mousetrappling | Entries tagged with study day

Includes some spoilers for Doctor Who at the end...

Books

Fiction: Still reading "The Gardens of the Moon", Steven Erikson - the climatic battle has happened and I'm into the wrap up. Don't think I noticed on any of my previous reads about how it's all about being used/being tools of other people/powers/whatever ... despite it hitting you over the head with the theme repeatedly.

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - something I'd not consciously thought before is how the rise of farming is a clear demonstration of how evolution is driven not by what is good for the individual but by survival of offspring to breeding age. Broodbank says that there's little evidence for hunter-gatherer groups taking up farming (other than the initial development obviously), it spreads round the northern Mediterranean by farming communities moving into an area and settling there. And why would the hunter-gatherers do so when times are good - it looks like an awful lot more work for a less healthy life. But as it supports a larger population, more children survive to breed and so the farmers out compete the hunter-gatherers.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors: Act 1 Scene 1 - the father of the twins who'll drive the comedy tells his tale of woe & separation.

Listening

Podcasts:ep 260 of The History of England - the fall of Somerset, the background & early career of Cecil and the rise of Dudley.

ep 17-32 of The History of China - in which he's finished off the Warring States period, covered the Qin (important but short lived dynasty) and has gotten to about halfway through the Han.

Sunday podcast: ep 1 of I, Object - to tie in with the current BM exhibition which we've not been to yet, Ian Hislop looking at objects of dissent throughout history & the world. This one about objects that hide their dissent in plain sight.

Music: While running I listened to some of Little Boots "Hands". And to drown out something J was watching I listened to the rest of "Greatest Mod Ever CD3" (which has two Benny Spellman tracks on), "BBC Music Vol 10, No. 9: the Romantic Cello" (which has a Berg piece on it) and started "BBC Music: Christmas Through the Ages" (despite being out of season, as it has a Berlioz piece on it - not, I'm sure, the only Berlioz we have but the only one tagged quite like that I think).

Study Day: made a last minute decision to go to the first study day organised by Ta-wer, "Aspects of Abydos". Well organised & interesting :) All four talks were given by Paul Whelan & covered a great sweep of Ancient Egyptian history:

"The Foundation of a Cult Centre" - looking at the predynastic & early dynastic cemeteries, and how Abydos developed into the religious centre of Ancient Egypt

"The Symbiosis of King and Cult in the Old Kingdom" - looking at evidence for whether or not Abydos was important in the Old Kingdom, and how looking at it through a royal lens gives you one story and through the non-royal evidence gives you another one. Also the first mentions of Osiris and some interesting discussion of Whelan's idea that Osiris is a deification of the process of mummification.

"Middle Kingdom Pilgrimage to Abydos" - Abydos is definitely a key place in the religious life of the Middle Kingdom, covered the shrines and stelae created to overlook the processional route for the festival of Osiris.

"Taharqo and his Nubian Osireion" - skipping over the New Kingdom and looking at how the 25th Dynasty Pharaoh Tarharqo wasn't just a promoter of the cult of Amun but also had reverence for the cult of Osiris at Abydos, down to building his own copy of the Osirieon for his tomb in Nubia

Watching

ep 2 & 3 of Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths - continuing through the 18th & 19th Centuries and up to the modern day still looking at each development of mathematics through the lens of whether maths is something we discover or something we invent. An interesting series, I enjoyed it (and it made me want to re-read Hofstader's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" due to the discussion of Gödel's ideas).

ep 2 of The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure - in Thailand, still making us hungry, still making us note that they're a lot more hyperactive in this series than the only other one we've watched.

Roots, Reggae, Rebellion - Akala looking at the history of Reggae and of Rastafari and its connection with rebellion and political activism in both Jamaica & the UK.

ep 1 of Origins of Us - an Alice Roberts series looking at human evolution and what we're adapted for (like long distance running). I thought we hadn't seen this before, but J was sure we had right from the start of the episode & he's probably right coz I did get deja vu at some bits. Still enjoying the re-watch though :)

ep 4 of Doctor Who - ( some spoilers )

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: Finally finished "The Bear & The Dragon", Tom Clancy. Not even a particularly good example of Clancy's work, let alone a good book. Antagonists are a China that's straight out of much earlier Yellow Peril stereotypes, and the whole thing is somewhat over padded with less gun-porn that I remember but more overtly political rants. That's the end of the Clancys I own, and they'll be off to a charity shop soon, tho I do still intend to pull my thoughts together into a post about them as a whole.

Started "Seveneves", Neal Stephenson, which we bought ages ago but I haven't yet got round to reading. Somewhat mental whiplash from Clancy ;)

Non-fiction: Still reading "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - which has taken a digression into the World War I of Fisk's father, illustrating the after-effects of war both on the people involved personally and politically, and also showing how the Middle East was in general fucked over by the decisions made during & after that war.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: General Introduction - finished up the introduction now (tho there'll be more introductory material before I get to the first play, but not much more). Quite a bit on the cult of Shakespeare as it arose in the centuries after, and on how they chose what to put in this particular book (it's the First Folio versions of the plays, edited to modernise spelling, plus incorporating bits of the Quartos if it seems obvious the Folio printing is in error - the intent is to get as close as possible to the text as delivered to the publisher, but modernised).

Listening

Podcasts: ep 28-46 of The History of England - as always with such things narrative progress slows as we get to eras with more sources. These episodes get from Henry I through the Anarchy and the into the Angevins. He's finished off Henry II's rather soap opera of a life, and just starting Richard Coeur de Lion.

Sunday Podcast: ep 15 & 16 of Living with the Gods - festivals & their place in holding communities together, and starting to look at religious images with images of protectoresses.

Music: While running I listened to The Beatles "1"

EEG Study Day: "Deir el-Medina: A Never-ending Story", Cédric Gobeil. He gave four talks over the day which were:

"Archaeology in the Archive: A Short Historical Review of the French Excavations at Deir el-Medina" - he opened by giving us an overview of the work that had been done at the site prior to his becoming the director of new excavations in the 21st Century. Which was sufficiently extensive that the received wisdom was the there was nothing left to find.

"The Theban Tomb 250: helping out Women’s Studies" - his own personal work, re-examining with the intent to republish this tomb. In the course of this work he's discovered it is actually the tomb of 9 women, combined with a memorialisation of several of the prominent members of the community.

"'Wonderful things': highlights from the past seasons" - an overview of the work done since he became director. This is both stuff to restore the site (to the state it was left by the principal excavator who finished work in the 1950s), and to re-investigate parts of the site. Contrary to expectations there's still a lot to investigate - the original excavation was done rapidly, and they've found quite a few things like ostraca that were overlooked.

"Of Mummies and Men: The Discovery of a Female Tattooed Mummy" - there were still a lot of (damaged) human remains on site, piled up in one of the tombs, and one of those was the torso of a woman with a lot of tattoos. He talked us through what tattoos she had, how they compared to depictions of women in reliefs and what their significance might be.

Watching

ep 8 of Civilisations - David Olusoga talking about art & imperialism and progress.

ep 1 of Putin, Russia and the West - a series from a few years ago looking at Putin's rise to power & the changing relationships between Russia & Europe/the US after the Cold War ended.

ep 2 & 3 of Britain's Most Historic Towns - the two towns in these episodes were York as an exemplar of a Viking town and Winchester as an exemplar of a Norman town.

Bacchus Uncovered: Ancient God of Ecstasy - Bettany Hughes programme, about Bacchus as an ancient Greek god and some attempt to trace his relevance through into modern society. I wasn't sold on it, really, a shame as her programmes are normally good.

ep 1 of Secret Agent Selection: WW2 - a series re-creating the selection process & training programme of the spies who were sent to Nazi occupied Europe during the Second World War. A mix of reality tv-esque "who's going to make it to the next stage" (tho without any audience voting thankfully!) and history documentary. Actually rather good so far.

Wild Tales from the Village - charmingly quirky nature programme looking at the lives of wild animals over a year in a French village. Had a bit of a fairytale feel to it and managed to stay the right side of the twee/charming line. I recorded it as it promised red squirrels, and it definitely delivered on that.

ep 3 of An Art Lover's Guide - in Baku for this episode. Not a place I think I'd heard of before even tho it's the capital of Azerbaijan. Enjoyed the series overall, three interesting places to see. It always feels a little stilted but somehow works despite that.

Books

Fiction: Still reading "Executive Orders", Tom Clancy. Less time to read this week so haven't made much progress.

Non-fiction: Started "1177BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed", Eric H. Cline. We bought this after seeing a video of a talk Cline gave on the subject & finding it interesting. In the book he's looking at the causes of the simultaneous decline of the major Bronze Age civilisations in the Mediterranean & Middle East around about 1177 BCE. So far I've read the Prologue (where he describes the events he's interested in) and Chapter 1 (where he goes back to the 15th Century BCE to start setting the scene).

Hidden Meanings: 7.3.9 - 7.14 - still reading about motifs for longevity, which include things like chrysanthemums and cranes.

Listening

Podcasts: ep 4.14-4.B of History of India - he's finished the narrative episodes associated with Harsha & is now examining other aspects of that period of Indian history. I've caught up to date with this one now.

ep 103-107 of History of English - looking at how Middle English continued to evolve in the 13th Century, including all the prefixes & suffixes that were beginning to take over from older English ones, and how book production & selling were changing in this period (and words entering the language from that).

Sunday podcast: ep 3-4 of Living With the Gods - water and light, respectively.

Music: While running I listened to Porcupine Tree's "Deadwing", Bon Jovi's "Cross Road", Guns'n'Roses "Appetite for Destruction", INXS "X", Scissor Sisters "Ta Dah", The Beach Boys "Greatest Hits", 10CC "10CC" and Various "Dreamboats & Petticoats CD1".

Talks

Glanville Lecture Study Day: Religion in the Ancient World, which had 6 talks:

"Egyptian Concepts of Cosmogony and the origin of philosophy" Jan Assmann - Egyptian notions of creation of the world involve continuance with the pre-existing situation, with no conflict or violence - that comes later with the creation of rulership.

"Gaming with Death" John Tait - an overview of the game of Senet.

"Antinous and Death in the Nile" Tim Whitmarsh - examining the text of a poem about Antinous and Hadrian going on a lion hunt, written shortly after Antinous has died & is deified.

"Communicating with the Gods: Liver Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia" Selena Wisnom - overview of what the liver omens are, how we know about them and how they were performed. I've been translating some as part of my Akkadian homework and it was very interesting to get an overview of what these texts were all about.

"Egyptian Afterlife Texts and Ancient Christian Apocrypha" Simon Gathercole - how ideas from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (and other texts) carried on into the Christian texts written in Egypt.

"Demons in Late Antiquity" Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe - an overview of texts relating to demons from roughly the 1st Millennium CE. Covering both Christian and not, and both practical and theoretical.

Glanville Lecture: "The Book of Exodus and the Invention of Religion" Jan Assmann - basic idea is that he sees a qualitative difference between the Abrahamic religions and the older religions and sees the Book of Exodus as pivotal in the change of emphasis. Before religions were religions of cult and weren't something that required belief, they just were. And Judaism (and subsequent) are religions of covenant and require belief, and are something to which you can convert (and set up a dichotomy between those who believe and are thus right/good and those who do not who are thus other/bad). Assmann manages to pack an awful lot of "idea" into a small space, I haven't yet gone through my notes properly to unpack it in my head.

Watching

ep 6 of The Vietnam War - the failed Viet Cong attacks of 1968, plus the assassinations of both Martin Luther King & Robert Kennedy.

ep 3 of Nigel Slater's Middle East - this week Nigel Slater enthused about Iran and its cuisine. Again he stuck to mostly the rural food. We enjoyed this series, lots of interesting looking food.

ep 2 of Art, Power & Passion - the influence on the Royal Collection of Charles II and of George III.

ep 2 of Hits, Hype & Hustle - live shows & how their importance has waxed & waned over the decades. Included some footage from before the U2 gig that we were actually at last year (tho no signs of us, would've been rather unexpected given how many people were there).

The First Brit: The 10,000 Year Old Man - rather disappointing programme about the recent reconstruction of the face of Cheddar Man, plus a genetic analysis of him. The material was interesting, but the decision to present it as an unfolding narrative was the wrong one I think. It resulted in a shallow programme trying to build up suspense and drama at the expense of actually showing us the results in any depth.