Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - the odd thing about this being the only Morse book I've ever read is that it's culmination of a long term relationship between many of the characters so I can tell that various things have more weight than it seems but I don't have the background to tell what that weight is.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - still in the aftermath of 9/11, but looking now at the sleight of hand that gets us from punishing the perpetrators to invading Iraq.

Abandoned "The Artist's Way", Julia Cameron after a little more skimming. Not. For. Me., and perhaps actual bobbins, tho I do like the Morning Pages concept.

Started "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen R. Covey - another book I've seen references to over & over, so when I spotted it on the shelf in the library I figured I may as well read it. Not read much, but so far less woo but perhaps all just common sense.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3 Scenes 1-2 - really not keeping the narrative thread in my head for this play, too much reading the footnotes.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 93-100c (Q&A) of The History of Egypt - up to date with this now, he managed to time the episodes just right to have a description of Amenhotep III's sed festival be his 100th episode.

ep 197-203 of The China History Podcast - mostly a 6 part series covering China-Vietnam relations over the millennia, so a sort of potted history of Vietnam but lightly skipping over stuff that wasn't related to their relationship with China.

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about the Almoravid Empire, these were the North African tribes who came together under the banner of a more pure form of (Sunni) Islam and conquered what is now Morocco and also Spain in the 11th-12th Century CE. Another example of how inviting the "barbarian" mercenaries in to protect you (as the successors to the Umayyad Caliphate did) is an unwise thing to do.

Music: While running I listened to Bon Jovi "Cross Road" and Tracy Chapman "Tracy Chapman"

Talk: "Flies, Lions and Oyster Shells: Military Awards or Tea for Two" Taneash Sidpura - golden flies & lions and (real) oyster shells have been assumed to be Ancient Egyptian military awards, but Sidpura told us that when he actually researched who these objects are buried with and what textual references there are to them it became clear that they aren't. Instead they are examples of precious things that were given as gifts by Pharaoh and it's that it was the fact they were such a gift that makes them important to the recipient rather than the form indicating a particular virtue of the recipient.

Watching

Egypt Unwrapped: The Pyramid Code - purporting to "explain" the pyramids, but was really mostly a bit of a look at the history of pyramid building in the Old Kingdom. Skipped straight over the Middle Kingdom to talk about the Valley of the Kings as the successor to the 5th Dynasty pyramids. Not as good as other Egypt Unwrapped shows.

Egypt Unwrapped: Secrets of the Sphinx - also a bit disappointing for an Egypt Unwrapped episode. A look at the competing theories for when the Sphinx was built & for whom, but it lack coherency (and had ludicrous computer reconstructions) and even pulled my least favourite trick where before the ad something is one person's theory and when we come back after the ad break it's accepted amongst "all Egyptolgists" (and no, really, I don't think everyone does believe the Sphinx was built in the Second Dynasty).

ep 2 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - this one was about Sardinia, and despite a lot of the food being not quite to our tastes (the dishes with too many eyes & legs were out yucked by the Sardinian style black pudding) it seemed like a good place to have a holiday sometime.

ep 1 of Burma with Simon Reeve - on one of his round the world following an arbitrary line series he snuck into Burma/Myanmar when it was still under an autocratic regime, now it's a democracy he could go in openly. Still depressing tho, this episode spent a lot of time focusing on the appalling treatment of the Rohingya which the government is at best doing nothing about.

ep 2 of Big Cats About the House - the jaguar cub is growing up, and although not quite past the health scare of episode 1 she's doing a lot better.