1. Cross fingers crossed for this first one, a BBC video of Gregory Burke’s play, The Black Watch, described by the BBC as a “hard-hitting play, based on interviews with former soldiers, that combines words, music and song to deliver a frank and unvarnished account of a Scottish regiment serving in the Iraq war” https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007xrqx/artworks-scotland-the-black-watch

A great piece of theatre from the then very recently founded National Theatre of Scotland which we saw back in Edinburgh in 2006. My fingers are crossed that the reason I’m able to watch it here in Cres is NOT because my laptop thinks it’s still in Cambridge!

2. I mentioned Ruben Hassid on Tuesday. Here’s a complete list of his posts on his How to start with AI blog, including How to bypass AI detectors and A survival guide to AI (written like IKEA instructions) https://tathastu-rh.notion.site/How-to-start-with-AI-3069464bdbf9809e8012ea1703525a55 Opinions may vary on the endorsement value of ‘written like IKEA instructions’!

3. Here’s two pieces on The Odyssey, film and book:

A piece for The Spectator by Iqbal Ahmed, What’s the real meaning of The Odyssey? https://spectator.com/article/whats-the-true-meaning-of-the-odyssey/

The Roman poet Ovid summed it up in a couplet two millennia ago.

Or what’s the Odyssey except a woman

Wooed by the suitors while her man’s away?

and a piece by Emily Wilson (who herself translated The Odyssey) for The London Review of Books, An Uncomplicated Man https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/emily-wilson/an-uncomplicated-man

Christopher Nolan’s $250 million action movie version of Homer’s ancient Greek poem is an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures for a few hours. Nolan’s trademark jumps and twists in the narrative structure are relatively easy to follow, and appropriate for The Odyssey, a narrative of tales nested in tales. My teenagers had a good time. Unlike some of Nolan’s other films, The Odyssey is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely. It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth.

Both those pieces seem to be open access: Cross fingers crossed again!

4. Here’s Jack Shelbourn’s take on Elon Musk, Grok and The Odyssey, Elon Musk says AI will make a ‘historically accurate’ Odyssey – here’s why that’s impossible https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-says-ai-will-make-a-historically-accurate-odyssey-heres-why-thats-impossible-288333

Elon Musk has promised that before the year is out, his AI tool Grok Imagine will produce a full-length film of Homer’s Odyssey that is, in his words, “historically accurate and true to the art of Homer”. The claim, posted on X in July alongside a three-minute AI-generated scene, arrived days after Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster version reached cinemas worldwide – a film Musk has spent months attacking for being “woke”. Set aside, for a moment, that The Odyssey is a 2,800-year-old poem that includes a witch who turns men into pigs and a one-eyed giant shepherd, to ask a simpler question: accurate to what?

5. And, finally, a gift article from The New York Times, The 50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century, which makes it clear that it’s well overdue that I read some Tana French! https://tinyurl.com/2ze2hkz3 PDF attached of the checklist of books for you to tick them off on.