150 years of the Shipping Forecast

There have now been 150 years of the Shipping Forecast. I still catch it occasionally if leaving early to drive somewhere...
Here's a lovely animation of it.

Rio Grande

Songs about rivers? This is one of the best...
A new variation on the original from David Bedford / Mike Oldfield....

Support Helen for SXSW

I've worked with Helen Leigh Steer for many years now.
She's the genius designer who puts together our Mission:Explore books, and I've also worked with her on the distance project with INTEL, and as the Geography author for the growing work of Do it Kits. There are other smaller projects we've worked on too...
Latterly, she's become a rising star of the maker education community, and created a number of kits which allow students to explore the Science of Music...

I've submitted a workshop for SXSW Edu - please RT and vote for me so I can geek out about #making, #music & #edtech https://t.co/Cj6saSyOgR pic.twitter.com/jK31G3hxC7

— helenleigh (@helenleigh) August 8, 2017

Helen has submitted a workshop proposal to SWSX Education event, and would appreciate your support. You'll need to create an account before voting up Helen's proposal I've just done this, and the whole process only took a couple of minutes... Thanks in advance...

Iceman Movie

A new movie reimagining the last days of Ötzi is opening next week with its premiere.

I wrote a book about him a few years ago, called 'The Ice Man', which is still available to buy.
The film is described as follows: 

On August 8th at 9:30 pm the movie “Iceman” directed by Felix Randau will be presented to the world at the Locarno Festival. On the “Piazza Grande” the audience will follow closely the fictitious story about Ötzi’s last days and hours.

With Jürgen Vogel in the title role, the film speculates on what might have happened on the Tisenjoch some 5,300 years ago – when Ötzi the Iceman was murdered by an arrow striking him in the back. And above all, why? Director Felix Randau focuses in particular on bringing to life Ötzi’s last few days and the circumstances which could have led to his mysterious death.

Synopsis: 5,300 years ago in the Neolithic Age. An extended family is living peacefully beside a stream in the Öztal Alps. Their leader Kelab (Jürgen Vogel) has been charged with guarding the holy shrine.
Whilst Kelab is out hunting, his settlement is attacked and the entire tribe is murdered, including Kelab’s wife and son. The sacred shrine of the community is also taken away. Consumed by pain and anger, Kelab now has only one goal: revenge!
Kelab is now set on tracking down the perpetrators. During the course of his Odyssey through the mountains he is subjected to all the dangers of nature. A tragic error now makes him into the one that’s hunted. Finally Kelab has to confront not just those who murdered his family, but his own demons. Will he give way to his urge for revenge and thereby turn from victim to offender? Or will he succeed in breaking the eternal cycle of violence?

I hope that this makes it to the UK.
Here's the trailer:

The Great American Eclipse

I wonder whether anyone I know is heading to America to see this event...

A good swathe of the country will be heading to areas along a long strip of land stretching across the country, where they will be able to see a total eclipse on August the 21st...
It may well be the chance of a lifetime for many to see such an event.
There's a fantastic ESRI StoryMap made by Mike Zeiler of ESRI below, which tells you all you need to know about eclipses, and this one in particular...

200 000 views

Thanks to everyone who's visited this blog over the years, and commented or sent me books to review, or inspired a post or two... I'll keep on blogging here as well as over on my main blog LivingGeography

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

This book has come into my social media feeds several times, and looks like it is worth exploring further... It's getting excellent reviews.
It has been written by Katherine Rundell, and is called "The Explorer". I will probably get a copy next week, and explore whether it has potential to feed into a unit on rainforests, also connected to the idea of survival, or as a reader.

It sounds like it connects with the books I've blogged about previously, and also written... 'Survivors" picture book, and my own "Extreme Survival"...

Here's the author talking about the inspiration for the story...