Margaret

Books

Fiction: Started "Starpilot's Grave", Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald - sequel to "The Price of the Stars", definitely not an obvious heist plot this time, still very space opera. Enjoying it, tho not in a way that's giving me much to say about it. Definitely owes a big debt to Star Wars, and is fun in much the same way.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Mind in the Cave", David Lewis-Williams - just read a couple of chapters about closer to modern rock art where people from the cultures who made it can be talked to (or were talked to, in the 19th/20th Century): the San people of Southern Africa and the Native Americans of the West Coast of North America. His thesis is that the rock art is bound up in the cultural/social interpretation of altered states of consciousness, and that that is something that is distinctive about H. sapiens.

Still reading "The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt", Toby Wilkinson - still in the Old Kingdom chapters, reading about the 5th Dynasty's remodelling of kingship to further separate king from people (in order to re-centralise power).

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 4 Scenes 4 - the wives (and their husbands) plot to serve Falstaff his comeuppance.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 1-10 of The History of England Shedcasts - this is the members only podcasts for the History of England podcast, which I was gifted a year's subscription to for my birthday by my sister-in-law & her family :) It's a mix of things like biographies of people who appear in the main narrative, or a couple of episodes on whether or not England can be considered a nation in 1500 (he comes down on the side of yes, it probably can with some reservations). And has a History of Scotland series within it. Enjoying it :)

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about George & Robert Stephenson - which was less about the two chaps and more about the early development of railways which they played such a key role in.

Music: While running I listened to INXS "X", John Lee Hooker "The Best of John Lee Hooker", Dream Theater "Falling Into Infinity" and Simon & Garfunkel "Bridge Over Troubled Water", which was quite the mixture and I'd forgotten how over the top Dream Theater are. I also listened to the rest of "David Gilmour & Friends" and part of a BBC Music magazine CD (Vol 12, No. 3) called "The Pity of War" as it has a piece by Benjamin Britten on it (hadn't quite got to that track when I stopped listening this time tho).

Talk: "Egypt's Origins: The View from Mesopotamia & Iran" Paul Collins - about the cultural contacts between pre & early dynastic Egypt and the cultures in Mesopotamia (Uruk) and Iran (proto-Elamite) of the time. Mostly a one way process where the motifs of Uruk & proto-Elamite culture entered Egypt with exotic trade goods such as lapis lazuli and were incorporated into the artwork on elite status objects but without their original meanings. A demonstration of status through access to "special" and "exotic" things, rather than interest in or knowledge of the exotic culture itself.

Watching

ep 5 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - Mallorca & Menorca, with a bit of modern politics thrown in via cooking & eating with the British ex-pat community there.

ep 5 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - the rise of capitalism & the very first speculative bubble going pop in Holland, the Spanish conquistadors in the Americas and all the greed of that conquest.

ep 4 of Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema - Science Fiction, which seemed a bit of a forced fit as the genre is more defined by trappings than by the beats of the plot in my opinion. We'd seen waaay more of the films he referenced in this one than in the previous 3 (J has watched more than I have, of course, but I also recognised many of the ones I've sat on the other side of the room doing something else during).

Goth at the BBC - one of the Beeb's trawls through their archive of music performances, themed on goth. Some good tracks, some tripe ;)

Two weeks worth, as I was away last week ...

Books

Fiction: Finished "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - in the book, he doesn't die on the lawn in Exeter College! I can see why this is the only Morse book I own, I did enjoy reading it but I didn't like the character(s) enough to want to spend any more time in their company.

Read "A Peace Divided", Tanya Huff - mil-sf, well, ex-mil-sf coz the war has been over for 3 books and the characters are adjusting to this new normality (the protagonists are in law enforcement, kinda). Still enjoying the series, next book will be the last one tho! Or at least for now, it just came out in June. Shan't pick it up till I next want something new on my kindle.

Started "The Price of the Stars", Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald - space opera, I have 6 of the 7 books, but I think I've only read them once before. Getting off to a good start, but I've not read much yet. I appear to be missing the 5th book, so I've a bit of time to decide if I want to complete the series or not. (Why I don't own it I do not know.)

Non-fiction: Finished "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - an interesting, and somewhat depressing, book. It's very much presented as his own point of view on how & why the Middle East is as fucked up as it is (c.2005 when the book was written), but with enough specifics that I'm pretty sure one could fact check it (but I personally am not going to). It could've done with a bit more of a brutal edit, though - felt rambling at times and I think he could've made some points more efficiently.

Finished "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen R. Covey - indeed mostly common sense. He has a knack for explaining things, tho, and I finally got my head round how the Quadrants thing fits the sort of things I spend quite a chunk of time doing.

Started "The Mind in the Cave", David Lewis-Williams - about the cave art of the Paleolithic and the origins of art and the transition from hominids to humans (so's to speak). A book to stretch my brain, I think - for instance one chapter so far has looked at the previous theories to explain cave art and their Structuralist &/or Marxist underpinnings.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3 Scenes 3-5 - the humour of this play really is in the wordplay, so I'm still reading the joke explanations & not quite getting the jokes.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 203-205 of The China History Podcast - up to date with him now, with a brief history of Chinese martial arts

ep 166-168, plus a whole bunch of bonus episodes that I mostly skipped of The History of Byzantium- up to date again, the mainline episodes were part of his exploration of what the Byzantine Empire was like c.1000 CE. The bonus stuff was mostly related to his recent kickstarter campaign.

ep 4.B - 3.Q of The History of India - mostly a look at themes (like the state & status of Buddhism & Jainism) or areas away from the focus of the main line narrative, c.600 CE(ish).

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Sun Tzu's Art of War - what we know about the man who wrote it (not a lot, not even that he wrote it), the context it came out of and its legacy.

Music: While running I listened to Tracy Chapman "Tracy Chapman", Sage Francis "A Healthy Distrust", Emily Portman "The Glamoury", LCD Soundsystem "LCD Soundsystem", The Raveonettes "In & Out of Control". Also listened to a compilation called "Ambient Moods" which turned out to be more Massive Attack/Everything But the Girl/Kate Bush and less, well, ambient so much more to my tastes than I anticipated from the title.

Watching

Egypt Unwrapped: The Real Cleopatra - average for an Egypt Unwrapped episode, looking at what we know of the actual historical person of Cleopatra as vs. the Roman propaganda version of her.

ep 3 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - Corsica! With more food we'd like to eat, and fewer things with too many legs ;) Also looked like a nice place to visit.

BBC Proms 2018: The Folk Prom - featuring performances by The Unthanks, hence why we recorded it.

ep 2 & 3 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - empires, new religions & philosophies and quite a bit of simplification as we get up to c.7th Century CE in just 2 hours. I do like the series, it's got a good sense of which stories to tell and tells them well, but I do also find myself thinking "well, yes, but ..." quite a lot.

ep 1 & 2 of Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema - series where Mark Kermode takes 5 different genres of films and breaks them down into the common tropes & themes that they use. First two episodes covered Rom Coms & Heist movies.

ep 2 of Size Matters - looking at how things would be different if they were smaller this time. Rather shallow series, to be honest, but I found it fun to watch. I think J mostly napped :/

Books

Fiction: Finished "The Lion Returns", John Dalmas - how it turned out was with an act of mass genocide by the protagonist (of the enemy, of course, but ALL of the enemy), after which he retired with his first wife who he could return to now both of their successive spouses were dead. Not quite sure why I remembered liking it enough to keep, but tastes change I guess - although to be fair it wasn't dreadful. Off to the charity shop it goes.

Started "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - the last Inspector Morse novel, when it was filmed for TV the bit when he dies was filmed in Exeter College, my father's college & where J and I got married. I seem to remember that's why my parents gave me a copy of the book.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - I'm getting towards the end of the book now, and he's covering 9/11 in this chapter, with most of the focus being on how no-one at the time seemed interested in publicly considering why this had happened.

Started "The Rise & Fall of Ancient Egypt", Toby Wilkinson, as part of a rather more systematic read through of our Egypt books - the opening couple of chapters cover the unification of Egypt and how the iconography etc of divine kingship was in place from the start. His overall theme is "this was a brutal dictatorship and we should not forget that just because there were beautiful objects".

Skimming through "The Artist's Way", Julia Cameron - I've seen references to this book here & there for a while, so as the library have it I thought I'd see what it actually says. Far far too woo for me, and looking to solve a problem I don't have (focus on one project at a time is my problem, not being blocked creatively). I probably shan't finish even skimming the book before I take it back to the library.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 1 Scenes 3-4, Act 2 Scenes 1-3 - still suffering from having to look up the jokes.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 251-252 of The History of England - I've caught up to date with this, finishing in a pretty good place as he'd just polished off the reign of Henry VIII and wrapped up with a look at the question of how we should judge him overall.

ep 109-114 of The History of English - this podcast is still in the 13th Century, and Middle English. Amongst other things these episodes talked about north/south divide in the language at the time, some of which differences are still the same now. Up to date with this one again too.

Syrian Tales ep 1-3 which were a bonus bit in The History of Egypt - he did these originally as a fundraiser to help the victims of the modern Syrian War, some tales from the Bronze Age in Syria with a deliberate compare & contrast with the modern situation.

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Margaret of Anjou - which of course was mostly about the Wars of the Roses. The experts came down on the side that instead of being an ambitious she-wolf she was more someone doing what was necessary to try to secure the position of her husband & her son (which of course also secured her own position).

Music: While running I listened to Guns'n'Roses "Appetite for Destruction" and Bon Jovi "Cross Road".

Watching

Egypt Unwrapped: The Scorpion King - rather good look at the same sort of period I've just read about in the Toby Wilkinson book (and he was one of the talking heads). Just pre-unification of Egypt there's a king who is always named with the scorpion hieroglyph who probably conquered one of the other predynastic power centres of Upper Egypt, the programme looked both at what we know about him and Egypt at the time he lived in.

Egypt Unwrapped: Secrets of Valley of the Kings - overview of the Valley of the Kings, focusing particularly on Hatshepsut & why she chose there and the physical construction of the tombs.

Dan Snow's History of the Congo - aka how European colonialism fucked up a region of Africa, and then how the Cold War fucked up the same region of Africa, followed by anarchy sufficiently fucked up that it's obvious why people in the country look back on the previous brutal dictatorship as being not that bad and wishing they had the dictator back. Depressing.

ep 1 of Size Matters - Hannah Fry looking at the sizes of things, and why bigger isn't always better when it comes to things like our planet or ourselves. Fun, but perhaps a bit shallow.

ep 1 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - cookery/travel programme, we've never actually watched one of their series before even tho they're on telly all the time. This ep was about southern Italy. Quite fun.

ep 1 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - this ep covering c.70,000 BCE through to c.1500 BCE. We've seen the series before, but remember liking it so have recorded it again.

Books

Fiction: Finished "Revenant Gun", Yoon Ha Lee - liked that a lot. And a far more upbeat end to the story than I'd expected given the dystopic start. As this only came out last month I want to avoid spoilers, so I'll stop there rather than give any details. It does feel like I want to go back to the beginning of the series & re-read all three now I know where it went.

Started "The Lion Returns", John Dalmas - not sure when or why I bought this, I remember re-reading it some time ago (like a decade ago) and being surprised how much I liked it given the unpromising start. Maybe that'll happen again? Start = definitely unpromising. Unless it goes somewhere I forget, it's basically portal fantasy set c.1940s in our world, only the protagonist came from there to here & I'm guessing we'll be going back at some point. It's published by Baen, and feels like it, and I'm less tolerant of the rightwing end of US SFF than I used to be now the rightwing in the real world has gotten rather more overtly rabid. So, not a promising start.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - the current chapter opens with a contemplative look back at his own parents' deaths and the immorality of governments spending more money on killing people than they do on researching the diseases that kill us off.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 4 Scene 4-Act 5 Scene 2 - Silvia runs off and the various men discover this & are shocked, nay appalled that she might do something other than patiently wait for them to decide who she'll marry. Julia snipes from the sidelines.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 220-244 of The History of England - past divorce #1 & beheading #1 and along to wife #3 of Henry VIII, I particularly enjoyed the careful setting out of the evidence for & against the idea of Anne as actually a player in history rather than merely being "the scandal of Christendom" that Katherine of Aragon called her.

Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Persepolis, a key city in the Achaemenid Empire eventually sacked by Alexander the Great in a fit of pique. I hadn't known before that the elite of Darius I's time were still in some sense nomadic, the great cities & palaces of the empire were administrative centres/ceremonial centres but they were also in effect the "stone tents" that the king & his court lived in as they progressed around the empire.

Music: While running I listened to a compilation of 50s songs called "Dreamboats & Petticoats"

Watching

ep 2 of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2017: Language of Life - looking at communication without sounds. Smell, including pheromones, and body language.

ep 1 of Big Cats About the House - we fancied something fluffy to watch last night, and whilst this isn't 100% fluffy it does have someone hand-rearing a jaguar cub at home which is delightfully cute.

World Cup Football - watched the England semi-final, where they just seemed outplayed in the second after a good start to the match. Missed the third place playoff coz we decided beer festival in the sun with a friend was a lot more fun than watching England be taken to pieces by Belgium for the second time this tournament. Watched the final, hoping Croatia would win but it was not to be.

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - I'm into the last of the 5 books now. I'd forgotten how much the books actually talk about how the Light might be Good but it's not necessarily comfortable or friendly. There was also a bit that seemed suddenly topical (as well as, of course, topical for 1977 when originally published), where the protagonist is reflecting on a bit of racist bullying he/his family had intervened to stop: "The mindless ferocity of this man, and all those like him, their real loathing born of nothing more solid than insecurity and fear ... it was a channel. [...] the channel down which the powers of the Dark, if they gained their freedom, could ride in an instant to complete control of the earth."

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - reading about the astonishing increase in cancer amongst the populations in Iraq who live where depleted uranium weapons were used. And how this was made more devastating by the sanctions & the refusal of the US & her allies to admit any culpability.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scene7, Act 3 Scenes 1-2, Act 4 Scene 1 - Julia decides to go to Verona, Proteus acts to remove his rivals for Silvia's love (still no idea what Silvia thinks), and Valentine joins with the bandits as a sort of Robin Hood because they were looking for an erudite young man to lead them (!? this kinda came out of nowhere).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 177-196 of The History of England - the later parts of the Wars of the Roses, Edward IV who so nearly settles the whole thing down, Richard III who opens the wounds again (and catastrophically so for York), the Princes in the Tower! And now onto scene setting for the Tudors with the state of Europe at the time (which reminds me to learn about Russian & Spanish history some day) and the state of England.

Sunday Podcast: ep 27 & 28 of Living with the Gods - societies which attempted to run without religion (the French & Russian Revolutions) and how that failed to satisfy people's need for community (because it was imposed from the top down I suspect rather than just coz people like having a religion per se). And the outlawing of minority religions (like Christianity in Japan), mostly as a way for authoritarian states to demonstrate their authority.

Music: While running I listened to Wham's greatest hits & The Cure's greatest hits. To drown out a film J was watching (so I could write) I listened to Belly "Dove", and the third disc of "Best of the Eighties CD3" which had a track by someone called Belouis Some on it (and it turned out I did know it despite recognising neither band nor title (Imagination)).

Talk: "A Middle Kingdom Mortuary Ritual Reflected in Writing" Ilona Regulski - looking at what just a couple of pieces of papyrus discovered at Asyut can tell us about the religious beliefs & practices of the Middle Kingdom. Particularly interesting were the many layers of metaphor in the text written on these pieces, and also that she could build up a picture of how the text was added to over time & how many different scribes wrote bits of it by looking at the handwriting & the alterations to the text.

Watching

The Story of Skinhead with Don Letts - tracing the origins of skinhead style & culture as part of the fusion between black/Jamaican and white culture that also produced Ska. And its subsequent co-option by the far right from which it became the visual style of racist white youth. But also how some people are still skinheads in the old sense and so the better aspects of the movement are still there (tho I wasn't really sold on the idea that this was really anything more than a bunch of older people desperately trying to turn back the tide of a changed culture).

ep 3 of Africa: A Journey Into Music - this one was about Mali, which managed I think to be rather more optimistic about the ongoing conflict there than is warranted by the actual situation. A good series overall, gave us a glimpse into some different musical cultures with some stuff I knew and some I didn't.

ep 4 of Africa's Greatest Civilisations - also about Mali & West Africa during roughly the 14th/15th Centuries. Including, of course, Mansa Musa - a king so rich he could destabilise a city's economy just by tipping the people he met.

ep 1 of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures 2017: The Language of Life - Sophie Scott giving this year's lectures & talking about language. This episode covered using sound to communicate in a broad sense, how ears work, what sort of sounds animals use etc. This lecture series is aimed at kids, but it didn't feel dumbed down.

World Cup Football - saw some of the last of the group stage (Japan vs. Poland 0-1 and a bit of a damp squib; England vs. Belgium 0-1 and just as well we didn't need to win). Watched most of the first round of the knockout stage, just missed Sunday's matches and the afternoon one yesterday. So saw: France vs. Argentina (4-2), Uruguay vs. Portugal (2-1), Brazil vs. Mexico (2-0), Belgium vs. Japan (3-2, poor Japan :/) and of course England vs. Colombia where I'm sure you're aware that we won the penalty shootout 4-3 which is historic on several levels and the best England have done in the World Cup for a long while. I'm pessimistic about Saturday, it has to be said ... tho I haven't seen any of Sweden's games so maybe I shouldn't be.

A day late as we were in London yesterday...

Books

Fiction: Started "The Dark is Rising Sequence" Susan Cooper - a return to a childhood favourite, that still holds up as an adult (or at least, does so far & did last time I read it). The copy we own now is an omnibus edition of all 5 books so I'm treating it as one book. It's Arthurian-esque fantasy of the "another world hidden alongside ours" type. Finished the first part ("Over Sea, Under Stone") and am now on my favourite one ("The Dark is Rising"). I liked the first bit more than I did as a child, but the shift in tone between the two books/parts is still a bit jarring - the first one could almost be Enid Blyton and so the children protagonists never felt like my peers even when I was a child, they were from a previous time. But Will (protagonist of The Dark is Rising) felt much more like a child I might've known albeit from a bit of an odd family. And yet they're all contemporaries so it jars.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - currently reading about the devastating effects of the sanctions against Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2 Scenes 1-4 - Valentine falling in love with Silvia, Proteus arriving and doing so too despite having moped around over Julia mere moments before. Random comic relief from Proteus's servant using his shoes to represent his parents ...

Listening

Podcasts: ep 143-162 of The History of England - the glory of Henry V so quickly followed by the utter uselessness of Henry VI.

Music: While running I listened to Elton John "The Very Best of Elton John CD2".

Live Music: Belly playing at the Shepherd's Bush Empire - perhaps my least favourite London venue but we got far enough forward to counteract the rubbish room. Belly rocked - no support act, so two sets from them. It was also the first standing gig we've been to in ages and I very much prefer that to sitting politely listening to the music!

Museums

Dunwich Museum - tiny little museum in the village of Dunwich about the village falling into the sea. Which has been going on for much longer than I'd realised - I hadn't thought that people would keep moving there once it started falling off, but it's been vanishing since Roman times and its heyday was in the 13th Century until a storm shifted a sandbar to block the harbour. The info boards had a bit of an axe to grind about the relative merits of the two major families of the area, Downings (founders of both college & street) bad, Barnes good. Guess which were still in a position to financially support the museum? ;)

Rodin & The Art of Ancient Greece at the British Museum - if we weren't members (and so get in free) and hadn't been in London at a loose end anyway then we probably wouldn't've gone. It was interesting and had some striking pieces (I was particularly fond of Rodin's sculptural group of the six Burghers of Calais) but overall too much fetishisation (by Rodin) of the art of Ancient Greece for my tastes. And not even the art that the Ancient Greeks themselves would've enjoyed, but the faded & broken remnants of it that were left after 2000 years being held up as the epitome of everything wonderful and true in art. Oh, and the assemblages pieces could, quite frankly, Get In The Sea. If you like Rodin, or want to see the Elgin Marbles displayed differently, it's probably worth it but not my cup of tea.

Petrie Museum - we then popped into the Petrie very briefly to look at the recently re-displayed shabti, which were cool :D I like shabtis. But there didn't seem to be any way to identify a given shabti - the accession numbers weren't visible anywhere in the labelling which seems a shame (although we were there so briefly that I may just've missed them).

Watching

ep 2 of Africa: A Journey into Music - this one about the music of South Africa, mostly focusing on the vocal harmonies of the local traditions, but also touching on the political history the music comes out of.

ep 2 of Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA - art inspired by the city (in particular New York) in this episode. And as with the first episode pointing out the roots of 20th Century US art in Theosophy, a somewhat nutjob New Age-ish movement of the early part of the century.

The Road to Palmyra - Dan Cruickshank and photographer Don McCullin visit Palmyra to see how bad the destruction is in the wake of IS occupation of the area. As depressing as you'd expect.

ep 3 of Popular Voices at the BBC - watched after the one above as an antidote to the depression, this was performances from "Truthseekers" which meant quite a few political-ish songs so not quite as much of an antidote as all that. A fun series, lightweight but then that was the intention. Went well with the documentary series it was intended for (Gregory Porter's Popular Voices).

ep 2 of Africa's Greatest Civilisations - looking at the coming of Christianity (and also Islam, but mostly the former). Which thus meant a focus on Ethiopia.

Egypt's Lost Cities - another re-watch. This was the one about Sarah Parcak's satellite imagery of Egypt which she has used to identify potential archaeological sites. Pretty good, tho the attempts to actually dig stuff up that she'd identified turned out to be damp squibs (in part because the revolution stopped play after the documentary had begun to be filmed).

World Cup Football - I had both Belgium v. Panama & England v. Tunisia on in the background on Monday. Managed to miss all the goals in the first match by leaving the room at inopportune moments, but I paid more attention to the England match :)

Books

Fiction: Finished "2010: Odyssey Two", Arthur C. Clarke - enjoyed this, not sure I remembered very much of the story at all, not even a sense of familiarity so I can't've read it often as a child. I should track down the next two in the library and read them - pretty sure I've read 2061 but not 3001.

Read "Childhood's End", Arthur C. Clarke - one of my favourite books as a child, and although I wouldn't say that any more I'm still fond of it. I do now think he shouldn't've written an extra chapter 1 for the new edition in the 90s which punts the setting out into the 21st Century without also editing the rest to stop it being a very 1950s society that the plot happens in.

Read "The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night", Arthur C. Clarke - two stories which aren't connected except thematically. Lone young man with a thirst for knowledge pushes against the decaying grandeur of his world to find truth or bring change. Something about Against the Fall of Night really struck me this time, I found it very evocative & it conjured up a mood of nostalgia and of people who were aware they were living after the best days had been & gone. (I'm also pretty sure I've read "The City and the Stars", which is a re-write of it, but I don't seem to own it)

Read "Expedition to Earth", Arthur C. Clarke - a collection of short stories, some of which worked for me & some didn't. Covered quite a lot of genres/common tropes whilst all still being SFF - like a war story told by a retired soldier (but the action set on Phobos), like a version of The Cold Equations, another was explorers/surveyors visiting a new planet & meeting the inhabitants who are revealed to be our distant ancestors. And an earlier version of 2001 ("The Sentinel").

Read "Islands in the Sky", Arthur C. Clarke - boys own adventure story IN SPAAAAACE! Contains mild peril. It's definitely a kids book, I think I used to find it rather fun when I was closer to the protagonist's age but now it's just a bit childish.

So I read almost all of the above whilst feeling miserable with a stomach bug on Monday, that's why the sudden surge of books. Obviously this is a tiny part of Clarke's oeuvre and it seems to skew towards the early but I'd forgotten how different in mood Clarke's fiction feels to Asimov's or Heinlein's (to take those he's often on a pedestal with). He's definitely a Brit born at the end of World War One - a theme running through much of what I just read was of life after the Empire has gone, after the Golden Age is over. But other things reminded me of Heinlein in particular - like in passing world building details of polyamorous relationships and fixed-term marriages. Though in Heinlein such things are fetishised but Clarke seems to just drop them in in passing to illustrate how this isn't our society.

Started "Coma", Robin Cook - continuing reading the fiction on our shelves, I'm just a little way in to this book and despite assuming I had, I'm pretty sure I've never read it before. J bought it and I must've just got used to seeing it on the shelf. Medical thriller, made into a film I believe, set in the "present day" of 1976.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - read quite a bit of this on my travels during the last couple of weeks. He's up to the aftermath of the first Gulf War & the uprising (encouraged by the West) which failed to overthrow Saddam and was then betrayed by the West.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 116-122 of The History of England - just covered the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, and the brutal aftermath, and now starting on Wycliffe. Continues to be both interesting & entertaining.

Sunday Podcast: ep 21-22 of Living with the Gods - one looking at how having many gods shapes one's society & authority structures, and the next looking at how having one god does.

Music: While running I listened to Imagined Village "Imagined Village".

BSS Study Day: "Tombs and Temples of el Kab: Current Fieldwork & Research" - 4 talks by different people:

"The Major Decorated Tombs: introduction and review", Vivian Davies - overview of all the decorated tombs in el Kab, who they were for & what they tell us about the history & society of the time.

"The Tombs and Temples: recovering history from visitors’ graffiti", Luigi Prada - the best talk of the day, a fascinating look at the Ancient Egyptian graffiti on the tombs & temples at el Kab and what it told us about the people who made it.

"Monuments from the Tomb of Ahmose-Pennekhbet and the Ramesside Shrines: a project of reconstruction", Susanne Woodhouse - a discussion of the bits of stone monument in one of the tombs & where on the site they'd originally been. Followed up with a joint talk from her & Prada about a new decorated tomb that's recently been discovered there.

"Elkab in Oxford", Liam McNamara - many of the archaeologists who did the work at el Kab from the late 19th Century onwards have been associated with Oxford and this was a look at what there is in the various archives & museums to do with this.

Talk: "The Tomb of Tatia at Saqqara", Vincent Oeters - the excavation of a small, relatively recently discovered tomb at Saqqara dating to the 19th Dynasty. This is what Oeters did his Master's thesis on, and he'd done things like figured out a plausible genealogy for the tomb owner (and subsequently revised it when they found something new).

Museum

A brief look in the Bolton Museum & Aquarium which is being refurbished - so the aquarium is (I believe) properly open but the Egyptian stuff is shut. The aquarium was fun, if a little odd to find in the basement of the library. The temporary display while the rest was shut was heavy on the stuffed birds and the gosh-wow child oriented labelling. We'll have to go back some time when the new Egyptian galleries are open.

Had an afternoon in the recently refurbished Egyptian galleries at the World Museum, Liverpool. Rather well done, I thought, with a lot of interesting stuff - worth the visit.

Watching

ep 5 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - finishing up the series/training scheme with a mock operation. I'd been dubious going in as it looked like it might be all a bit too reality TV, but it was really good.

Jeff Beck: Still on the Run - biopic of the most famous man I didn't know about. Well, I exaggerate for effect, I did know Jeff Beck was a famous guitarist but he also turned out to've been involved in more music that I knew than I realised and to be a pretty interesting chap. Did feel a bit like a programme the Beeb is banking for when he pops his clogs tho - it's the obituary/retrospective done with his input.

ep 1 & 2 of Pompeii's Final Hours: New Evidence - Channel 5 documentary with Bettany Hughes, Raksha Dave and John Sergeant. The last of whom could've been completely dropped from the programmes & nothing pretty much would've changed about the information presented - he's there as the "pretty face" or "glamorous assistant" whilst the other two do the serious history/archaeology. I've been sniping back at the TV a bit during this but actually it's pretty well done - a straightforward run through of how we think events progressed from T-2days through to the eruption, and a look at new archaeology on the site & scanning of the casts etc.

ep 1 of Africa's Greatest Civilisations - presented by Henry Louis Gates Jr, first of a 6 part series about African history running from the origins of humanity onwards. Felt a bit like he was over-egging the pudding at times, but some of that is that in this ep I'm hearing stuff I already know about only with the opposite biases to "normal".

Books

Fiction: Finished "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson - I find Stephenson a bit hit & miss, this one was (just) in the hit category. I think its flaw was that he was so excited to tell us about the engineering & scientific tricks he'd thought up that he skimped on the characters & plot, mostly using current persons & events and gently filing the serial numbers off (only not quite far enough). But the idea that drove the story intrigued me enough to make it a hit.

Started "2001: A Space Odyssey", Arthur C. Clarke - continuing to read my way through the fiction we own. It's a pleasing coincidence that I ended up reading Seveneves just before this - they're not the same story, but they rhyme.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - still reading the chapter on Israel & Palestine, which is feeling very topical given the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Tempest: Act 3 Scene 3 - Act 5 Scene 1 - everyone says how sorry they are, they promise to mend their ways and all go home. I don't really like The Tempest as a story, which I suspect is not the point of the play.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 79-97 of The History of England - Edward II has been dispatched, Mortimer too, and we're about to launch into the reign of Edward III.

Sunday Podcast: ep 19 & 20 of Living with the Gods - still on the theme of images, but now images intended to have an effect on you (make you feel an emotion and thus get closer to god) and those religions/sects which banish the image.

Music: While running I listened to Everything But the Girl "Home Movie" & "Amplified Heart".

Talk: "Kings from Kush: Egypt's 25th Dynasty", Robert Morkot - a summary of what we know about the rulers of the 25th Dynasty, and how we know what we know.

Watching

ep 3 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - survival training this time, not the living-off-the-land type, but the sneaking-into-guarded-buildings type. Oh, and climbing up a cliff-face on rickety not joined together ladders. I wouldn't've made it that far in the training anyway but can't even begin to imagine climbing up those.

ep 5 & 6 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - Cheltenham as the epitome of the Regency and Belfast for the Victorian era. This was a bit of an odd little series, on the one hand it was Alice Roberts and she's as good as usual being informative without being patronising but on the other hand it felt rather shoehorned into the premise rather than fitting naturally. Having these be the "most" whatever town rather than a representative example seemed to require a bit of verbal gymnastics. And I've no idea why we had the archaeologist(?) in a plane, his sections felt like useless padding.

ep 2 of Syria: The World's War - utterly depressing two-parter about the conflict in Syria and how everyone's getting involved and lots of innocent people are dying but none of the players seem to care. Somehow we managed to watch part 2 first, so part 1 is lined up for tonight.

ep 1 & 2 of Gregory Porter's Popular Voices - looking at singers in 20th-21st Century popular music. Each episode is focussed on a different type of singer - so we've had "Showstoppers" and "Crooners" so far.

ep 1 of Popular Voices at the BBC - series to go along with the Gregory Porter one, where the BBC has trawled through its archives for examples of the type he was talking about. So this one was Showstoppers, including people as diverse as Freddie Mercury, Mahalia Jackson and Adele.

Books

Fiction: Still reading "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson, I'm about half way through now and it still hasn't got to the further future setting that I was vaguely aware of as part of the book. If it wasn't for the map at the front of the book I might be wondering if I'd got this book mixed up in my head with vague spoilers for a different book, but the map suggests not. In general enjoying it, tho I do keep getting yanked out of the story as I realise who a given character is a fictionalised version of. So far I've spotted JBF = HRC, Sean Probst = Elon Musk, Camilla = Malala, "Doob" aka Doc Dubois = Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I keep wondering who other characters "are" and whether I'd get more or less out of the book if this was my culture he was raiding for personas. I'm also not sure if they are supposed to match in personality etc, or if they're just supposed to be roughly the right type of person in order to give the setting more of a sense of verisimilitude. And all that's rather distracting.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - just finished reading his discussion of the Armenian Holocaust and the direct traceable links between it and the later Jewish Holocaust. And how the Armenian one is the genocide "everyone" denies because it's politically inconvenient for the Turks and we all apparently want to be friends with Turkey.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Tempest: Intro then Act 1 Scene 1 - Act 2 Scene 1. I.e. setting up how Prospero is a nasty piece of work, and so's his brother.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 47-61 of The History of England - the rest of the Angevins - Richard I being actually a better king than he's sometimes cast as, and John being every bit as bad as his reputation.

Sunday Podcast: ep 17 & 18 of Living with the Gods - images where the point is that this is your copy of an image that there are many copies of through your community, and a look at understanding the meaning of images.

Music: While running I listened to Loreena McKennitt "The Mask & The Mirror"

Watching

ep 9 of Civilisations - Simon Schama looking at art of the last century or so, and coming full circle to look at the place of art in civilisation from a modern perspective. It feels like a shame the series has come to an end, I enjoyed these.

Civilisations On Your Doorstep - a companion programme by Mary Beard, looking at how and why all this art from other cultures has ended up in Britain.

ep 2 & 3 of Putin, Russia and the West - the straining of relations between Russia & the West via the elections in the Ukraine & conflict in Georgia.

ep 3 of Britain's Greatest Cathedrals - Salisbury's tourist board were being pleased this time.

ep 1 of Painting the Holy Land - Lachlan Goudie travelling around the Holy Land looking at how the art of the Passion of Christ over the centuries doesn't really depict the landscape where the events played out. Not sure if we'll watch episode two - I'd expected more travelogue/art history and less "being guided by his Children's Bible".

On 15th April I did the Brighton Marathon! I entered it last year, just the day after entries opened - I'd been saying for a while that I wanted to do a marathon "some day" and it came to the point where I needed to just enter one so that I'd be committed to training for it. I'd also decided that running was taking over too much of my life but if I wanted to do a marathon then it'd be sensible to do it while I was still running lots. I picked Brighton for a couple of reasons - firstly it's a spring marathon and I figured I'd rather train over winter rather than over summer. Secondly it's one you can just enter (unlike London where there's a ballot or you commit to raising thousands for charity which I'd find more stressful than the run itself). And lastly it was actually open for entries at the point I decided I was going to do one - which counted out Manchester which didn't even have a date at that point.

So having bitten the bullet and entered I attempted to forget about it for at least 6 months. Well, kinda, I did have a couple of decisions to make that I wanted to have figured out in my head long before I started to train. How fast did I think I was going to go, and what training plan was I going to follow. Pace was the easier of the two, although in a sense I got it "wrong" but more on that later. The main thing I did was look at marathon times for people who I have a feel for their pace on race distances I've done, and 5hr 30 seemed a good ball park. Which I later refined to 12min/mile as a target pace (so a little quicker). Then in the run up to the Great East Run I did a 14 mile run at my target marathon pace as part of my training and it felt about as hard as I figured half-way at race pace should. So that was sorted.



Finding a training plan proved a little more difficult as it felt like I fell in a gap between plan types. By the time I entered the race I was already comfortable running a half marathon nonstop, so didn't need a plan that started by getting me to "run/walk for an hour" for the first long run, but equally the next step up often looked more intimidating than the race itself or was aimed at a specific pace that was faster than I wanted. Eventually I settled on the Hal Higdon Novice 2 program as it looked to be in the Goldilocks zone. And of course promptly modified it a bit, but not too much - long runs on Thursdays as that works better for me, and added in parkruns for the first 6 weeks. Skipped the half marathon race too, as that would've involved re-jigging a few weeks of the plan to get the long run day that week to fall on a Sunday.

The other thing to sort out was nutrition - I don't like the idea of gels, the thought of the texture makes me gag a little, so was trying to avoid them. In the end I settled on a mix of SIS Go Electrolyte drink, jellybabies on miles 1/2/4/5 etc and shotbloks on miles 3/6/9 etc. It was probably overkill, I definitely could've got away with less - but I figured optimising it wasn't worth the faff, and I didn't want to risk under-fueling in the race and making the end a misery.

Training went really well - had a slack week over Xmas, and got snowed off one week but otherwise did pretty much every run as planned. And that really helped my confidence when I got to race day. I swapped out the half marathon race for a half marathon at marathon pace halfway through, to see how I was going and started to worry I'd lowballed my planned pace a bit. After a few days mulling it over I decided to stick with the original plan: I'd much rather have it go well and have mild regrets I wasn't faster than over-stretch myself early on and have a disaster of a race. The worst bit about training was how it completely over-took my life - I don't mind long runs on my own, I do enjoy running and I'd just put some tunes on & go plodding off round the streets of Ipswich quite cheerfully. But by the highest mileage weeks of the plan I was running for hours & hours each week, and on long run days I'd not get much else done as I'd be tired enough to not quite have the mental bandwidth to do much that was useful. It felt like I was constantly scrambling to keep up with everything else in my life and by week 15 out of 18 I was So. Fucking. Done. With. This. Shit. Thankfully, that was the last really long run week (the 20miler) and I'd regained some enthusiasm by race day!



So the weekend of the race arrived - we were out in Cambridge at a Marillion gig on the Friday, and it's a tough call whether the gig distracted me from the race or the race distracted me from the gig. By Saturday when we'd got to Brighton I was a complete stressy mess! To be honest I think the marathon is one of the most intimidating things I've done - it's up there with my PhD viva, and shares a few other similarities. By the time you get to the race||viva you've done all the training||research so you just need to not screw it up in this final hurdle. It's also something that a relatively small portion of the population has done, but because of my social circles I know a lot of people who've done it. And by the time you get to race-day||viva-day it seems like everyone and their dog has a horror story about their first marathon||viva and you've heard Every. Last. One. Of. Them. ... twice.

I'd booked a hotel right near the start - paid a bit over the odds for a Travelodge room, but it was worth it to use the loos in the hotel rather than queue in the starting area. Bumped into another Lifer while I was waiting for the start pens to open - chap called Carl who I don't know to speak to really but we had a bit of chit chat anyway. Which actually calmed me down, making small talk with an almost total stranger is stressful in a different way ;) Also when I went through into the start pen someone from the next-door pen called through to ask if I was from Ipswich and said she had seen me running round where she lives a lot. So that was kinda neat & kinda random.

Once the race actually got going the nerves stopped - I like running, and I had a plan, so all I had to do now was put one foot after the other till the end. Thankfully I lost sight of the 5hr pacer early on as I didn't want to get sucked into running faster than planned and the hill at the start prevented me from taking off too fast. I saw J several times around the course - he'd plotted out a few places to wait for me and he took the photos in this post (plus many more!). It was good to see someone to grin at and showboat for the camera so often! I also kept an eye out for other Lifers (members of Run For Your Life which is the running group I belong to). I spotted Bex about where I thought I would, on the out & back towards the marina - she was coming back, I was going out. I also caught a half glimpse of Jon Glanfield (I think his name is) as he was finishing and I was coming past half way. Plus some others I didn't know at various points, and some Jaffas (an Ipswich running club).

The race went absolutely to plan, and I enjoyed pretty much all of it. I stuck to pace until after 21 miles, and so spent the first half being over-taken by people and the second half overtaking people. I did stop for a brief loo break after half way (when I spotted portaloos with no queue) and walked for a few seconds through a couple of water stops late on when I was getting tired of the taste of sugar, but other than that I ran the whole way which I'm really pleased with. There were a couple of miserable miles between 23 & 25 - it had started to rain & I was running into a headwind, and you can see the pier (where the finish is) but it's just not getting closer. There's also less support there, particularly once the weather changed. I cheered up again for the last mile tho - nearly done, and more support. And then I was finished, and now I'm a marathon-runner! :D



Post-mortem? I definitely have a better time in me, I didn't take as long to recover as I'd feared and I was never in doubt that I could keep up (nearly) the pace I planned. So I could've pushed it more, I think. So in a sense, I mis-judged my pace, but equally if the conditions had been like they were today in London I'd've struggled a lot more so it's only hindsight that tells me I misjudged it. I'm not planning to find out if I can go faster though, not in the foreseeable future. I just don't want to take the time to train for it and there are other hobbies I'd like to put some more time into.

And I'm a marathon runner, and that is awesome :D In case you hadn't noticed, I feel dead proud of myself - not half bad for the kid that was always chosen last for teams in PE coz she was rubbish.