ARGOS EXTRA
Written by James Ward
The other day, I watched a programme showing various acts from this year’s Edinburgh Festival:
One the performers was Josh Widdicombe, who is a very likeable comedian and in fact was one of the other acts the night I bought my cat.
During his short set, Widdicombe talks about how where he is staying in Edinburgh is nicer than where actually lives during the rest of the year (skip to about 9mins 10secs). “I moved six months ago” he explains.
I moved to quite a rough area. To give you an idea, when we moved in, the estate agent – one of the ways he sold it to us – he said “Well, it’s a great location because you’re just across the road from Argos Extra.” If you don’t know Argos Extra, it’s a smaller version of Argos.
Now, this is simply wrong.
Argos Extra stores are the largest of all the Argos stores. That’s why they’re called “Argos Extra”. It wouldn’t make sense to call them “Argos Extra” if they were smaller than normal Argos stores. Widdicombe seems aware of this contradiction, but rather than question his own assertion that Argos Extra stores are smaller than normal Argos stores, he suggests Argos are engaging in some kind of obscure wordplay.
They’ve used the rare definition of “extra” to mean far, far less.
Argos aren’t being sarcastic, Josh. They just want to sell people kettles. They’re not interested in irony.
And the audience. The audience all laugh along happily. Not one person challenges this liar. If I’d been there, I’d have stood up and shouted “NO. ARGOS EXTRA STORES ARE LARGER THAN NORMAL ARGOS STORES. THAT’S WHY THEY’RE CALLED ARGOS EXTRA. IT WOULDN’T MAKE SENSE OTHERWISE WOULD IT? THEY’RE NOT BEING SARCASTIC. THEY JUST WANT TO SELL PEOPLE KETTLES. THEY’RE NOT INTERESTED IN IRONY. YOU’RE THINKING OF ARGOS CALL & COLLECT STORES. THEY’RE SMALLER THAN NORMAL ARGOS STORES. NOW APOLOGISE TO ALL THESE PEOPLE AND LEAVE THE STAGE, YOU CHARLATAN”. Then I’d have stormed out, kicking over tables and hurling chairs in the air as I left. There would have been a moment of silence, as everyone tried to understand what had just happened. Eventually, someone would gasp “He’s right!” and, as the scales fell from their eyes, they would all follow me outside, hoist me upon their shoulders, carry me through the streets and make me their king.
That would have been a shame, because I would then have missed the rest of his set, and the line about shopping at Argos being like playing Battleships is quite brilliant, but he needlessly compromised the integrity of that joke by building it on a foundation of lies, and for that, he must die.
Anyway, to avoid any further confusion, here is an explanation of each store type taken from the Argos website:
What is the difference between a regular Argos store and an Argos Extra store?
Argos Extra stores are bigger stores that keep the full range of Argos Extra products in-store so you can take them away straightaway. We’re constantly opening new Argos Extra stores so there should be one near you. All Argos Extra stores are identified with the Extra symbol on the Store locator, in your trolley and in the catalogue.
Our regular Argos stores keep the regular Argos range but can get Extra items in for you, usually within 3 working days. Remember, if you want to buy an Extra item from a regular Argos store, you can order by using Check and Reserve to save yourself a journey!
What is the difference between a regular Argos store and an Argos Call & Collect store?
Argos Call & Collect stores are smaller stores that don’t hold any stock, but they can get both regular and items in for you. Argos Call & Collect stores are used as a pick-up point to save you a long journey to your nearest stocked-in store!
Remember you can still get all your favourite products at these stores – all you have to do is order your items before you visit the store. You can make an order over the phone and then collect your order from the store usually within 3 working days.
Please print this out and learn it. There will be a test.
JAMES WARD: I LIKE BORING THINGS 
I think the blame may lie with the estate agent. It might be worth giving him a call. He may have got confused with the call and collect store format which is smaller. So perhaps a genuine mistake. Or he may have been playing the old estate agent trick of calling understairs cupboards breakfast nooks.
I also have a bit of a problem with Argos’s description. They claim that they are constantly opening Argos Extra stores. That feels like a bit of an exaggeration. What they’re saying in other words is that sooner or later Britain will be called Argos Extra. At a minimum that will require a referendum.
No, if you watch the clip, it is clear that all the estate agent says is that it is across the road from an Argos Extra. He doesn’t explain what an Argos Extra is. Widdicombe takes it upon himself to add this additional context and in doing so simply lies to his audience.
I decided, for this post, to focus only on Widdicombe rather than the Argos website to avoid getting sidetracked and confusing the reader.
James, they are never going to tell you about the pens, no matter how much you defend them in public.
They TOLD me! After all my efforts, they launched a Twitter ArgosHelpers thing and I got my answer! It took about five minutes.
Why was the answer that gave you better than Agent 396/0109?
I really need to stop reading your blog…
What’s the deal with the pens? Now we’re all curious.
Okay, I’M curious. Or nosy. It’s hard to tell.
Look on the right – there’s a tag with “Argos pen”.
Ah, thank you. My curiosity has been sated.
Yes, but the estate agent might have lied. I don’t mind calling him and asking him the difficult questions.
James, is there any video of your act?
I don’t really have an “act”. We did record the last show, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I’m not sure if the sound/picture is OK.
I take your point that “act” may not be precisely the right world, but then … what word would you use?
Anyway, I’d love to see the video. And I bet lots of other readers would, too. (I mean readers of this blog, not just people who read in general. They would likely just be perplexed by the whole thing.)
I’m not sure who the estate agent was, and obviously Widdicombe won’t come clean as it would be like admitting he was wrong. I think he lives in London, so that narrows it down a bit. Just contact every estate agent in London who has either sold or let a property across the road from either an Argos Extra store or an Argos Call & Collect store. Shouldn’t take long.
It gets worse. The correct definition of the Greek root, prefix and suffix ‘extra’ is ‘outside’; thus Tesco, Argos, Tennants, in fact everyone who have used it to define a further addition to their brand have created an almost impossible situation in which the example in question exists OUTSIDE OF its parent qualifier. Oh no! ARGOS EXTRA is thus outside of Argos, a technical impossibility, causing tautologous paradoxes etc, the like of which could bring the universe to a halt and force us all to cease to exist, just by thinking about it.
So Argos Extra is actually everything in the universe except from that which is Argos? So Tesco is part of Argos Extra and Argos is part of Tesco Extra?
Oxymoronic paradoxes. A tautology would be an Argos Argos, but I don’t think that’s really a paradox. I don’t think you can have a tautologous paradox, can you? *ponders*
“Argos Call & Collect stores are smaller stores that don’t hold any stock, but they can get both regular and items in for you.”
I like that they have gone to the effort of using a gif in place of the word extra on their website. It shows real commitment to the brand, especially as google and other search engines wont index the word extra from their site. And it does make copy and pasting their content unnecessarily hard. And will make a confusing web experience for those people using text to speech software. But other than that, a brave decision.
I may petition them to start using catchphrase style picture clues for Call and Collect branding.
Is Josh Widdicombe related to Anne Widdecombe? (Just killing a few minutes between phone calls.)
They closed down our local Argos earlier this year as they opened up a new Argos Extra about twelve months ago in the next town, about three miles away. Supposedly, this will make it more convenient to shop at Argos, but not for me, unfortunately.
Does anyone know if they’re open on Sundays?
Saw Widdicombe at Edinburgh fringe and winced at this mistake. It wasn’t just that he was WRONG, but that he seemed so especially proud of this set! Surely if you lived adjacent to it, you’d know what sort of Argos it was… or double-check before BASING A 10 MINUTE JOKE ON IT.
His act was crap though, I wish I had walked out.
I saw Josh doing the Argos gag at the Union Chapel in Islington – and just to satisfy your curiosity, he said he lived in Finsbury Park, which means his local branch is Holloway Road. It is an Extra store. Being a patron of the store, I realised there was a discrepancy in what he was saying, but thought Argos-based heckling in a consecrated chapel was, frankly, inappropriate, so I decided to keep schtum.
When did you see him do the Argos Extra material? I know for a fact that the matter has been raised with him since I wrote my blog post and that the following day, despite knowing that Argos Extra is bigger than a normal Argos store, he went out on stage and did the exact same material.
I was going to write ‘a while back’ but fully aware of the deep importance of the issue, I took the liberty of searching my records, and to be specific, the gig occurred on 4 June. Not sure if that’s good or bad news as far as you’re concerned. It was perhaps short-sighted of him to use the gag in front of an audience with sound knowledge of the actual store. I distinctly recall turning to my co-attendee and remarking on the fact that the Holloway branch is, in fact, a large store. The other branch, close to N4, he could have been referring to is Harringay – and it’s also an Extra store.
Attention to detail is as important in comedy as timing. I had to call someone out recently for a joke about a 1982 Austin Allegro. They stopped making the Allegro in 1979. I couldn’t let it lie. It ruined the joke for me.
I do consider all the concepts you’ve introduced on your post. They are really convincing and will definitely work. Still, the posts are very brief for beginners. May just you please extend them a little from subsequent time? Thanks for the post.
I don’t think there’s much I need to add to be honest, Auction Goods.