Bore da a Pasg Hapus! A Happy Easter to you all!
I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend ahead of you.
Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, ‘A Coign of Vantage’.
Or Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, ‘An Allegory with Venus and Time’.
And if you’re feeling really generous, I’ll have Van Gogh’s ‘Cafe Terrace at Night’ too, please…
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Um… the entirety of Western politics?
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Ahem. Stuff about learning languages. 
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Worst: Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’.
Best: ‘War and Peace’.
Strangest: Laurence Sterne’s ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.’
Most difficult: James Joyce, ‘Finnegan’s Wake’.
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Yes. Beuno’s attempts to copy his mother’s idiosyncratic jokes.
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Trying to survive your apparent plans to fill our garden with every child in a ten mile radius.
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
The picture of the cockerel that was up for a raffle prize in Oriel Glyn y Weddw last year. I wish I’d taken a picture now if only for this question. 
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Politics aside not really that much. I tend to annoy myself more than other people do. My OCD and anxieties I guess but they are not crippling so I shouldn’t complain, there are a lot of people worse off.
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
The rights of cyclists on the road (too many people still take the Clarkson offensive) and how some cyclists give us a bad name.
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
In all seriousness, although I only read about 80%, I would say the Bible.
Yes, all 4 points.
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
I love comedy, most comedians make me laugh but there are some that I just don’t get. I hate Mrs. Brown’s boys though. I love watching comedy films too. My wife and kids all have a brilliant sense of humour too, we laugh so much in this house. 
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Work. 
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
There are way too many wonderful pieces of art to choose from, but if I had to narrow it down it would have to be A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, for the way it makes me feel when I look at it.
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Parking fees.
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Once I’ve got going I could quite honestly bore anyone with anything, but I try not to… 
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Best? The one I’m writing, obviously 
But seriously. I will always go back to Austen when life is a challenge. Pride and Prejudice has to be a favourite. Tried Don Quixote, have never been so utterly bored. I’ve also struggled with many text books as I don’t process information easily.
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Love comedy. Aran makes me laugh. Beuno’s giggles are infectious. Enjoy a good stand up comedian. Father Ted will always be a favourite, as well as C’mon Midfild.
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Nieces over for a sleepover tonight. Tomorrow it’s approximately 13 kids and 7 adults for an Easter party, Easter crafts and egg hunt in the garden. Sunday is hopefully quiet, Monday I’m guessing we’ll be in the chalet for post workmen clear up.
There’s no need to be rude.
Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
One day I’m really hoping that one of my sketches will be good enough to hang on my wall. In the meantime I’d really like something by Chris Foss (he did / does amazing sci-fi book covers).
It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Being ill for too many weeks in springtime. I mean, leaves are coming out, the sun stays with us for longer, lambs are gambolling and every cold / virus in the world has come to stay in our house.
What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Whatever I’m currently researching. Nothing more boring than someone obsessing on Roman dice / Bronze Age pot decoration / Wales’s prehistoric population levels.
Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Worst - tend not to remember the bad ones.
Best - Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game.
Strangest - Alice in Wonderland,
Most difficult - In English, something by Virginia Wolf (can’t remember the title). In Welsh, Kate Roberts Traed mewn cyffion (it beat me in the end, but I’m looking forward to the rematch).
Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Cats on the internet… Thank heavens Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet so I can watch cats doing stuff.
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Camping out in the garden, reading some journal papers, making some pots… did I mention the Bronze Age pots (see 3)…
1/ I think I have to agree with @aran’s 3rd choice - the café terrace at night.
2/ Social injustice and potential privatisation of the NHS
3/ hmmm…this changes a lot. Probably something historical
4/ worst: possibly same as hardest
Hardest: Heart of Darkness - I didn’t get it
Best: House of Spirits
Strangest: Midnights Children
5/ I love comedy. I remember crying with laughter at Eddie Izzard’s Noah played by Sean Connery. Only Fools and Horses, Friends, all sorts. Not a fan of some of the Scary Movie stuff.
6/ very little - can’t wait!
Diolch Catrin a Pasg Hapus i chdi hefyd.
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
Original as in newly commissioned, or original as in the actual one that the artist made (not a copy)? Well, assuming the latter, anything by Rembrandt, especially one of his simple pen and ink drawings.
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Keeping well away from politics, to the relatively trivial: there seem to have been more than the usual number of idiot other-drivers on the road lately, and I think I meet them yet again on the pavements and in the supermarket, where they lurch this way and that way, not caring about anybody else, getting in the way and/or cutting in. Politeness seems to be a disappearing virtue…
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
The relationships (direct, inverse, or otherwise) between nutrition (including supplements) and health.
Financial/banking/monetary/economic reform, learning from the concepts of Modern Monetary theory.
(Other boring topics are available on request, with the application of alcohol)
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
I don’t know about “best”, but a pair of books that have given me pleasure over the years are “Three Men in a Boat” and “Three Men on the Bummel” by Jerome K Jerome.
I’ve attempted to read quite a few “difficult” books in German, and more recently in Welsh, but it would not be fair to call them difficult just because of my lack of non-native language ability.
Another little gem is “Travels with a Donkey” by Robert Louis Stevenson. A fantastic story teller (that one happening to be true).
I often think (and have no doubt bored the forum in the past with this theory/opinion) that, after the essentials of life: food, clothing &shelter, one of the most important things in life is the story. It’s how we learn, how we teach, how we pass on experiences. I would guess that the best teachers are good story tellers.
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Oh yes, and lots of different things. Having been brought up on radio, I loved and love “Hancocks Half Hour” (still available on BBC Radio 4 Extra).
I don’t love all American TV comedy, but I’m re-enjoying (thanks to DVDs) both “Larry Sanders” (Gary Shandling, sadly RIP), and “Seinfeld” (Jerry Seinfeld).
More currently: Family Guy (and to a slightly lesser extent: The Simpsons)
Standup: Stewart Lee.
Lots and lots of other things really though. I’ll give most comedy at least a try.
Can’t go without mentioning Dim Byd. Not watched it as much as I intended to, and I don’t necessarily understand it all, but it’s highly original!
Edit: Also really have to mention the “M. Hulot” films of Jacques Tati. Priceless!
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Trip to Brighton tomorrow (actually flat-hunting with our daughter).
Family lunch on Sunday. The Paschal lamb (with or without mint sauce).
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
Millais’s “Caller Herrin” and Allen Jones’ portrait of Darcey Bussell ( both of which already hang in the room I call my music room. Neither’s original, though. Do they count? )
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
edit: me, when I’m being inconsistent
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
The beauty of Physics (but, that can’t be boring - can it?) 
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Worst book: I never finish them.
Best book: anything by George Eliot, Charles Dickens or Terry Pratchett
Strangest Book(s): Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durell
Most Difficul: Quantum Mechanics by Paul Dirac (and Q M is supposed to be my area of expertise )
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Big bang Theory (Sheldon’s my role model) and Peter Kay’s Car Share
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Feasting to excess. 
Never, there’s a lot I don’t understand but it is always interesting.
I’ll have one of the Kyffin Williams oil paintings from Oriel Ynys Mon, if someone could distract the staff’s attention for five minutes…
People getting on their soap boxes, especially here…
I try not to get going. My life is so dull that anything I say sounds boring, even to me. That’s why I love listening to other people’s stories!
Worst: ‘The Brothers Karamazov’, (Dostoyevsky)
Best: ‘Best??’ Not the greatest in literary terms, but ‘That they may face the rising sun’ (McGahern) consoled me at a terrible time.
Strangest: ‘If on a winter’s night a traveller’, (Calvino)
Most difficult: ‘In search of lost time’ (Proust). Save it for your retirement, and it will give you a good reason not to!
Almost all stand-up and sitcoms leave me cold. But my friends, and the strangeness of life, make me laugh all the time.
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
See answer to 3), above.
Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
The E H Shepard illustrations for Winnie-the-Pooh.
It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Trying to get an appointment to see the GP.
What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
The various different timbers used in a piece of furniture. And the way they have been cut. And the finishes applied. And how their appearance has changed as they have aged. And …
Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Worst: I can’t remember which book it was but it was a Harry Potter.
Best: Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy. J Le Carre. Much better than the TV serial or the film.
Strangest: The doors of perception. Aldous Huxley. Enough said.
Most difficult: Executioner: Pierrepoint. Nothing wrong with the book; it’s the subject matter that is difficult.
Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Eric Morecambe, Michael Flanders, Victoria Wood, Ken Dodd.
Some incidents from real life are better than stage humour. Many of us at work did all sorts of DIY jobs at home. One, who is dyslexic, asked us one day where we got our hinges, knobs and other door fittings and several of us mentioned Screwfix. So when he got his lunch break he went into the Internet for a look. But he didn’t type the name Screwfix; he put Screwit instead! Don’t try it. Up came a porno picture on his work PC. Now he is not prudish but is on the quiet side and he was extremely embarrassed so he quickly clicked on the back arrow - and got another picture. By this time some of us were gathering to see what the commotion was about. We were of no help because whatever he did he just another picture and anyway we couldn’t stop laughing. After trying, and failing, to get out of his Web browser he tried, and failed, to close down his machine. And each attempt brought up another picture. Eventually he pulled the plug out but by that time I had tears running down my cheeks. And it is still amusing me as I write this now…
I don’t know what is planned. The children (all now 30+) have only told me to keep Sunday afternoon clear.
Raymond
.
Yachts, L S Lowry, I love this painting. It reminds me of Wednesday afternoons in another age…, probably about 1969/70. My Dad used to be off work due to half day closing. We often went to the beach at West Kirby.
Constant requests at work requesting me to provide evidence of impact and therefore preventing me from actually having any impact! 
What I perceive to be the inability of the ‘authorities’ in this country to allow us to use a modicum of common sense, and their subsequent need to impose petit rules, regulations and warnings on us… Signposts saying, ‘Stay away from the cliff edge’ or takeaway coffee cups printed with, ‘Caution Hot’ spring to mind…
I don’t really read much so some of these were read at school!
Worst - The Pearl - John Steinbeck.
Best - Stig of the Dump, loved it at school, have read to my son who loved it too!
Strangest - Like someone else said, I usually don’t get past the first couple of pages if a book is weird.
Most Difficult - Probably some of the Chaucer we read at school, for ‘Fun’!!!
Love John Cleese, Radio comedy is also a real favourite, Just a Minute, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’
Ooh, forgot, over Easter we are seeing family. [edit]
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
We have a lot of original art on our walls. I just went around and took some photos and ended up with six on my phone - which is by no means all! (That’s what happens when you once owned an art gallery.) Photos aren’t great - too much glare on the glass and the like - and I can’t decide which to post.
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Lack of civility. It so saddens (and really annoys) me when people cannot be even a little bit polite and respectful of each other.
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Any organization that I have been involved with for a long time - Camp Fire, the Society for Creative Anachronism, SSiW . . .
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
These are hard. While I love to read, I don’t really get much opportunity. Worst I’m sure I’ve forgotten. Best (shameless plug here) Communion of Dreams by James Downey (my husband) and the drafts for the next book, St. Cybi’s Well. (Yes, that St. Cybi.) Strangest - much like Worst, I don’t really remember. Most Difficult - anything that I was required to read for class.
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
I’m afraid much of British humor just seems way over the top for me, but I do enjoy comedy and my husband is one of my best sources for laughter.
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Absolutely nothing!! Yay!
Glad there is another radio fan here, and your mentioning John Cleese reminds me of John Shuttleworth: an entirely different sort of humour, but also priceless. A very gifted man I think.
Were you around for “I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again”? (With John Cleese among others). That’s also occasionally on Radio4 Extra. To be honest, it hasn’t aged (for me) as well as Tony Hancock, but I thought it was absolutely brilliant at the time.
Lol, didn’t want to mention The Shuttleworths in case nobody knew who they were! Absolute genius… My wife just sits there bemused as tears stream down my face!
Also like ISIRTA, but not old enough to remember the first time round; my Dad introduced me to it in the 80s when quite a lot of episodes were repeated on Radio 4. Totally agree it hasn’t aged as well as Hancock’s Half Hour. There are a few episodes of ISIRTA on the BBC Radio Player.
Absolute favourite Hancock episode is The Poetry Society… 
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
Anything by Johannes Vermeer
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
Not enough room here to list it all 
refugee mistreatment is top of the list, though
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Talking about brewing beer and other fermentation processes
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
One for all: “A Void” by Georges Perec - I keep looking for an ‘e’ - too scared to read the original French “La Disparition”, the English translation by Gilbert Adair is genius
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
I still love the Goon Show, always cracks me up - absurdist humour in general
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Starting our bicycle tour through the Victorian Alps
1) Choose an original piece of art for your wall.
Probably something by my mom 
Difficult to choose, but maybe the “I Have Seen Things” -fish:
2) It’s your turn to get on the soap box - what has really irked you recently?
How we are usually taught things in school. I learned so much from a psychology course I had in October, where we had lots of small tests that didn’t affect our grades so much, retrieval practice (for example, the teacher would ask us to write down and/or talk about what we remember from the previous lessons in the beginning of some lessons) and stuff like that. We almost never do anything like that in other classes.
3) What do you often bore people with once you’ve got going?
Uhm… Cymraeg and everything related to it Anyone who knows me immediately starts to look worried whenever someone says a word that is even slightly related to Cymru, Cymraeg or langauges…
Also whatever TV show, movie, book (etc.) I’m the most excited about at the moment. These change pretty often. Right now I’m in love with a play about Alan Turing by Catrin Fflûr Huws called “To Kill a Machine”.
4) Worst book, best book, strangest book, most difficult book?
Worst: Angels and Demons (by Dan Brown) because of the weird way Italian words are just thrown in in weird places. Italians often use lots of Italian words when they speak English but not in the way it’s done in the book. Maybe I’m the only one, but it feels very unnatural and annoying to me
Best: Very difficult to choose… Lord of the Rings (by J.R.R. Tolkien), The Martian (by Andy Weir) or The Quantum Thief (by Hannu Rajaniemi) definitely…
Strangest: Auringon asema (by Ranya ElRamly). A Finnish book we had to read for school. It kept repeating the same things over and over again without using (much) punctuation. There were sentences that went on for over an entire page.
Most difficult: Il Decamerone (by Giovanni Boccaccio). Old Italian classic I had to read (in Italian) for a Finnish course once. I never managed to finish it…
5) Do you enjoy comedy? What or who makes you laugh?
Yes. Well, I watch a lot of comedy on youtube. Favourites are probably David Mitchell, Robert Webb and Bo Burnham. Out of people I know, my mom and Lisa make me laugh the most. Lisa is a friend, former roommate and now basically family
Finally, as a bonus, what do you have planned for this Easter weekend?
Lots of homework for when I’m away from school on bootcamp Might do it, but knowing myself I’ll probably just leave all of it for when I come back and spend the weekend watching S4C and listening to music instead…
I have a soap box topic - the price of places to stay in Cardiff for the champions league final. It’s disgusting. £5000 for two nights. Single rooms for £500.
We rented ours for £240 for 4 nights. I feel guilty enough about that!!
