Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

Books

Fiction: Started "Starpilot's Grave", Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald - sequel to "The Price of the Stars", definitely not an obvious heist plot this time, still very space opera. Enjoying it, tho not in a way that's giving me much to say about it. Definitely owes a big debt to Star Wars, and is fun in much the same way.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Mind in the Cave", David Lewis-Williams - just read a couple of chapters about closer to modern rock art where people from the cultures who made it can be talked to (or were talked to, in the 19th/20th Century): the San people of Southern Africa and the Native Americans of the West Coast of North America. His thesis is that the rock art is bound up in the cultural/social interpretation of altered states of consciousness, and that that is something that is distinctive about H. sapiens.

Still reading "The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt", Toby Wilkinson - still in the Old Kingdom chapters, reading about the 5th Dynasty's remodelling of kingship to further separate king from people (in order to re-centralise power).

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 4 Scenes 4 - the wives (and their husbands) plot to serve Falstaff his comeuppance.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 1-10 of The History of England Shedcasts - this is the members only podcasts for the History of England podcast, which I was gifted a year's subscription to for my birthday by my sister-in-law & her family :) It's a mix of things like biographies of people who appear in the main narrative, or a couple of episodes on whether or not England can be considered a nation in 1500 (he comes down on the side of yes, it probably can with some reservations). And has a History of Scotland series within it. Enjoying it :)

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about George & Robert Stephenson - which was less about the two chaps and more about the early development of railways which they played such a key role in.

Music: While running I listened to INXS "X", John Lee Hooker "The Best of John Lee Hooker", Dream Theater "Falling Into Infinity" and Simon & Garfunkel "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which was quite the mixture and I'd forgotten how over the top Dream Theater are. I also listened to the rest of "David Gilmour & Friends" and part of a BBC Music magazine CD (Vol 12, No. 3) called "The Pity of War" as it has a piece by Benjamin Britten on it (hadn't quite got to that track when I stopped listening this time tho).

Talk: "Egypt's Origins: The View from Mesopotamia & Iran" Paul Collins - about the cultural contacts between pre & early dynastic Egypt and the cultures in Mesopotamia (Uruk) and Iran (proto-Elamite) of the time. Mostly a one way process where the motifs of Uruk & proto-Elamite culture entered Egypt with exotic trade goods such as lapis lazuli and were incorporated into the artwork on elite status objects but without their original meanings. A demonstration of status through access to "special" and "exotic" things, rather than interest in or knowledge of the exotic culture itself.

Watching

ep 5 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - Mallorca & Menorca, with a bit of modern politics thrown in via cooking & eating with the British ex-pat community there.

ep 5 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - the rise of capitalism & the very first speculative bubble going pop in Holland, the Spanish conquistadors in the Americas and all the greed of that conquest.

ep 4 of Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema - Science Fiction, which seemed a bit of a forced fit as the genre is more defined by trappings than by the beats of the plot in my opinion. We'd seen waaay more of the films he referenced in this one than in the previous 3 (J has watched more than I have, of course, but I also recognised many of the ones I've sat on the other side of the room doing something else during).

Goth at the BBC - one of the Beeb's trawls through their archive of music performances, themed on goth. Some good tracks, some tripe ;)