Happy Sunday! Another great and thought provoking show.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing HEMA (always through clubs associated with the British Federation of Historical Swordplay. good chance their website will have a link to a local group if you are looking to get into it). Certainly a lot of fun and a good alternative way to spend some hobby time.

I also play guitar, take regular lessons and am working gradually through my grades. Another nice skill to learn that can act as a hobby break!

As mentioned on a previous post, I can certainly recommend the “knights of middle England” and their jousting days, really amazing fun.Not quite big enough for a break, but certainly nice for a little weekend of doing something different.

@warzan What can I say? As much as it is possible to respect, admire and have affection for someone I don’t personally know, I do indeed respect, admire and have affection for your good self. So it is with a heavy heart, (and two days in a row!) I have to disagree with something you have said. Specifically regarding World of Warcraft being a waste of time. My wife and I have been regular WoW players (on and off) for years, long before we were married. Whilst years have gone by when we have dropped out of it, we have come back to it several times. Many a fine afternoon has been spent with us sat side by side on our computers adventuring together in Azeroth (as we have been again recently in preparation for the new expansion coming out at the end of this year). I’ll mention two things in the context of this that might help demonstrate my point (which is, people like the hobbies they like, and that’s cool).

One is about mobile phones, I’ve always loved them, I tend to like to buy shiny new ones, and to a lot of people, I probably seem like I waste money on them. A friend of mine (who even until quite recently had refused to have one at all) once was aghast at how much I had spent on a new model at the time. I said to him “yeah but you drive a BMW Z4 to work, an expensive and impractical car, whilst I get the bus.” my point being, that neither of us were wrong. He enjoyed having a sporty car, I liked having a fancy phone, each to their own.

My second example of this kind of thing, I remember seeing a billboard for a make-up company, I can’t remember which, said it had 4000 qualified scientists working on making people look more beautiful. I thought, “what an awful waste, all those research scientists, biologists and chemists, working on make-up, rather than something useful.” Then afterwards, I thought, no I’m wrong, I shouldn’t be mad at the people whose choose to do that (especially as my day job at the time was making computer games). No, instead I should be grateful for the people who qualify as biologists and chemists and do work on medical research and saving peoples lives.

The same point applies to hobbies, don’t be mad at, or complain about people who engage in hobbies you view as a waste of time (they almost certainly don’t see it that way!) instead be grateful for those fine folk who do share your interests, and with whom you can spend time enjoying them with.