Pump am y Penwythnos / Friday Five 22/06/2018

[CatrinLliarJones]

Bore da!!! I hope you are all well and have a good weekend planned.

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.

2) Give me a mantra for today.

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?

Bonus!!!

6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it!

Have a great penwythnos!!!

[HuwJones]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.
“Five things at one focal point” - does not compute without breaking some of my favourite physical laws.
2) Give me a mantra for today.
Ommmmm - let me think about that.
3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.
My uncle got a clip on the ear from mamgu for asking for kippers and jam for breakfast. To this I would add cheese sauce (including Mornay) with fish and brussels sprouts with custard.
4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.
I’ve told this story before, sorry. At the Fenni Eisteddfod I was strolling along talking to my wife on my mobile when I spied Nia Parry with a child and husband. I said to Maureen, “I’ll call you back” and hung up. I bounced over to Nia and reminded her of our last meeting at a SSiW birthday party. I got another sws on my cheek (for my cheek). You can imagine the frost in the air when I got home.

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?
Michael Hugh Jones. Michael was one of the A list angels (Mihangel in Welsh). I’ve just looked it up and find that Hugh comes from a Germanic word meaning “heart, mind or spirit”. Jones is just son of John, It was a huge relief to me when “J” was admitted into the Welsh alphabet.

I never use my first name but my research supervisor in Nottingham called me Michael for the 3 years I was there (he had 130+ research students - chware teg).
Depending on where I am, I am happy to be called Hugh, Hugues, Hugo or El Magnificoo, but my preferred names in Wales are tadcu and Huw ( in that order)

6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it!
What is your most treasured musical memory?
Dame Janet Baker and I performing Elgar’s “Dream of Gerontius”. Apart from Janet (or Jan as I like to call her) and me, there were about 150 others in the choir so her memory may not be as vivid as mine.

[Nicky]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.

From our “main” settee (there’s a smaller secondary one), you would see: a big TV, an “Ein Adra” sign, a collection of photos from our “12 countries in 12 months” thing in 2016, a small mirror and a fireplace.

2) Give me a mantra for today.
Today’s headlines will be tomorrow’s chip paper.

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.

Chocolate and baked beans.
Pasta and gravy.
Cold pasta and warm chips.

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.

I find the whole idea of how I’ve met most people really really odd. If you think back at some the links of how you’ve met people - some of my links of how I got to know people are so tenuous. I met my wife through connections that were so flakey and weird!

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?

My real name is Nicky Scott Roberts. I had “Howells” as a surname when I was born. But I gave that up and went back to my families name of “Roberts” due to family reasons.
I was always going to be called Scott, until my mother changed her mind the day after I was born.
I was always “Nicky”, never “Nicholas”, which is probably the most asked question of my life “Is Nicky short for Nicholas?”

I didn’t like Nicky that much when I was growing up. When you’re a boy growing up in the Rhondda with a girls’ name, you get a fair bit of teasing!! It wasn’t until football team Spurs signed a player called Nicky Barmby, did anyone actually believe me that boys could be called Nicky!

Now, I like Nicky.

6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it!

What is your favourite day of the week?
Friday - I like the feel of Friday. Work coming to an end, a relaxed end to the week, and the start of a full weekend.

[mikeellwood]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.

Not sure I can name one!

2) Give me a mantra for today.

No pain, no need for painkillers!

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.

Steak and custard

Baked beans and almost anything (I realise I’m in a minority here), except on toast as a very very occasional comfort-food treat

Fried eggs and marmalade.

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.

My wife and daughter bumped into one of my nephews and his wife and son, once, in Istanbul, completely by chance. Neither group knew the others would be there.

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?

Michael Wallace Ellwood

Michael is supposed to be a Hebrew name, and I believe means “close to god” - the “-el” bit is one of the Hebrew words for god. My devout Catholic parents would have named me after St Michael the Archangel.

Wallace after my father, and he was named after William Wallace (the chap who was played extremely badly by Mel Gibson in a film which I refuse to name.
(My grandfather had pretentions to Scottishness which my father inherited)

Ellwood is supposed to be an Old English name which relates to elves and woods, or possibly wealds. (I wonder what Tolkien would have made of it?)

The Scottish pretension of my father claim that Ellwoods and Elliots are related. I am somewhat sceptical about all this. I think we were English, but with no doubt, several tots of Viking aquavit floating around in our veins. Of course, in our part of England (north-west), Brittonic (or brythonic) Celtic was apparently spoken long after it had died out down south.

Edit: Oops, I forgot question 6, but actually, instead of that, I will add to the “names” question:

I also have a confirmation name, which I don’t think about much, but it’s actually quite significant:

Luke

Now, St Luke was one of the evangelists, but tradition has it that he was a physician.

When I was very young, I fell ill with meningitis. The version of the story that I heard was that (in addition to medical treatment of course), our parish priest (a lovely man) arranged for me to be confirmed, although of course this is not normally done until much much later. I don’t know whose idea “Luke” was, but it was probably the priest’s.

And whether it was the medical treatment or St Luke (I like to think it was a combination of the two), thankfully I recovered.

The NHS started the year before I was born! Thank God for the NHS, thank God for Nye Bevan (and Lord Beveridge) and thank you God and St Luke!

[AnthonyCusack]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.

Our telly, the mirror over our fireplace, the fireplace (heb dân), the coffee table and three copies of National Geographic

2) Give me a mantra for today.

Not every disagreement need be dealt with a duel at dawn.

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.

I have quite a tolerance for taste mixes. Things don’t really bother me that much. However:
Ice cream and tomatoes
Curry and ketchup
Gin and cucumber (not a fan)

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.

I met someone at a bbq two weeks ago in Croydon who’d been the year below me at the same primary school and had gone to the same secondary school as a lot of my childhood friends (I’d gone to a different school because that’s where my brothers had gone)

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?

Full name:

Anthony Richard Cusack

Starting backwards: Cusack is a hiberno-norman name with a few theories to its origin. There’s a place in France called Cussac and many say that people of that region were mercenaries in the Norman invasion force of Ireland.
There’s a theory that it comes from Mac Isaac
The gaelic spelling is Ciomhsòg which I don’t know how to pronounce but the Ci I think is a Q sound, and the mh is a f Cymraeg or an English v.

Richard was my mother’s brother’s name. He died aged 6 from Polio in 1956.

Anthony: my Mum had an Uncle Tony who it turns out was actually called Aethelfred but was always called Tony. However, I don’t think the connection between his and my names is actually that strong. I think my parents always liked Anthony. I’ve also never been, and don’t plan to be, a Tony.

I used to hate my name. I once said to my Mum “I wish I had a different name and I wish we had an unusual surname”. Obviously Cusack wasn’t interesting to me at the time because I lived with 5 others.

I wouldn’t change my first name. I offered Emma the choice of surname. I would have been very willing to take her’s but I wanted us to have the same which ever way we went.

Bonus!!!

6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it!

If you were to have a tattoo (or another), where and what would you have?

I would have some kind of concept design of a mix of a compass and a wolf’s head. The compass signifies knowing where you’re going, where you’ve come from, and finding new paths. The Wolf is a pack animal (granted not always) from the Northern hemisphere with an incredible sense of direction and natural strength and elegance (except when they have food all over their chops).

[HuwJones]

Gin and cucumber (not a fan)

Not even in Pimms?

[AnthonyCusack]

Ah a good point well made Mr Jones!

[gruntius]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.
We don’t really have a focal point unless you count the TV, both sofas are kind of facing each other with a huge coffee table in between.

2) Give me a mantra for today.
Expect nothing, appreciate everything.

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.
It’s easy to just say a dessert with a vegetable or something but sometimes it works. Take chips with salt and vinegar and chocolate custard for example, stunning.

Mushrooms with anything.
Pineapple on pizzas.
Sweetcorn in a salad.

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.
Not really that ‘out there’ but we went to a new sweet shop in Llangollen one day last year (traditional sweets in the jars, etc.) not realising that a guy I used to work with owned it. Running a sweet shop would have been the last thing on my mind for him to do.

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?
Geraint Hedd Scourfield.

Geraint derives from the latin name Gerontius which in turn comes from the ancient Greek name Géron meaning ‘old man’.

Hedd simply means peace. Very apt.

Scourfield, we believe, comes from the 12c when there was in influx of Flemish farmers into the sir Benfro area.

Bonus!!!

6) I going to nick Anthony’s question …[quote=“AnthonyCusack, post:5, topic:12810”]
If you were to have a tattoo (or another), where and what would you have?
[/quote]
I really want the words “neb ond Angau” somewhere. I will one day.

[CatrinLliarJones]

1) Name five things which occupy the focal point in the main living area in your home.

A large multi fuel stove.
A focal wall painted in a deep petrol blue.
A piece of playing card art spelling out the word FYDD.
A print which says ‘Cenedl Heb Iaith, Cenedl Heb Galon.’
A handmade, wrought iron, wall mounted candle sconce beneath a reproduction gilted mirror.

2) Give me a mantra for today.

When you begin to feel stress creeping up on you, focus on the beautiful and interesting details of the world which surrounds you whilst calming your breath.

3) Inspired by Geraint’s ‘what goes with chips’ question. Name three sets of foods which, in your opinion, should never be consumed together.

Ham and tomato
Jelly and cream/ice cream
Prawns with anything

4) “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Share a ‘who’d have thought’ experience with us.

I was once walking down the street in Boston Mass in the 90s and ran in the the boys of Pwllheli Rugby Club.

5) What’s your real name, what does it mean, do you know why it was chosen for you, do you like it and if you could choose an alternative what would it be?

Catrin. My grandmother and my great grandmother were both Catherine. It is Latin and means ‘pure’ and has it’s origins in the Greek name Aikaterina. Catrin was also the name of one of Owain Glyndwr’s daughters

Bonus!!!

6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it!

I just did!!!