Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finished "The Lion Returns", John Dalmas - how it turned out was with an act of mass genocide by the protagonist (of the enemy, of course, but ALL of the enemy), after which he retired with his first wife who he could return to now both of their successive spouses were dead. Not quite sure why I remembered liking it enough to keep, but tastes change I guess - although to be fair it wasn't dreadful. Off to the charity shop it goes.

Started "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - the last Inspector Morse novel, when it was filmed for TV the bit when he dies was filmed in Exeter College, my father's college & where J and I got married. I seem to remember that's why my parents gave me a copy of the book.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - I'm getting towards the end of the book now, and he's covering 9/11 in this chapter, with most of the focus being on how no-one at the time seemed interested in publicly considering why this had happened.

Started "The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt", Toby Wilkinson, as part of a rather more systematic read through of our Egypt books - the opening couple of chapters cover the unification of Egypt and how the iconography etc of divine kingship was in place from the start. His overall theme is "this was a brutal dictatorship and we should not forget that just because there were beautiful objects".

Skimming through "The Artist's Way", Julia Cameron - I've seen references to this book here & there for a while, so as the library have it I thought I'd see what it actually says. Far far too woo for me, and looking to solve a problem I don't have (focus on one project at a time is my problem, not being blocked creatively). I probably shan't finish even skimming the book before I take it back to the library.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 1 Scenes 3-4, Act 2 Scenes 1-3 - still suffering from having to look up the jokes.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 251-252 of The History of England - I've caught up to date with this, finishing in a pretty good place as he'd just polished off the reign of Henry VIII and wrapped up with a look at the question of how we should judge him overall.

ep 109-114 of The History of English - this podcast is still in the 13th Century, and Middle English. Amongst other things these episodes talked about north/south divide in the language at the time, some of which differences are still the same now. Up to date with this one again too.

Syrian Tales ep 1-3 which were a bonus bit in The History of Egypt - he did these originally as a fundraiser to help the victims of the modern Syrian War, some tales from the Bronze Age in Syria with a deliberate compare & contrast with the modern situation.

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Margaret of Anjou - which of course was mostly about the Wars of the Roses. The experts came down on the side that instead of being an ambitious she-wolf she was more someone doing what was necessary to try to secure the position of her husband & her son (which of course also secured her own position).

Music: While running I listened to Guns'n'Roses "Appetite for Destruction" and Bon Jovi "Cross Road".

Watching

Egypt Unwrapped: The Scorpion King - rather good look at the same sort of period I've just read about in the Toby Wilkinson book (and he was one of the talking heads). Just pre-unification of Egypt there's a king who is always named with the scorpion hieroglyph who probably conquered one of the other predynastic power centres of Upper Egypt, the programme looked both at what we know about him and Egypt at the time he lived in.

Egypt Unwrapped: Secrets of Valley of the Kings - overview of the Valley of the Kings, focusing particularly on Hatshepsut & why she chose there and the physical construction of the tombs.

Dan Snow's History of the Congo - aka how European colonialism fucked up a region of Africa, and then how the Cold War fucked up the same region of Africa, followed by anarchy sufficiently fucked up that it's obvious why people in the country look back on the previous brutal dictatorship as being not that bad and wishing they had the dictator back. Depressing.

ep 1 of Size Matters - Hannah Fry looking at the sizes of things, and why bigger isn't always better when it comes to things like our planet or ourselves. Fun, but perhaps a bit shallow.

ep 1 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - cookery/travel programme, we've never actually watched one of their series before even tho they're on telly all the time. This ep was about southern Italy. Quite fun.

ep 1 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - this ep covering c.70,000 BCE through to c.1500 BCE. We've seen the series before, but remember liking it so have recorded it again.

Comments

[magid]

Hey, just to let you know, I finished Ninefox Gambit yesterday, and put in a request with the library for the second in the series. I liked it, though I kept wondering if I was missing a bunch with all the math/calendrical stuff. I liked the psychology in the plot, and the default Asian-esque Kel society (rather than generic white & Western).

[mousetrappling]

Ooh, cool :)