind of your own that isn't swayed by someone else's opinion is.

From Wikipedia;

"The act of discovering what's cool is what causes cool to move on"
"Cool cannot be manufactured, only observed"
"[Cool] can only be observed by those who are themselves cool".

.....the iPhone is only considered cool amongst the middle-aged. Your youngsters phone of choice is the Blackberry.

When you show the said thingy to a bunch of sullen teenagers and they get all animated and say "Cool!" a lot.

This doesn't happen very often. The last thing I got which was deemed cool in such a manner was my utterly, utterly pointless but supremely gadgety and geeky GPS goggles with a head-up display.

But they're cool. So that's OK.

..none of you even know the meaning of cool. This is cool:

has always seemed too much like hard work to me.

I think it is excellent for teenagers to think things are cool or uncool. I even accept it for those in their early 20's.

But for anyone over 30 to worry about cool is simply tragic. And uncool.

When the 'cool' like something 'uncool' it suddenly becomes 'post-modern irony'.

The original post wasn't about saying x or y was 'cool' but to confess that the actions/tastes of certain people could make something 'uncool'.

So yes based in petty prejudice, of which I am rightly embarrassed, but not based on declaring a personal pursuit to be 'cool'.

Reading the above posts, and getting the overwhelming sense of everyone's enthusiastic espousing of the non-judgemental, one is struck by either

a) What a lovely, accepting bunch everyone is - 'come on in, we love everything and everyone!' or

b) Some people are telling porkies - is it really the case that folk do not have opinions about 'stuff' that are influenced by who else likes it??

... but I'm pretty sure this guy is cool:

Never far away from the word 'cool' whenever talked about.

Except he's not, is he? I don't know what all the fuss is about. Just because he was in a Quentin Tarantino film.

It's actually easy:

Apparently Cool = my peers at sixth form
Definitely Uncool = Me at sixth form

Desperate to be Cool = Me at sixth form
Lacking the energy to give a shite anymore = Me, now

Thank God for that. *relaxes. Listens to Middle of the Road*

I once bought what I thought was a trendy sweatshirt only to find DLT wearing on TOTP the next day.

Needless to say I never wore it again.

I loathe it because it's a homonym of my real-life surname, and I've had to endure years of jokes about it (the last new one was over 30 years ago).

However, it is the only word which adequately describes the blue LEDs in my new kettle.