Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Finished "Debt of Honour", Tom Clancy. I'd forgotten this one ends with a cliffhanger - I thought the massive game changing act of terrorism happened at the start of the next book, but no. Odd, for a book published in the 90s that it involves a plane being flown into a major US building. This book's really where the series stops being straight spy thriller and starts being actively AU, I think - the previous ones (that I've read) could be things happening within our world just with fictionalised politicians and public figures of course, but this one very much not. I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna ditch these books once I'm done re-reading, they haven't aged well and I had to overlook quite a bit of not-my-world-view in the first place.

Started "Executive Orders", Tom Clancy. This actually opens pretty well - Jack Ryan is now President and totally unprepared & out of his depth. And it shows ... obviously he must come good in the end, he's the protagonist, but at least he doesn't start out with Mary Sue levels of competence. I've forgotten most of the plot of this one - like, there's an Ebola sub-plot being set up which I'd utterly forgotten about.

Non-fiction: I finished "Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461", Gerald Harriss. Happy, happy, happy!! 49 or so hours, and 9 months. I learnt a lot, but I feel in need of lighter weight stuff for a bit. The book finished off with the opening of the Wars of the Roses, and Harriss's opinions on why the situation deteriorated so completely - which I think boiled down to Henry VI's incompetence manifesting itself in a way that generated a power vacuum that nobody was quite powerful enough to fill. I'll post something on DW later this week with some notes about the book overall.

Hidden Meanings: This week I've mostly been reading about motifs for blessings for marriages and motifs for birth of sons - which overlap somewhat as one might expect. A lot of the symbology isn't just "may you be blessed with sons" but specifies "distinguished sons" or sons who pass the Civil Service exams as the best in the country.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 2.G - 3.4 of History of India - he's returned to the main narrative and this sub-series is making its way through the Gupta emperors.

Sunday podcast: This week we listened to an episode of In Our Time about Thomas Beckett - they were saying that his falling out with Henry II was down to a combination of his rigidity (which you see earlier in his life) and of being out of his depth as Archbishop (not well educated enough in Canon Law to understand the conflicting threads of it, so sticking rigidly to something other clerics didn't necessarily agree was worth being the hill you died upon), which was something I'd not thought about before.

Music: While running I listened to Bon Jovi's "Cross Road", INXS's "X", Guns 'N' Roses's "Appetite for Destruction", The Police's "Every Breath You Take", ABBA's "ABBA Gold" and "More ABBA Gold".

Watching

ep 1 of The Vietnam War - beginning of a 10 part series about the war, this episode set the scene with the preceding 100 years or so, pulling out the juxtapositions with how things went for the French pre- & post-WWII and how things would later go for the US.

ep 1 of House of Saud: A Family at War - the Saudi regime & how we (the West ) prop them up even whilst they commit atrocities.

ep 1 of England's Forgotten Queen - Helen Castor talking about Lady Jane Grey, about whom I know less than I thought (or at least Castor's narrative thread gives Queen Jane rather more agency than I thought she had). Still not quite sure how we're going to get 3 hours of TV out of her given how young she died and how short a reign she had, tho they are filling rather a lot of time so far with the Duke of Northumberland looking sinister.

The Real T-rex with Chris Packham - bringing Tyrannosaurus rex to life with CGI based on the latest modern research. Kinda fun :)

Kolkata with Sue Perkins - one-off travel programme with Sue Perkins exploring Kolkata, mostly lightweight and just on the right side of the line between OK and embarrassingly cringy.

The Coronation - about our current Queen's coronation, featuring herself seeing the Crown Jewels again for the first time since then, and being "interviewed". In quotes because she didn't play by the conventions we expect of an interview subject, and instead answered questions with short and rather acerbically brisk statements. She came across rather well actually. A total piece of fluff but such was what we were in the mood for.

ep 1 of Tunes for Tyrants: Music & Power with Suzy Klein - looking at the (classical) music of the 20th Century and how it intersects with the culture & politics of the period. This episode focusing on the early pre-WWII part of the century, mostly in Russia & Germany.