Lasse Gunnar Diding, originally Lars Gunnar Diding, born April 24, 1953 in Varberg, is a Swedish hotel entrepreneur and celebrity. Between 1987 and 2018 he operated Hotell Gästis in Varberg and from opening 2013 to 2018 also Hotell Havanna in the same city. In 2007, Lasse Diding was named Entrepreneur of the Year in Varberg. Lasse Diding is well-known in Sweden due to his persistent use of Lenin in all sorts of different contexts. Besides opening the Lenin Spa at Hotell Gästis and being the founder of the Lenin Award, Lasse Diding has for example proposed to name a football stadium and a public park in Varberg after Lenin. In 2017, he was a part of the documentary Revolution: 100 years young that was made by Russia Today.
Each year, Lasse Diding gives out the Lenin Award of 100,000 SEK to "an author or artist in Sweden, who operates with social criticism and in a rebellious leftist tradition" and the Robespierre Prize of 10,000 SEK to "a young Swedish writer or artist, who operates in a critical spirit". The awards originally also bore the name of Jan Myrdal and were given out by the Jan Myrdal Society, but since 2017 Lasse Diding stands alone behind the awards. Lasse Diding was the initiator of the founding of the Jan Myrdal Society in 2008 and later in collaboration with Henning Mankell also made a house in Varberg available to the large private library Jan Myrdal donated to the society. The Jan Myrdal Library was officially opened in 2015.
With the handbag as a weapon
Lasse Diding bought Susanna Arwin's statue "With the handbag as a weapon" in 2015; the following year he donated it to Varberg Municipality for placement in Brunnsparken in the centre of Varberg. But the statue had been much disputed, and after extensive debate in the local press, the municipality decided not to accept the donation. After that, Lasse Diding chose instead to donate "With the handbag as a weapon" to Halland Museum of Cultural History at Varberg Fortress and in September 2016, the Halland County Museums Foundation made a unanimous decision to receive the statue. In connection with The Handbag's Day in May 2017, the statue was given its current location in the garden of Lasse Diding's Villa Wäring in Varberg, where passers-by can view the artwork.
Diding tried to give his son the name Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 but got no at both the Tax Authority and when the case was brought to court. The parents had planned not to register any official name for the boy in general protest against the authorities' involvement in everything and especially in protest against the naming law, and did not do so until they were sentenced by the County Administrative Court in Halland County to pay a fine of SEK 5,000 after not having registered any name on the boy's fifth birthday. However, the long name they then gave the boy did not come to be approved by the authorities. Neither was A approved, as they later wanted to spell the name.
