mousetrappling | Tuesday 6 January 2026 to Tuesday 13 January 2026

Books

“The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World After an Apocalypse” Lewis Dartnell
The last chapters were timekeeping, location, and how to science. Finished Wednesday 7 January 2026. I enjoyed reading this, tho at times my suspension of belief snapped (an odd thing to say about non-fiction, but it leant into its premise of being a handbook for after an apocalypse and sometimes that just didn’t quite work). Having read it once I couldn’t reboot civilisation, but I can see if you had it to hand when you were trying to do so then it would be awfully useful (tho it would likely be good to have hold of it in time to also rescue chunks of the bibliography!). It was published in 2015, so I guess it was more of a distant thought experiment then …

“I Am a Strange Loop” Douglas Hofstadter
Started this in December before I picked up the Dartnell, and am now back to it. It’s about consciousness and one’s sense of a coherent self, and I’m finding it hard to summarise the chunk I’ve read as the initial clause of this sentence is too high level but the paragraph I’d previous written was too granular. Which is apt, as some of what I read this week was about the various levels of abstraction that can be used to talk about what’s going on in the brain. Another key bit was that he’s using video feedback (point your video camera at the TV) as a central metaphor for the book; stable patterns emerge in ways that are opaque to the viewer.

Podcasts
Note that I’m up to date on topical ones, but anything less tied to right now I’m about a month behind.

Empire
Rudyard Kipling, his later life which includes the horrifyingly racist bits

Bunker.
OBR (aired when it was topical, an explainer), weekly wrap up (Venezuela, Minnesota), Start the Week, why more people are single these days, the allegations about Farage’s teenage bullying.

Starship Alexandria
Still on advent calendar episdes: Babylon 5, Fargo season 5, Sapphire & Steel (which I didn’t know was SF), The Good Life, Scavenger Rain (Reign?), Midsomer Murders, What We Do in the Shadows.

The Rest is Politics
Greenland, Venezuela, Moldova, domestic UK politics, AI, the release of historical government documents, Iran, Yemen, the Arctic.

The History of China
Tibet & Xinjiang vis-a-vis their relationship with c. 1800 CE China.

Oh God What Now
Special on Venezuela, normal panel show also on Venezuela and the lower tempo shitshow of UK politics, interview show with Jason from Sleaford Mods.

The History of Egypt
Looking at diplomatic relations between the Hittites & Ramesses II post the treaty after the Battle of Kadesh.

The History of Philosophy in China
The Daoist view of rigidly enforcing your view of right & wrong on others as being wrong.

The History of England Shedcasts
A Birth of Britain episode, we’re up to Roman Britain now, with the Romans having to boot up a whole economic/social infrastructure system in Britain to incorporate it into the empire.

The History of England
A guest episode from The Art of Crime, about Anthony Blunt, art historian, MI5 employee, courtier, and Soviet spy.

Journey Through Time
The start of a run of episodes about Black GIs in Britain during WW2.

The Rest is Politics Leading
Interview with Anna Wintour who came across as surprisingly warm & charming, given the reputation I’ve picked up through osmosis.

Talk 90s to Me
Italia 90, which I remember watching bits of (it’s the one where Gazza cried).

In Our Time: The Mokrani Revolt
Algerian uprising in 1871 against the French, the brutal put down & subsequent treatment of the Algerians played a large part in creating a sense of an Algerian nation, and this revolt was woven into the story leading to the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s.

Jools’ Annual Hootenany
We half-watched some of it at New Year, but were socialising more than watching so we watched it properly.

2025 The Year from Space
A surprising amount of stuff where I’d forgotten it had happened in 2025, there has just been too much stuff going on. Nicely leavened by the lighter & happier things they pulled out.

episode 4 of Civilisations: Rise and Fall, about Japan
This one was the opening up of Japan by the US. The key driver here for the collapse was Japan’s prior successful isolation which meant the arrival of the modern world happened all at once. Overall the series was not as good as it could’ve been, and looked a bit too much like the great man theory of history even tho I don’t think that was their intent (too much focus on three key figures in each). The ones I knew more about felt pretty simplified tho not far enough to be wrong, just not very nuanced, so presumably the other two were similar. A bit heavy handed at the end with their references to “can we learn lessons”, but then I would probably have felt better about that if the dumpster fire of the world hadn’t intensified – it’s very clear that those who would need to learn said lessons actively do not care.

episode 1 of Valley of the Kings: Secret Tomb Revealed
Following a team excavating the burial chamber in KV11 (tomb of Ramesses III), interspersed with bits on the history including the assassination of Ramesses III.

Music

Games

Diablo IV
Tier 54 Pit, also ticked off another Season Journey objective so everything in rank 5 & below is done. The Tower (leaderboards) beta opened, did up to a Tier 60 on that which opened up Torment IV (they are supposed to be equivalent levels to the Pit but it felt way easier), as they stand they feel a trifle pointless in game, it’s all for the bragging rights of one’s leaderboard position.

Talks

“All the King’s Men and Women: putting the people into Sais” Penny Wilson
What the slim archaeological evidence at Sais can tell us about the people who lived there.

Margaret