Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - finished The Dark is Rising and now onto Greenwitch. It's striking me this time round that whilst the Dark is definitely worse then the Light, I'm not sure the Light are precisely "good", at the very least they are firm proponents of how you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, no matter how much that sucks for the eggs.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - and still reading about the horrors of the human cost of the sanctions against Iraq.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scenes 5-6 - more comic relief from the servants, which I imagine works better when you don't have to refer to the notes to discover the double entendres, and Proteus deciding that to be true to himself he must betray both Julia & Valentine (what Silvia thinks of the matter is unknown thus far and irrelevant to Proteus).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 162-177 of The History of England - the Wars of the Roses & Warwick the Kingmaker in all his turncoaty glory.

Sunday Podcast: ep 25 & 26 of Living with the Gods - the co-existence of different faiths (using India as an example through some rather rose-tinted spectacles) and ruling by divine right.

Music: While running I listened to Scissor Sisters "Ta-Dah!".

Watching

Film: Solo: A Star Wars Story - my annual trip to the cinema ;) Liked this quite a lot, not especially deep but a fun watch. Like Rogue One it was a heist movie, but much lighter in tone. I would probably've preferred it if they'd made Han a bit more ambiguous and a bit less obviously "the good guy" but I don't think that was ever on the cards. The character I'd want to learn more about if there's a sequel is Qi'ra.

TV:

ep 3 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - small town art, including things like murals in post offices and works by people who lived in small towns. Good series, a lot of the art was not to my tastes but I probably appreciate it more now I know more about it.

The Super Squirrels - a Natural World programme about why squirrels are so awesome, including facts like the brains of some species grow significantly each autumn as they remember where they've hidden each nut but then shrink again next spring.

Tutankhamun: The Truth Uncovered - another re-watch, this is Dallas Campbell looking at the possible ways Tutankhamun could've died. Reasonably good and fairly well argued (even tho I think everyone who's examined the mummy of Tutankhamun has a different opinion on it), does go off the rails towards the end with the surgeon who takes everything literally and so diagnoses Tutankhamun and half his ancestors with epilepsy on the basis of stelae telling about visions from/about gods.

World Cup Football - saw all three matches that were on on Sunday at Curtis & Kirsty's BBQ. So that's England vs. Panama (6-1, still astonishing), Japan vs. Senegal (2-2) and Poland vs. Colombia (1-3).