Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

Books

Fiction: Finished "Coma", Robin Cook - medical thriller that felt rather shallow & trite. Very much of it's time (published in 77), so even tho the female protagonist was the most well developed and sympathetic character in the book the author still felt the need to introduce her by dwelling on how her nipples reacted to the temperature in her bedroom as she got up in the morning. I had the impression that Cook didn't like doctors, they're all pretty unpleasant (except our protagonist) and I didn't much care what happened to any of them. Given I'd also guessed what was going on and who was behind it long before the protagonist I only kept reading coz it was a short read. It's going off to charity (it was J's, but he can't remember what he thought of it, and can't be bothered to re-read it to find out).

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - continuing with the aftermath of the first Gulf War, and pointing out how thoroughly the US & its allies (including us) ignored the Geneva convention rules on identification & burial of enemy casualties.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 1 Scene 3 - Proteus makes a tactical error & is sent to Milan away from his "one true love".

Listening

Podcasts: ep 122-143 of The History of England - up now to Henry V's accession to the throne

Sunday Podcast: ep 23-24 of Living with the Gods - first looking at belief systems that see us as not the only inhabitants of the world and then at how a global religion might be adapted to local needs (using the development of Rastafarianism from Ethiopian Christianity as an example).

Music: While running I listened to Elton John "The Very Best of Elton John CD1".

Watching

ep 3 of Pompeii's Final Hours: New Evidence - The actual eruption itself and how people died. Pretty good series, tho they could've cut almost the entirety of John Sergeant's bits without anyone noticing (the one exception being the bit about Pliny the Elder).

ep 1 of Africa: A Journey into Music - Rita Ray looking at the recent history of African music, although some nods to longer traditions she was pretty much focused on the last century or so. This episode was about Nigeria.

ep 2 of Neanderthals: Meet Your Ancestors - having recreated what a Neanderthal might've looked like in the last episode this one looked at how & why they died out. Of course the answer is "don't know" but Homo sapiens may've had something to do with it. Also looked at the legacy of interbreeding with the Neanderthal population which has quite a lot of impact on things like disease susceptibility (for things like Type II Diabetes). Good series.

ep 1 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - Waldemar Januszczak does American art. Started with art from The West in this episode, including cowboy art, some Native American art and culminating in the art of Jackson Pollack.

ep 3 of Gregory Porter's Popular Voices - he finished out the series with "Truthtellers", about singers & songwriters whose message is the most important bit (including, of course, Bob Dylan). Enjoyed this series.

ep 3 of Tutankhamun's Treasure Secrets - this ep focusing on the paper from 2010 with the genetic & anatomical examination of Tutankhamun & the other mummies that are (or may be) related to him. Managed a masterful piece of spin in discussing this pet project of Zahi Hawass's in depth without ever mentioning the existence of such a person as Hawass. I have spared you all my rant about drawing firm conclusions from the fragmentary data available for the two mummified fetuses found in Tutankhamun's tomb. I found the series overall a bit disappointing, despite some nice looks at the artifacts & some insightful commentary from the experts, voiceover man's script was rather over the top with the mysteries it was purporting to solve and the party line was being thoroughly toed (even when one has heard the same experts disagree with it in the past).

ep 2 of Egypt Unwrapped (Alexander the Great's Lost Tomb) - rather hampered by not actually finding Alexander's tomb and did that trick where something that was speculative before the ad break is now established fact upon which we'll base more speculation *rolls eyes*. Did manage a reasonable trot through Alexander's time in Egypt and his legacy there.