Wednesday Media Consumption Roundup

[mousetrappling]

Books

Fiction: Still reading "Executive Orders", Tom Clancy. We are well into Clancy's fantasy land about how he'd run the country if only he was in charge. I can't've read this book many times, the Ebola "sub-plot" I'd forgotten seems to be part of one of the main plotlines.

Non-fiction: Started reading "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat", Samin Nosrat. It's got recipes in it (in a later bit than where I've got to) but it's primarily a book about a more meta-level of cooking - the whys of cooking. So far I've read about salt - what it's doing in food, when to use it, how much to use, what types there are. With diagrams of things like diffusion & osmosis, and experiments to try. And it's a lot of fun to read too, she writes well.

Hidden Meanings: 3.23.6-4.20 - Moving on from motifs that are auspicious for the birth of sons to motifs that wish one well in one's exams. Like apricots - they symbolise the garden where the banquet for those who passed the highest of the civil service was held (in the Tang Dynasty).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 3.4-3.11 of History of India - still going through the Gupta emperors, with some diversions into the performing arts (including a rather interesting discussion of Ancient Indian music) and some episodes about specific artifacts you can find in museums to see these days.

Sunday podcast: This week we listened to an episode of In Our Time about the Siege of Malta in 1565 where the Knights Hospitaller held off the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent. An event which probably had more symbolic significance than practical significance (even though it did stall the Ottoman sweep through the Mediterranean) - it showed Christendom that the Ottomans could be stopped.

Music: While running I listened to ABBA's "More ABBA Gold", The Bangles's "Eternal Flame", U2's "The Best of 1980-1990" and "The Best of 1990-2000", Pulp's "Different Class"

Watching

ep 2 of The Vietnam War - the start of the war as it slides from "oh we just sent a few advisers" into the US actually being involved. And a look at how the regime that the US was propping up in the south of Vietnam was if anything worse than that of the north of Vietnam, only it wasn't Communist and that's all the US cared about.

ep 2 of House of Saud: A Family at War - the corruption endemic in the Saudi regime (and the new Crown Prince's crackdown); how the UK is intimately involved in this corruption.

ep 2 of England's Forgotten Queen - the middle 5 days of Queen Jane's reign, as the balance of power swings from Jane's puppetmasters to Mary. Still padding this out with lots of Northumberland looking sinister at camera.

ep 2 of Tunes for Tyrants: Music & Power with Suzy Klein - the middle(ish) of the century, still focusing on Germany & Russia.

ep 2 of Rome Unpacked - more food & art of Rome, visiting mostly places that aren't quite the usual tourist destinations. A fun series.

ep 1 of Big Cats - nature series about various cat species. I almost missed recording this (and in fact the only repeat I could get of this episode had sign language), which would've been a shame - lots of glorious footage of cats in their natural environments.