Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson - goodness he likes his info-dumps. My general preference is for stories that leave you to figure out what's going on, so I'm finding there's a bit much of this "character thinks about the last 5,000 years of history in detail because of a passing remark" stuff and I'd quite like him to get on with the story ;)

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - at the moment it's focusing on Israel & Palestine and the conflicts arising from that situation.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Tempest: Act 2 Scene 2 - Act 3 Scene 2 - schemes & drunkards, sometimes at the same time.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 61-79 of The History of England - having finished off John (bad) and Henry III (inept & weak) we're now into the rule of Edward I (smote people)


Music: While running I listened to Sarah McLachlan "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy" and started Everything But the Girl "Home Movie"

Watching

ep 4 of Putin, Russia and the West - this last episode looking at how the election of Obama & a new Russian President looked like that dawning of a new era (despite some definite tensions) ... only of course Putin wasn't really gone. A good series, with a lot of the actual movers & shakers giving interviews for it.

ep 2 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - the modern day recruits go through fighting & weapons training. The bloke who has been annoying me all the way through so far was the one to go this time, so J will be pleased not to hear me muttering "he needs a slap" all the way through the next three episodes.

ep 4 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - I hadn't ever thought of Norwich as a particularly Tudor town, but apparently it is.

Later ... with Jools Holland - an episode from a year or more ago that we recorded as it had Spoon playing on it.

ep 2 of King Tut's Treasure Secrets - this time mostly focused on the mask, and on how the burial was probably put together in a hurry. The plus for this series is that it shows a lot of the artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb that haven't been on display for ages. The minus is that it's very much a portentously narrated series that purports to solve mysteries etc etc, but is actually quite shallow.

ep 1 of Egypt Unwrapped - pretty sure we've watched this before when J's parents have recorded it from some Sky channel. This episode was on Ramessess II, and was rather well done.