Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finished "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson - I find Stephenson a bit hit & miss, this one was (just) in the hit category. I think its flaw was that he was so excited to tell us about the engineering & scientific tricks he'd thought up that he skimped on the characters & plot, mostly using current persons & events and gently filing the serial numbers off (only not quite far enough). But the idea that drove the story intrigued me enough to make it a hit.

Started "2001: A Space Odyssey", Arthur C. Clarke - continuing to read my way through the fiction we own. It's a pleasing coincidence that I ended up reading Seveneves just before this - they're not the same story, but they rhyme.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - still reading the chapter on Israel & Palestine, which is feeling very topical given the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Tempest: Act 3 Scene 3 - Act 5 Scene 1 - everyone says how sorry they are, they promise to mend their ways and all go home. I don't really like The Tempest as a story, which I suspect is not the point of the play.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 79-97 of The History of England - Edward II has been dispatched, Mortimer too, and we're about to launch into the reign of Edward III.

Sunday Podcast: ep 19 & 20 of Living with the Gods - still on the theme of images, but now images intended to have an effect on you (make you feel an emotion and thus get closer to god) and those religions/sects which banish the image.

Music: While running I listened to Everything But the Girl "Home Movie" & "Amplified Heart".

Talk: "Kings from Kush: Egypt's 25th Dynasty", Robert Morkot - a summary of what we know about the rulers of the 25th Dynasty, and how we know what we know.

Watching

ep 3 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - survival training this time, not the living-off-the-land type, but the sneaking-into-guarded-buildings type. Oh, and climbing up a cliff-face on rickety not joined together ladders. I wouldn't've made it that far in the training anyway but can't even begin to imagine climbing up those.

ep 5 & 6 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - Cheltenham as the epitome of the Regency and Belfast for the Victorian era. This was a bit of an odd little series, on the one hand it was Alice Roberts and she's as good as usual being informative without being patronising but on the other hand it felt rather shoehorned into the premise rather than fitting naturally. Having these be the "most" whatever town rather than a representative example seemed to require a bit of verbal gymnastics. And I've no idea why we had the archaeologist(?) in a plane, his sections felt like useless padding.

ep 2 of Syria: The World's War - utterly depressing two-parter about the conflict in Syria and how everyone's getting involved and lots of innocent people are dying but none of the players seem to care. Somehow we managed to watch part 2 first, so part 1 is lined up for tonight.

ep 1 & 2 of Gregory Porter's Popular Voices - looking at singers in 20th-21st Century popular music. Each episode is focussed on a different type of singer - so we've had "Showstoppers" and "Crooners" so far.

ep 1 of Popular Voices at the BBC - series to go along with the Gregory Porter one, where the BBC has trawled through its archives for examples of the type he was talking about. So this one was Showstoppers, including people as diverse as Freddie Mercury, Mahalia Jackson and Adele.