{"id":3078,"date":"2015-06-20T22:17:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T20:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/?p=3078"},"modified":"2015-06-20T22:17:08","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T20:17:08","slug":"mixed-media-saturday-20-june-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2015\/06\/20\/mixed-media-saturday-20-june-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed Media, Saturday 20 June 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last couple of weeks I have mostly been listening to Royal Blood<\/a> and Taylor Swift<\/a>. Royal Blood because I was supposed to be seeing them live at Murrayfield in support of the Foo Fighters on Tuesday next week; but that’s cancelled because Dave Grohl broke his leg<\/a>. Much sadness. Taylor Swift because we’re going to see her at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam tomorrow evening. (“We” = me, Abi, Fiona, and a friend of Fiona’s. Alex isn’t interested.)<\/p>\n

I had bought my ticket for the Foo Fighters through stubhub.co.uk<\/a>. My main worry about buying an after-market ticket for a concert abroad was whether it would get delivered to me in time, before I had to travel. (The original promoter said that actual tickets would be getting sent out two weeks before the gig.) That turned out to be perfectly fine: my ticket arrived by courier last week. After Dave Groh’s accident, Stubhub also sent out regular emails to keep me informed about whether the concert was going to be cancelled. And today I received a full refund: not just for the face value of the ticket, but for the (higher) price I actually paid to buy it. So I’m impressed. They did a great job, and I would use them again.<\/p>\n

I’m planning to use the refund to get a ticket for the Foo Fighters’ concert in Amsterdam on 5th November, but it’s sold out as well, and after-market tickets are even more<\/em> expensive than they were for Murrayfield. I know I’ll buy one (see my rule about live music<\/a>); I’m just feeling a bit twitchy about the cash.<\/p>\n

Abi and I have been watching the Kevin Spacey House of Cards<\/i><\/a>, and it is excellent. We finished season 1 last week, and started on season 2 straight away.<\/p>\n

Fiona and I went to see Jurassic World<\/i><\/a> this morning. I found it a thrilling amusement park ride of a film, but the gender stereotyping was regrettable. As the operations manager of the entire park, Claire’s actions were colossally reckless. She chooses to rush out in person<\/em> to look for her two nephews rather than stay to oversee the safety of the the 20,000 other visitors to the park. What’s troubling is that she wasn’t immediately excoriated for abandoning her duty \u2014 almost as if it is expected or excusable for a woman to do that. She even simpers at the end. Personally, I think that the film could have told exactly the same story with the genders of the main adult characters swapped. It probably would have been better for it.<\/p>\n

Also watched recently:<\/p>\n