The Upanishads are some of the sacred texts of Hinduism, originally transmitted orally from father to son in the priest families they were written down in the 6th Century AD. They consist of a series of dialogues about the nature of the universe and the nature of knowledge. And I'd not even heard of them before listening to the In Our Time ( Read more... )

The British Museum currently has an exhibition on the art of drinking in Asia called "Ritual and Revelry" which runs through till 6 January. We visited it on 23 November as we were in London for a concert that evening.

The ExhibitionThe bulk of the objects in the exhibition were in a single room in the museum - with just a couple in the room ( Read more... )

Started off the evening with the third episode of Andrew Marr's History of the World - this one was about the Word and the Sword, basically the rise and spread of Buddhism, Christianity & Islam with a few side stories. He started off with the story of Ashoka who killed and conquered his way to ruling an empire that covers most of modern India. ( Read more... )

We watched the third & last episode of Vikings last night. This one was split into two - firstly Oliver covered the Vikings' exploration to the West and then in the second half he looked at how the Vikings stopped being Vikings. So the programme started off by looking at Viking ocean-going ships, and a bit of sailing & rowing in a replica, and ( Read more... )

Started off TV night on Weds with the penultimate episode of Michael Wood's Story of England - which covered the period from Henry VIII through to the early 19th Century. Which brought it to roughly the same time period as I've got my genealogy research back to (in some cases), it shouldn't've surprised me when they talked about someone's age on ( Read more... )

Decided to take a break from the Bettany Hughes season, and watch some slightly more fluffy television yesterday - J was feeling pretty tired & wasn't sure he'd stay awake otherwise ( Read more... )