Words and Phrases that Make Me Think of Pseuds Corner

I don't know why but whenever I come across the word 'shard' or its plural, I hear a distant alarm bell, and see in my mind's eye a sign that says, 'There be pretentions here'. Perhaps it's unfair, but the word does seem to exercise a peculiar magnetism for writers teetering on the edge of ravines in which thickets of purple prose are lurking (sorry, that in itself tended a bit to the purple - it's so easy to slip into. In fact before I descend further, I'm going to pick up my few remaining shards of language and slope off. Goodbye).

PS via Will Self, whose article, (which, the reader learns at the end, can be read in a longer form elsewhere - although why anyone would want to put themselves through any more of the harrowing stuff, I don't know; the article is one of the few cases I've come across where a writer's brave decision to be 'unflinching' might possibly have been revised to allow him to be just a bit - or even quite a lot - more flinching), I discovered thanks to Frank Wilson, I learn that London is about to come into possession of its own sparkling shard. Is this an indication of the city's now terminal decadence or just a sign that my prejudice is completely out of step with the times?