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mousetrapplingBooks
Fiction: Finished "Patriot Games", Tom Clancy. Still not sure what I think - I was rolling my eyes more at it than I remember in the past, so how much of the enjoyment I did get out of reading it is the nostalgia?
Non-fiction: still reading Gerald Harriss's "Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461" - reading the chapter on domestic politics 1369-1413 now. Which starts off a golden era, providing you're one of the elite. Edward III & his high ranking nobles are taking advantage of the peace to use their spoils of war to rebuild or freshly build their estates. Not so good if you're lower down the social scale, as the long term impact of a third of the population dying in the 1340s is starting to become apparent, definitely not the same sense of stability if you're a peasant.
Maps: 1530-1600 CE - the beginning of European expansion across the globe. The Pope divides the world between the Spanish & the Portuguese. The latter think they have the better deal, then the Spanish find & conquer first the Aztecs then the Incas and the gold & silver come flooding into Spain. The bits of the Americas that don't get conquered catch diseases like small pox from the Europeans (even when they haven't met a European) and die in droves.
Listening
Podcasts: ep 52-56 of Renaissance English History podcast. These episodes included more rebellions, plus bios of Thomas More and Bessie Blount amongst others.
Sunday podcast: ep 13 & 14 of Our Man in the Middle East - the immediate aftermath of the Second Iraq War, where the US & UK seemed to think that you can just sack an entire government & army without replacing them and somehow magically the incantation "democracy" will prevent a collapse of law & order. Also a look at Yasser Arafat and his influence in Palestine & the wider Middle East.
Music: while running I've mostly listened to the 100 Hits Rock compilation.
Exhibitions
Bagpuss, Clangers & Co. Exhibition at the Ipswich Art Gallery - this was cool, with some of the original puppets and drawings. I'd not realised that it was the same team that did Ivor the Engine so that was an unexpected treat.
Watching
ep 3 of Russia with Simon Reeve - the west of Russia, including both Moscow & St. Petersburg. And the rural bits in between that have been left behind. And Crimea - I hadn't realised how much of a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen this is, not just the political/war aspects, but the knock on effects of the Ukraine fighting back by cutting off the water supply for the region. Good series, I always like Simon Reeve's programmes.
ep 1 & 2 of Hyper Evolution: Rise of the Robots - presented by Ben Garrod & Danielle George. Good series, interesting look at the history of building robots plus the modern state of the art. Shame they forced a heavy-handed "evolution" metaphor on the narrative.
The Search for a New Earth - Stephen Hawkings thinks we need to've colonised another planet outside our Solar System within the next 100 years in order to survive as a species, so this programme was Danielle George & Christophe Galfard looking at what the problems/obstacles are and how we're doing on solving them. Rather liked this, tho I think they were more optimistic than I am about the likelihood of it actually happening.
England's Reformation: Three Books That Changed A Nation - Janina Ramirez joining in the commemorations of the beginning of the Reformation. The three books were Wycliffe's Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and Fox's Book of Martyrs. I didn't find much new in the segments of the first two, but I knew next to nothing about Fox's Book of Martyrs so that was particularly interesting.
BBC Introducing: 10 Years of Finding the Next Big Thing - part footage from a concert in Brixton Academy of some of these "Next Big Thing" bands, part a look at how said bands & others were helped by the BBC's Introducing scheme. The actual big names (e.g. Ed Sheeran, Florence & the Machine) weren't at the concert but did feature in the documentary half of it. Sadly a lot of the performances felt really bland, but I did sort of like Slaves who were anything but bland, but I'd want to read their lyrics before I decided whether or not I actually liked them.
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Date: 2017-10-26 12:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-26 14:15 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-10-26 14:18 (UTC)