Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Bear & The Dragon", Tom Clancy. Into the endgame - war this time so the people dying are soldiers rather than civilians (it's curiously not actually full of people dying, a very birdseye view of the war).

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - more about the early days of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Which was rather brutally unpleasant.

Hidden Meanings: 10.17-end - finished this book now. It got rather monotonous feeling towards the end, I'd seen a lot of the motifs discussed earlier in the book. Better as a reference than to read, I think.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: General Introduction - my next bits book. After a bit of thought I decided that I would read the introductory material, so currently working through the general introduction with some bits of background about both Shakespeare and the theatre so far.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 1.8-14 of The History of England - covering things like Alfred's reign, and the unification of England under his successors, and up to Aethelred the Unready and about to have it all go wrong for England.

Sunday Podcast: ep 13 & 14 of Living with the Gods - the concepts sacrifice and pilgrimage across different religions/cultures.

Music: While running I listened to Queen "Greatest Hits II", Pulp "Different Class" and The Stone Roses "The Stone Roses"

Talk: "New Research in the King's Valley: Amenhotep III Family Tombs in the Valley of the Kings" Susanne Bickel - she & her team have been re-excavating previously excavated tombs to see what more we can discover now archaeology is about more than treasure hunting. Two most exciting discoveries were a new tomb (KV64 with a 22nd Dynasty Chantress of Amun buried on top of an original 18th Dynasty burial (of which little survives)) and the destroyed remains of several burials within KV40. The latter tomb had fragments of 83 people, plus 120 large pots some of which were labelled with names of Amenhotep III's family members (i.e. several King's Daughters).

Watching

ep 6 of Civilisations - David Olusoga talking about art coming out of first contact between different cultures.

ep 2 & 3 of Treasures of Ancient Egypt - finishing up the series, these cover from the Middle Kingdom through to Cleopatra's time. We do like this series, it's nice to see the Egyptian art discussed as art rather than as clues to history for a change.

ep 2 of Britain's Greatest Cathedrals with Tony Robinson - Canterbury this time. So the history included Thomas Becket, of course, and Henry VIII and the break with Rome. I visited Canterbury several times when I lived nearby for a year, but I don't think I ever went in the Cathedral.

ep 1 of Kim Philby: His Most Intimate Betrayal - a look at Philby's career as a spy. The presenter's main thesis is that we tend to portray Philby as a gentleman spy (who just happened to be working for the other side) whereas the truth is that he was far more cold-blooded & sociopathic than that implies. Not sure I buy the thesis, but then I didn't know enough about Philby in advance to have a caricature of him in my head.

Island at the BBC - one of the BBC's trawl through their archives of live music performances to fit a theme, in this case bands signed to Island. Piece of fluff, of course, but fun to watch and the theme meant it was quite varied. It's an older one of the set - it was made in 2009, which I only know because I was surprised it didn't mention Amy Winehouse's early death in the notes on her but it turns out to've been made 2 years before she died.

Here Comes the Summer: The Undertones Story - the BBC seem to be showing quite a few programmes about Ireland/Northern Ireland and the Troubles at the moment. This is one of them, as the Undertones came from Derry. It was an odd programme - I kinda think of the Undertones as a one hit wonder but it turns out that their biggest hit wasn't the only song I know (Teenage Kicks). The programme however was positioning them as the Best. Band. Ever! in terms that might've felt a bit overblown about, say, The Beatles let along the Undertones.

ep 1 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - Alice Roberts' new series, this episode was about Chester as the town where the Roman heritage is most clearly visible.