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mousetrapplingA day late as we were in London yesterday...
Fiction: Started "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - a return to a childhood favourite, that still holds up as an adult (or at least, does so far & did last time I read it). The copy we own now is an omnibus edition of all 5 books so I'm treating it as one book. It's Arthurian-esque fantasy of the "another world hidden alongside ours" type. Finished the first part ("Over Sea, Under Stone") and am now on my favourite one ("The Dark is Rising"). I liked the first bit more than I did as a child, but the shift in tone between the two books/parts is still a bit jarring - the first one could almost be Enid Blyton and so the children protagonists never felt like my peers even when I was a child, they were from a previous time. But Will (protagonist of The Dark is Rising) felt much more like a child I might've known albeit from a bit of an odd family. And yet they're all contemporaries so it jars.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - currently reading about the devastating effects of the sanctions against Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scenes 1-4 - Valentine falling in love with Silvia, Proteus arriving and doing so too despite having moped around over Julia mere moments before. Random comic relief from Proteus's servant using his shoes to represent his parents ...
Podcasts: ep 143-162 of The History of England - the glory of Henry V so quickly followed by the utter uselessness of Henry VI.
Music: While running I listened to Elton John "The Very Best of Elton John CD2".
Live Music: Belly playing at the Shepherd's Bush Empire - perhaps my least favourite London venue but we got far enough forward to counteract the rubbish room. Belly rocked - no support act, so two sets from them. It was also the first standing gig we've been to in ages and I very much prefer that to sitting politely listening to the music!
Dunwich Museum - tiny little museum in the village of Dunwich about the village falling into the sea. Which has been going on for much longer than I'd realised - I hadn't thought that people would keep moving there once it started falling off, but it's been vanishing since Roman times and its heyday was in the 13th Century until a storm shifted a sandbar to block the harbour. The info boards had a bit of an axe to grind about the relative merits of the two major families of the area, Downings (founders of both college & street) bad, Barnes good. Guess which were still in a position to financially support the museum? ;)
Rodin & The Art of Ancient Greece at the British Museum - if we weren't members (and so get in free) and hadn't been in London at a loose end anyway then we probably wouldn't've gone. It was interesting and had some striking pieces (I was particularly fond of Rodin's sculptural group of the six Burghers of Calais) but overall too much fetishisation (by Rodin) of the art of Ancient Greece for my tastes. And not even the art that the Ancient Greeks themselves would've enjoyed, but the faded & broken remnants of it that were left after 2000 years being held up as the epitome of everything wonderful and true in art. Oh, and the assemblages pieces could, quite frankly, Get In The Sea. If you like Rodin, or want to see the Elgin Marbles displayed differently, it's probably worth it but not my cup of tea.
Petrie Museum - we then popped into the Petrie very briefly to look at the recently re-displayed shabti, which were cool :D I like shabtis. But there didn't seem to be any way to identify a given shabti - the accession numbers weren't visible anywhere in the labelling which seems a shame (although we were there so briefly that I may just've missed them).
ep 2 of Africa: A Journey into Music - this one about the music of South Africa, mostly focusing on the vocal harmonies of the local traditions, but also touching on the political history the music comes out of.
ep 2 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - art inspired by the city (in particular New York) in this episode. And as with the first episode pointing out the roots of 20th Century US art in Theosophy, a somewhat nutjob New Age-ish movement of the early part of the century.
The Road to Palmyra - Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin visit Palmyra to see how bad the destruction is in the wake of IS occupation of the area. As depressing as you'd expect.
ep 3 of Popular Voices at the BBC - watched after the one above as an antidote to the depression, this was performances from "Truthseekers" which meant quite a few political-ish songs so not quite as much of an antidote as all that. A fun series, lightweight but then that was the intention. Went well with the documentary series it was intended for (Gregory Porter's Popular Voices).
ep 2 of Africa's Greatest Civilisations - looking at the coming of Christianity (and also Islam, but mostly the former). Which thus meant a focus on Ethiopia.
Egypt's Lost Cities - another re-watch. This was the one about Sarah Parcak's satellite imagery of Egypt which she has used to identify potential archaeological sites. Pretty good, tho the attempts to actually dig stuff up that she'd identified turned out to be damp squibs (in part because the revolution stopped play after the documentary had begun to be filmed).
World Cup Football - I had both Belgium v. Panama & England v. Tunisia on in the background on Monday. Managed to miss all the goals in the first match by leaving the room at inopportune moments, but I paid more attention to the England match :)
Books
Fiction: Started "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - a return to a childhood favourite, that still holds up as an adult (or at least, does so far & did last time I read it). The copy we own now is an omnibus edition of all 5 books so I'm treating it as one book. It's Arthurian-esque fantasy of the "another world hidden alongside ours" type. Finished the first part ("Over Sea, Under Stone") and am now on my favourite one ("The Dark is Rising"). I liked the first bit more than I did as a child, but the shift in tone between the two books/parts is still a bit jarring - the first one could almost be Enid Blyton and so the children protagonists never felt like my peers even when I was a child, they were from a previous time. But Will (protagonist of The Dark is Rising) felt much more like a child I might've known albeit from a bit of an odd family. And yet they're all contemporaries so it jars.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - currently reading about the devastating effects of the sanctions against Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scenes 1-4 - Valentine falling in love with Silvia, Proteus arriving and doing so too despite having moped around over Julia mere moments before. Random comic relief from Proteus's servant using his shoes to represent his parents ...
Listening
Podcasts: ep 143-162 of The History of England - the glory of Henry V so quickly followed by the utter uselessness of Henry VI.
Music: While running I listened to Elton John "The Very Best of Elton John CD2".
Live Music: Belly playing at the Shepherd's Bush Empire - perhaps my least favourite London venue but we got far enough forward to counteract the rubbish room. Belly rocked - no support act, so two sets from them. It was also the first standing gig we've been to in ages and I very much prefer that to sitting politely listening to the music!
Museums
Dunwich Museum - tiny little museum in the village of Dunwich about the village falling into the sea. Which has been going on for much longer than I'd realised - I hadn't thought that people would keep moving there once it started falling off, but it's been vanishing since Roman times and its heyday was in the 13th Century until a storm shifted a sandbar to block the harbour. The info boards had a bit of an axe to grind about the relative merits of the two major families of the area, Downings (founders of both college & street) bad, Barnes good. Guess which were still in a position to financially support the museum? ;)
Rodin & The Art of Ancient Greece at the British Museum - if we weren't members (and so get in free) and hadn't been in London at a loose end anyway then we probably wouldn't've gone. It was interesting and had some striking pieces (I was particularly fond of Rodin's sculptural group of the six Burghers of Calais) but overall too much fetishisation (by Rodin) of the art of Ancient Greece for my tastes. And not even the art that the Ancient Greeks themselves would've enjoyed, but the faded & broken remnants of it that were left after 2000 years being held up as the epitome of everything wonderful and true in art. Oh, and the assemblages pieces could, quite frankly, Get In The Sea. If you like Rodin, or want to see the Elgin Marbles displayed differently, it's probably worth it but not my cup of tea.
Petrie Museum - we then popped into the Petrie very briefly to look at the recently re-displayed shabti, which were cool :D I like shabtis. But there didn't seem to be any way to identify a given shabti - the accession numbers weren't visible anywhere in the labelling which seems a shame (although we were there so briefly that I may just've missed them).
Watching
ep 2 of Africa: A Journey into Music - this one about the music of South Africa, mostly focusing on the vocal harmonies of the local traditions, but also touching on the political history the music comes out of.
ep 2 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - art inspired by the city (in particular New York) in this episode. And as with the first episode pointing out the roots of 20th Century US art in Theosophy, a somewhat nutjob New Age-ish movement of the early part of the century.
The Road to Palmyra - Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin visit Palmyra to see how bad the destruction is in the wake of IS occupation of the area. As depressing as you'd expect.
ep 3 of Popular Voices at the BBC - watched after the one above as an antidote to the depression, this was performances from "Truthseekers" which meant quite a few political-ish songs so not quite as much of an antidote as all that. A fun series, lightweight but then that was the intention. Went well with the documentary series it was intended for (Gregory Porter's Popular Voices).
ep 2 of Africa's Greatest Civilisations - looking at the coming of Christianity (and also Islam, but mostly the former). Which thus meant a focus on Ethiopia.
Egypt's Lost Cities - another re-watch. This was the one about Sarah Parcak's satellite imagery of Egypt which she has used to identify potential archaeological sites. Pretty good, tho the attempts to actually dig stuff up that she'd identified turned out to be damp squibs (in part because the revolution stopped play after the documentary had begun to be filmed).
World Cup Football - I had both Belgium v. Panama & England v. Tunisia on in the background on Monday. Managed to miss all the goals in the first match by leaving the room at inopportune moments, but I paid more attention to the England match :)
no subject
Date: 2018-06-22 01:35 (UTC)