Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finally finished "The Bear & The Dragon", Tom Clancy. Not even a particularly good example of Clancy's work, let alone a good book. Antagonists are a China that's straight out of much earlier Yellow Peril stereotypes, and the whole thing is somewhat over padded with less gun-porn that I remember but more overtly political rants. That's the end of the Clancys I own, and they'll be off to a charity shop soon, tho I do still intend to pull my thoughts together into a post about them as a whole.

Started "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson, which we bought ages ago but I haven't yet got round to reading. Somewhat mental whiplash from Clancy ;)

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - which has taken a digression into the World War I of Fisk's father, illustrating the after-effects of war both on the people involved personally and politically, and also showing how the Middle East was in general fucked over by the decisions made during & after that war.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: General Introduction - finished up the introduction now (tho there'll be more introductory material before I get to the first play, but not much more). Quite a bit on the cult of Shakespeare as it arose in the centuries after, and on how they chose what to put in this particular book (it's the First Folio versions of the plays, edited to modernise spelling, plus incorporating bits of the Quartos if it seems obvious the Folio printing is in error - the intent is to get as close as possible to the text as delivered to the publisher, but modernised).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 28-46 of The History of England - as always with such things narrative progress slows as we get to eras with more sources. These episodes get from Henry I through the Anarchy and the into the Angevins. He's finished off Henry II's rather soap opera of a life, and just starting Richard Coeur de Lion.

Sunday Podcast: ep 15 & 16 of Living with the Gods - festivals & their place in holding communities together, and starting to look at religious images with images of protectoresses.

Music: While running I listened to The Beatles "1"

EEG Study Day: "Deir el-Medina: A Never-ending Story", Cédric Gobeil. He gave four talks over the day which were:

"Archaeology in the Archive: A Short Historical Review of the French Excavations at Deir el-Medina" - he opened by giving us an overview of the work that had been done at the site prior to his becoming the director of new excavations in the 21st Century. Which was sufficiently extensive that the received wisdom was the there was nothing left to find.

"The Theban Tomb 250: helping out Women’s Studies" - his own personal work, re-examining with the intent to republish this tomb. In the course of this work he's discovered it is actually the tomb of 9 women, combined with a memorialisation of several of the prominent members of the community.

"'Wonderful things': highlights from the past seasons" - an overview of the work done since he became director. This is both stuff to restore the site (to the state it was left by the principal excavator who finished work in the 1950s), and to re-investigate parts of the site. Contrary to expectations there's still a lot to investigate - the original excavation was done rapidly, and they've found quite a few things like ostraca that were overlooked.

"Of Mummies and Men: The Discovery of a Female Tattooed Mummy" - there were still a lot of (damaged) human remains on site, piled up in one of the tombs, and one of those was the torso of a woman with a lot of tattoos. He talked us through what tattoos she had, how they compared to depictions of women in reliefs and what their significance might be.

Watching

ep 8 of Civilisations - David Olusoga talking about art & imperialism and progress.

ep 1 of Putin, Russia and the West - a series from a few years ago looking at Putin's rise to power & the changing relationships between Russia & Europe/the US after the Cold War ended.

ep 2 & 3 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - the two towns in these episodes were York as an exemplar of a Viking town and Winchester as an exemplar of a Norman town.

Bacchus Uncovered: Ancient God of Ecstasy - Bettany Hughes programme, about Bacchus as an ancient Greek god and some attempt to trace his relevance through into modern society. I wasn't sold on it, really, a shame as her programmes are normally good.

ep 1 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - a series re-creating the selection process & training programme of the spies who were sent to Nazi occupied Europe during the Second World War. A mix of reality tv-esque "who's going to make it to the next stage" (tho without any audience voting thankfully!) and history documentary. Actually rather good so far.

Wild Tales from the Village - charmingly quirky nature programme looking at the lives of wild animals over a year in a French village. Had a bit of a fairytale feel to it and managed to stay the right side of the twee/charming line. I recorded it as it promised red squirrels, and it definitely delivered on that.

ep 3 of An Art Lover's Guide - in Baku for this episode. Not a place I think I'd heard of before even tho it's the capital of Azerbaijan. Enjoyed the series overall, three interesting places to see. It always feels a little stilted but somehow works despite that.