Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "Reaper's Gale" by Steven Erikson - not sure I've anything interesting to say about it at the moment, there's definitely a feeling of some of the plot about to be resolved but I feel like until it all comes together I'm not quite sure what's going on. A theme seems to be developing of pairs of characters each thinking the other must be dead (for good reason) and I'm guessing they'll be meeting again.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - I'm on to the last chapter of the narrative sweep of history now, covering the last 300 years before the Classical period. All the pieces are almost in place for how the world will be in 500 BCE but not quite.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 121-134 of The History of China - the Tang have fallen, and China is going through another period of disunity (the 5 Dynasties & 10 Kingdoms period), he's nearly at the end of that now and the Song Dynasty are waiting in the wings.

ep 185 of The History of Byzantium - onward into the reign of Constantine Monomachos, dealing with revolts and incursions across the Danube. This is descending a bit into a sea of unrelated facts for me, it always seems to make sense when I listen to it but I'm not retaining enough of it to even make brief notes here, which is a shame.

ep HoS 32 of The History of England Shedcasts - James III takes the throne (young) in the wake of his father's disastrous encounter with an exploding cannon. This period includes the last time Berwick on Tweed changed hands, remaining English ever since.

Sunday podcast: Listened to an episode of In Our Time about Aristotle's Biology - which is based on an empirical methodology and much closer to a post-Enlightenment scientific way of looking at things than you might expect for an ancient Greek. Yet at the same time it's really not the same world view (and he does have a tendency to revert to "oh they must spontaneously generate" whenever he can't figure out how animals are reproducing).

Music: While running I listened to Everything But the Girl "Home Movies". To drown out the TV sounds so I could write I listened to three discs (out of 4) of the two "Dreamboats & Petticoats" compilations that we have (all had Billy Fury tracks on; the flavour is good old-fashioned rock'n'roll)

Museums

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War - exhibition at the British Library which we caught just before it finished. A look at the sweep of Anglo-Saxon history in England from the early migration onto the island through to the Norman Conquest. Illustrated via a lot of manuscripts (of course) and several objects. Rather well done, I thought.

Egyptian Galleries at the British Museum - we had time to spare before the exhibition at the BL so came to the BM for a potter around. It's been a while since we've been in on a Saturday afternoon so we'd forgotten how much of a zoo it can be. Had a look at a few things in the statue gallery, then some of the upstairs ones (I kept to the quieter end and looked at some of the Nubian stuff and the early stuff).

Watching

ep 7 of Icons - artists for this one, defined broadly enough to cover writers and film makers (thus overlapping a bit with the entertainers category). A bit of a harder sell for me for icons. Only episode we have left is the final showdown between the category winners, which will make odd viewing as we know who won.

ep 2 of Our Classical Century - classical music during (and just before & after) the Second World War. The second presenter this time was John Simpson. Including composers like William Walton and Benjamin Britten.

ep 1 of Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil - a look back at how we got to where we are now in British politics. As depressing as one might imagine. This episode looked at the attempt of Cameron to negotiate "better terms" with the EU in order to not hold a referendum on leaving, and it all felt a bit groundhog day - the same seeming inability to understand that the UK is not the only country with an interior life whilst negotiating.

ep 1 & 2 of The Hairy Bikers' Comfort Food - another series to make us hungry, and to get recipe ideas from, I may have to buy the book of this one (tho I need to check first it has the recipes we liked the look of that weren't on the BBC website).