Cultural Geography Blog

A nice milestone reached for this blog. Thanks for coming along and reading.

  Check out the trailer for the new Ridley Scott film which tells the story of the world on one day in 2020... A true quotidian documentary, pieced together from thousands of user-submitted video clips. The full film can be viewed here - it apparently has mature themes.

  In faith and in hope at the end of the day Our love will endure ‘till we return to clay Raise up your spirits my dearest of friends And peaceful your heart in the light of this life One of the last bands I saw live before the advent of COVID-19 was Altan. This beautiful new song is by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, and available from Bandcamp. It is called 'Time of Light' and looks ahead to a hopeful future during these dark times. Musicians need our support more than ever with the cancellation of live concerts and the Brexit omnishambles which has added barriers to their options for touring outside of the UK.  See and purchase the song on Bandcamp. Ré an tSolais by Mairéad Nï Mhaonaigh

I first came across this game in July 2020 when it was on early access on Steam, and sadly not available for iOS. I coveted it. It's created by Oscar Stålberg. I downloaded it a couple of months ago, and have finally had a few hours to get to play with it, and it's excellent and very calming. I shall probably be posting numerous screenshots in different locations over the next few days. There's a GUIDE here , although you can start playing immediately by choosing a colour, scrolling around the existing town and then clicking in different directions. I love watching the seagulls circling and settling on the rooves as well. Here's the description on Steam. It currently costs £4.79 Build quaint island towns with curvy streets. Build small hamlets, soaring cathedrals, canal networks, or sky cities on stilts. Block by block. No goal. No real gameplay. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty. That's it. Townscaper is an experimental passion project. More of a toy tha...

“You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher.”  Peter Gabriel, Biko I've been fortunate enough to have heard this song performed live about 8 times over the last 30 odd years. This new version has been released to raise funds for an important charity, and also celebrate Gabriel's 71st birthday, and features a range of world musicians. It also keeps alive the memory of Steve Biko and others in similar situations.

 Thanks to Steve Brace of the RGS-IBG for letting me know about this new addition to the Caught by the River website. It's a short film which has been made by Rowan Jaines as part of her work on the Cultural Geography of the Fens. It focuses on the Cambridgeshire Fens , through which I travel on a normal work day and have done for the last eight years. This video essay is part of a four-year research project exploring the cultural geography of the Fen region in the East of England.  The film is made up of a bricolage of clips of the Fen region, scavenged from the internet and put together in a piecemeal fashion so that the images on screen both intensify and disrupt the linear arc of the narration.  This is a film that aims to show the Fens as haunted by both the past and those things that have not yet come to be.

A classic Sunday film...  as are all Powell and Pressburger films.