I’m not a big opera fan myself, and I’m with you on the shouting in Italian and the affected vibrato. But I’ve recently got well into Wagner’s Ring Cycle. You might want to give that one a go, if you haven’t already. (I mean, you might well hate it, but at any rate you’ll hate it for different reasons than other opera.)

If that makes me a peasant, then so be it. I shall apply for my gingham tunic and straw hat with all haste.

(Perhaps they were being sarcastic, but I’ll kid myself they weren’t.)

Yeah, there’s an entry in Mark Kaplan’s Notes on Rhetoric on this:

Entertaining – You find your opponent entertaining. His arguments are ‘amusing’, ‘diverting’ and so on, a kind of sport, which you have enjoyed. At some point, however, this becomes ’embarassing’ and you should advise your opponent to retire before he humiliates himself. At all costs avoid suggesting you are seriously engaged with what he is saying.

Chris, my private theory is that Siaw is one person who sits at his PC dressed as Queen Victoria and sniffs, "WE are not amused," every ten minutes. It takes all sorts.