Dancing with myself

What is the title of the book (fiction) you are currently reading or what is the title of the last fiction book you read?

I've just read Sugar Skull by Charles Burns. It is the final part of a graphic-novel trilogy in which a Tintin-like character wanders through a peculiar world (or maybe not, it might all be imagined) and/or has flashbacks, whilst engaged in an affair with a girl whose previous boyfriend is dangerous. There's a lot of symbolic imagery in the material, and I think to take it all in and really appreciate it, I should re-read all three volumes.  

What is the title/topic of the book (non-fiction) you are currently reading or what is the title/topic of the last non-fiction book you read?

I tend to usually have several different books on the go that I am dipping into at any one time. At the moment, I'm mainly dipping into Chris Totten's An Architectural Approach to Level Design and I also have an historical atlas of Celtic Europe that I'm looking at for research.

What is the last live performance (music, drama or dance) you attended?

The most recent live performance of music I attended was the WOMAD festival back in the summmer holidays. I was really looking forward to seeing Bobby Womack, who had been signed up as the headline act, but he died and was replaced by Sinead O'Connor! It's the sort of festival where you'll hear and see bands you might not have heard of before, and I like to relax with a bottle of wine, a backgammon board and a newspaper in the shade of the arboretum without worrying too much about who's playing or what type of music is on. Having said that though, the Radio 3 stage has moved to a new location, right in the middle of the arenam, where there is no shade at all!

What is the title of the last film you saw at the cinema / online or watched on DVD?

I've recently been watching some of the old Dogme 95 films, and saw Thomas Vinterberg's Festen and Lars von Trier's The Idiots in the same week (crediting the director is actually one of the things the Dogme 95 manifesto rails against, btw). They both have dark aspects, and I thought both were interesting and enjoyable despite -- perhaps even because of -- the grim parts. The last film I saw at the cinema was a 3D-screening of Guardians of the Galaxy at the Barbican, which is one of my favourite cinemas.

Guardians doesn't have a manifesto like Dogme 95, but it was quite good fun. Von Trier, on the other hand, doesn't offer the same kind of filmic fun, but I may have to splurge out on a box-set or two soon. 

How often do you read a newspaper? (Which one(s)? Online or physcial?)

I read The Guardian online everyday, and get a paper copy of The Guardian or The Observer at the weekend, and it often takes me the best part of the week to get through it.

Which art gallery / museum / exhibition did you last visit?

I recently went to Ipswich museum to look at their senet pieces. Before that, I visited the Ancient Lives exhibition at the British Museum. The exhibition consists of eight mummies, from different times and places, that have been scanned using computer tomography (CT scanning). It means the mummies can be explored inside, like a virtual unwrapping, without any damage. The interactive displays are probably at the cutting edge of what is being done in museums with computers. Some of the artefacts that had been hidden under the bandages, such as amulets, unseen for thousands of years (the last people to have seen them would have been those involved in the mummification process-- had been created using a 3D printer and put on display with some of the other artefacts. The exhibition runs until November 2014.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/egypt/mummy_the_inside_story/mummy_the_inside_story.aspx 

 
How many hours a week do you spend playing video games?

Very few. Maybe two to four hours in an FPS in a heavy gaming week, less (like none, zero, zilch, nada) when I'm busy and there's stuff to get done. Otherwise I might just tap at a phone version of an ancient board game for a few minutes at a time. Having said that, I did spend a couple of hours playing the indie game Slender: The Eight Pages recently (it's a first person horror game) after I'd read about it. Download it here: http://www.techradar.com/downloads/slender-the-eight-pages

How many hours a week do you spend playing games other than video games?

Depending on the time of year, I might spend several hours at a time playing backgammon (I play more in the summer). At other times, especially in the autumn and winter months, I might spend a few hours at a time in a session of a some kind of "eurogame", probably something like Dominion, Carcasonne, Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan, or maybe Cards Against Humanity