Sorry brummy, had an urgent call there - bet you're asleep now!

I refuse to read Dickens, hated it at school, hate it now! I've hoovered up a lot of Oscar Wilde, love how he writes, Picture of Dorian Grey and Importane of Being Ernest are musts, but also the overlooked Lady Windermere's Fan. Complete works of Oscar Wilde plus biographies on Kindle - £1.28 ... say no more

Cant beat a bit of Emily Bronte too - give me a dark brooding Heathcliffe and I'm a happy girl

I can't read Shakespeare but love listening to/watching it, and borrowed a load of audio books from the library - have you tried any?

(PS : Husband is Welsh - still think that would work? )

Still awake!

I'm a quarter of the way through Great Expectations. God, it's dull. I loved the BBC adaptation at Christmas. Gillian Anderson made me want to read it. "What is beauty? A destroyer. What is happiness? Deception. What is love? Death." I am Havisham! I'll finish it off in the winter. (I love Oliver but only the 60s film version! Obsessed with Nancy!)

I have a book of Oscar Wilde quotes plus an Oscar Wilde action figure from a Swedish friend! I have read ...Dorian Gray. I've read Wuthering Heights - I loved how dark and twisted it was.

With Shakespeare, I did Romeo and Juliet (Leo DiCaprio & Clare Danes own a portion of my soul! #90s kid) and Macbeth at school. I'm a bit of a Pre-Raphaelite fan and Millais' Ophelia is one of my favourite pieces of art even though I haven't read Hamlet.

Welsh is even better. I have Welsh heritage!

You should be asleep! I've only got another 2.5 hours, then I can wend my weary way home - it's been a tough set of shifts this week.....bloody football

The great thing about TV adaptations is that they make the books so much more accessible to the public - Gillian Anderson was immense in GE (did you know I used to be the spitting image of her?? ) but I just know that my heart would sink when I picked up a weighty tome quoting Chumblechook, Sliderskew, Magwitch and other such ridiculous names and I would end up depressed again!

Hamlet is the coolest bloke in literary history - fact. He wants to do his uncle in to avenge his fathers death, he mistakenly kills his girlfriends dad, which annoys her so she kills herself (hence him being hoisted by his own petard - surely the most immense saying EVER) but he ends up killing the right bloke in the end, before dying himself. Hardly a laugh a minute, but it's great all the same.

Seriously, get some sleep ....

Small tip: you can get a lot of the classics for free from a site called Project Gutenberg. They collect a lot of books that are out of copyright and royalty free, so it's all completely legal as well. This is where most of those classic books on Amazon came from in the first place, so why pay someone a pound for nothing?

For example...
Oscar Wilde: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/111
Lots of Brontes: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/auth.../?query=bronte
Jane Austen: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/68
Lewis Carroll: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7
Shakespeare: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65
Dickens: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/37
Conan Doyle: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69

And the best part? They've already converted most of their books so they work on the kindle, so you can download the books directly without needing to go via a PC (assuming it's connected to wireless or 3g of course!)
http://m.gutenberg.org/
You'll want either the versions marked as "kindle", "mobi" or if there's no other choice, "html". The "epub" fomat won't work on the kindle, but is the one you want if you have any of the other ebook readers.

And here's a slightly out of date (but still useful) offline catalog, if you don't like fighting the kindle web browser
http://www.freekindlebooks.org/Magic...iccatalog.html
It's a bit large and unsorted though, so you need to use kindle's search to find the books you want. But once you have, you just click on the link and it downloads the kindle version for you automatically.

And I did mention it's all completely 100% legal and free, didn't I?

Aah, that's all good to see, thanks globbits! Most of the classics on kindle are free now - but there's bound to be something else on those lists that I will find as a must have!

I've also become slightly addicted to samples of books that are free - you usually get around 20 pages or so and it's just enough before you nod off to sleep. Favourites so far have been those memoirs of police officers, as they're usually in chunky anecdote form (Diary of an On-Call girl, Wasting Police Time tc. etc. - there's a million of em)

Neither, they're all terrible.

Which comedians make you laugh, Foxy?


globbits, if I ever transfer to e-reading, I'm going to use and abuse that source! Thank you.

There was a Shakespeare question on Pointless Celebrities today (so pleasantly surprised to see the very beautiful Sam Stockman appearing) and I failed miserably. Could only recognise the Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet quotes. I studied Macbeth and screwed that one up!

I agree about the accessibility of Dickens (and any other classics adaptations). I hated Oliver Reed for years because of what he did to Nancy! And I love As Long As He Needs Me. Ron Moody is Fagin AND Badger from The Animals of Farthing Wood. Amazing.

When Susan Boyle exploded onto the scene, I was transfixed with the beauty of I Dreamed A Dream (especially the line "I had a dream my life would be, so different from this hell I'm living") and had to know Fantine's story. I bought Les Misérables but my gosh it's long. I've pencilled it in for a Winter 2013 read...when's the film out?!

Tell you the truth I wouldn't call myself a fan of any comedian, Michael McIntyre once had me in stitches about a joke on VCRs but I find him annoying so I couldn't put up with him for long, likewise I find Frankie Boyle to be really funny but some his jokes just make to tilt my head to the side and say 'Ooooooooohh that's extreme'. Overall I find stand-up fairly boring.

Oh and I do kinda take back what I said about Russell Howard, he can be funny at times and I like his comedic style, plus he's my future husband.

Just watched both Euro 2012 matches after work.

I think my hatred of Russia in Eurovision has got me just disliking them as a nation. Was willing Greece to win so much .

Got next weeks rota from work though and I am working Saturday night. If England qualify as runners up then they are playing on Saturday night . So unless we win the group and play on Sunday I will need some for off sickness on Saturday so I can't work

Talking about comedians.

I love Alan Carr and Peter Kay

Like Russell Howard, used to love him but I don't know he went a bit stale for me

Really don't get Michael Mcintyre and Lee Evans.

I think out of the funny Russells, Howard is my favourite. I've seen him live twice. Brand, once but it was just after the Sachsgate debacle so that kinda dominated things.

I've seen Frankie Boyle too. Even though I was so far away from the stage to be oblivious, I was terrified he'd manage to pick me out. He's pretty brutal!

I don't mind Russia in Eurovision, it's Russia full stop that annoy me!

I wanted Poland and Greece wins. I came out of that pretty okay.

I've seen Alan Car and Peter Kay live, both very good. I liked Peter Kay more when he first exploded. I remember channel 5 showing a gig of his and me and my sister were falling off our seats laughing - so much of the observational comedy was spot on to our family!

I like Michael McIntyre enough but he's extortionate to see live and I don't think his prices match his act. My best mate adores Lee Evans bit I just don't really get him.

Thank god I'm not the only one that has a problem with Russia.

So the Dutch score 0 points at the Euros too, they ain't the most lucky country in competions

So I passed all my exams!!
Better than my exams at Christmas too... Eurovision wasn't such a distraction after all!

Oh congratulations Mikay! That's brilliant news

Well done, you must be mega chuffed.

Congratulations

Evening folks. Hope all's well.

Just out of interest, do any of you lot happen to have a Nintendo 3DS? I recently came into a wee bit o' money and decided to get myself an early birthday present! However now I have no "friends" on it and am scouting other 3DS users to swap friend codes and that!

I have absolutely no coordination so am hopeless at all these nifty wee game things.

We were having a random conversation about smacking your children this evening. Did anyone else used to get a belt from your parents when you were younger? I used to go to school with a hairbrush mark implanted on my leg! Never did me any harm tho ( I had longish hair and used to always moan and complain about tugs hurting when it was brushed)

I read your post early hours of this morning, and have been having a good think about it all day, it's such an emotive subject!

I used to get a belt from my parents fairly regularly, but have not smacked LA even once, I just don't like the thought of lashing out in anger. I've found over the years that sticking him in a naughty corner and taking away privileges has a great effect on him, but I also know that every kid is different.

It's so difficult, but it's like having a birth plan - you never know till it happens how you're going to deal with stuff

I used to get whacked on the head with a wooden spoon as a punishment whenever I did something naughty, I personally could never bring myself to hit a child. Although as someone without kids I can't really talk.

I'm glad that you choose not to hit your child Anne, I wish more parents would follow suite.

Yeah, I got smacked as a kid. I'm of the it didn't do me any harm but not sure if I'd smack kids if I had them train of thought. Not that I ever want kids!

I don't advocate hitting kids but minding my niece and nephew could make anyone change their minds.

Good God I know I'm getting old.

I was at my gf's house to help moderate a party here 16 year old boyfriend was having and I was made to feel my age in several ways. Firstly, a girl told me "oh, you remind me of my English teacher- I love him" which was the most backhanded compliment I've ever received. Secondly, I was drinking whiskey and actually wanted a cup of tea about three hours in and thirdly, I actually referred to weed as "Mary Jane" in a conversation about drugs. Tragically, my glory days are now behind me. I'll go back to writing plays nobody ever reads.

Oh dear 21CB I cringed when I got to the bit about the cup of tea, I wouldn't have thought you were my age, you come across as someone much older.

And this just in, a very attractive female colleague of mine says that she's jealous of my skinny legs.