Reading, Listening, Watching
Oct. 23rd, 2019 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatReading: I've just finished Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. It turns out this is my office mate's favourite book, or at least top ten. I wouldn't rate it that highly. It is definitely good but it is a book in which the first two thirds are set near future and the last third far future and the difference shows. Though it's not just that far future is harder to imagine than near future. Even in the near future sections there is a lot more detail on orbital mechanics than on genetics (both of which are integral to the plot) revealing where the key interests of the author lie.
Listening: Mostly the usual though with more brexity overtures than is has been my habit. I have flirted with The Westminster Hour but concluded it is mostly politicians saying exactly what you would expect them to say - so generates more heat than light. I wish to be better informed about politics but I lack the patience for in depth pieces and get irritated by less in depth pieces. Brexit has reached the point where I just feel a kind of helpless despair: as far as I can see most politicians are still treating it as a game in which one must manoeuvre for advantage; what little interest in compromise there is, is not based on the understanding that the country is fundamentally divided and we urgently need to find the least worst solution for all constituencies and that involves serious levels of sacrifice on all sides (and yes, it seems to me we are at the point where people will die and we are talking about minimising loss of life because the route to a point where no one dies because Brexit seems so likely to derail into lots of people die that it is necessary to try to find the route of most chance of least death - if you see what I mean)...
This was not supposed to be a post about Brexit. But, fair enough, I'm in a state of kind of numbness where I expect nothing because each day brings the unexpected. I've moved through despair and anger to a kind of weird detached feeling of acceptance of fate. I called that helpless despair above and maybe its that I just... can't... anymore at some level.
Watching:. We watched The Doctor Who Cookbook Revisited on the extras disks for the remastered blu-ray of Dr Who Season 23. We haven't watched any of the remastered episodes since my main motivation for buying the box set was reduction in shelf space. But still, we have the Doctor Who Cookbook and like cookery shows so this seemed worth a punt. B. was hugely entertained, somewhat to my surprise, though he spent an awful lot of time trying to assess the success of various Dr. Who actor careers post-Dr Who based on their kitchens. He was pretty taken by a lot of the recipes too, none of which were ones I had cooked from the cookbook. There was some suggestion I had maybe not been selecting the best of the bunch. Nicola Bryant chose not to cook her 1985 recipe but an entirely different one. Her excuse was that it was a cheesecake recipe and Colin Baker was allergic to cheese. The result was very modern and distinctly appealing, I have suggested it could be made for my birthday. We shall see....
Listening: Mostly the usual though with more brexity overtures than is has been my habit. I have flirted with The Westminster Hour but concluded it is mostly politicians saying exactly what you would expect them to say - so generates more heat than light. I wish to be better informed about politics but I lack the patience for in depth pieces and get irritated by less in depth pieces. Brexit has reached the point where I just feel a kind of helpless despair: as far as I can see most politicians are still treating it as a game in which one must manoeuvre for advantage; what little interest in compromise there is, is not based on the understanding that the country is fundamentally divided and we urgently need to find the least worst solution for all constituencies and that involves serious levels of sacrifice on all sides (and yes, it seems to me we are at the point where people will die and we are talking about minimising loss of life because the route to a point where no one dies because Brexit seems so likely to derail into lots of people die that it is necessary to try to find the route of most chance of least death - if you see what I mean)...
This was not supposed to be a post about Brexit. But, fair enough, I'm in a state of kind of numbness where I expect nothing because each day brings the unexpected. I've moved through despair and anger to a kind of weird detached feeling of acceptance of fate. I called that helpless despair above and maybe its that I just... can't... anymore at some level.
Watching:. We watched The Doctor Who Cookbook Revisited on the extras disks for the remastered blu-ray of Dr Who Season 23. We haven't watched any of the remastered episodes since my main motivation for buying the box set was reduction in shelf space. But still, we have the Doctor Who Cookbook and like cookery shows so this seemed worth a punt. B. was hugely entertained, somewhat to my surprise, though he spent an awful lot of time trying to assess the success of various Dr. Who actor careers post-Dr Who based on their kitchens. He was pretty taken by a lot of the recipes too, none of which were ones I had cooked from the cookbook. There was some suggestion I had maybe not been selecting the best of the bunch. Nicola Bryant chose not to cook her 1985 recipe but an entirely different one. Her excuse was that it was a cheesecake recipe and Colin Baker was allergic to cheese. The result was very modern and distinctly appealing, I have suggested it could be made for my birthday. We shall see....