Cultural Geography Blog

Also looking at a couple of useful sites relating to my forthcoming SAGT presentation. Geography is very much a feature of a number of popular books. STORYBOOK ENGLAND is a site in association with the tourist board ENJOY ENGLAND . It looks at the locations of several classic children's stories, the aim being to encourage people to visit the locations which featured in, or inspired, the stories. Some classic tales here including some personal favourites: The Dark is Rising and His Dark Materials in particular. A PDF map can be downloaded. The Geographical Association recently made available a very comprehensive resource exploring the geographical context of STIG OF THE DUMP : a classic children's book, for use with Primary pupils aged 8-11. This is a superb resource with plenty of transferable ideas.

...but it's 'typical' Bank Holiday weather again today: wet and very windy here in Norfolk... Went over to Brancaster and Burnham Deepdale yesterday for a quick mooch, then it was back for food shopping with lots of fractious holidaymakers arguing over gravy... SEA CHANGE This is a campaign of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment . (CABE) Our aim is to use culture to make a difference to seaside resorts, contributing to sustainable, social and economic regeneration. Our objectives are: to back investment plans from seaside resorts in culture, heritage and public space, which could act as a catalyst to support regeneration of the resort to boost confidence and pride in the local community to share learning between local authorities and other partners exploring ways to support seaside resorts via culture and heritage to ensure that our investment is matched by other partners so that we maximise the benefit of our funding Also in today's TIMES was a ...

Sundays will not be the same again... The best show on TV for the last 3 months: MAD MEN ended its first season last night.

Watch ALL THE SONGS thanks to the BBC. Then check out Tony Cassidy 's 2008 version of the follow up task...

Just sorting out some more details for my SAGT presentation , which is on GEOGRAPHY's relationship with the MEDIA, and features lectures by Iain Stewart and Mark Beaumont. I am interested in using the SCEPTICS' TOOLKIT from PANICOLOGY , to explore the idea of stories in the media and how we should view them with caution... Also want to explore the geographical aspects of MEMES : Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a " culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution , a meme in some ways resembles a gene. Richard Dawkins, in his book, The Selfish Gene , recounts how and why he coined the term meme to describe how one might extend Darwinian ...

Came across an interesting project called WEATHER PERMITTING which has been produced by Kathryn Yusoff and Jennifer Gabrys.

How many powerpoint presentations have you seen that might as well have been about this ? I liked the first question too....

A new tourist guide to the UK has been produced, and it includes some surprising (perhaps) descriptions of the country and its population. The BBC ARTICLE includes some extracts from the updated ROUGH GUIDE . What image does this give of ENGLAND. Some amusing HAVE YOUR SAY comments already available. Some of these pick up on CULTURAL ASPECTS of the UK, which would be useful for Year 11s for next year (pay attention Year 10s) What do you think about these examples from the HAVE YOUR SAY section... Which one would you MOST or LEAST agree with ? 1. Bacon butties, Sunday roast and chicken tikka massala 2. They missed out, uncouth, uncivil, uneducated, unmannered & prone to mindless street violence prefaced by the words "Wot you lookin at!!" I'd say that most of the world see's us like this, not the 'civilised islands of culture' that the BBC, and this Government like to portray as "This England" whilst happily lowering standards in all walks of life...

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