Cultural Geography Blog

Creator of some memorable books from my youth...

I've just sorted a PRO subscription to the GeoGuessr site for the department. Several students requested it a while back. I used to play this when it first came out in 2013. It was developed by Anton Wallén , and was originally free, but has moved to a subscription based model and now has a thriving community and a whole range of boards and challenges, including trying to identify countries in a streak as well as a daily challenge. There is also the option to create your own map using the Map Maker tool. There are lots of sites giving tips on how to identify countries from a range of clues. It also makes use of Google Street View, which doesn't cover the whole world of course. A map of the coverage is here. Interestingly, the game gained a lot of additional popularity during lockdown when people started playing it as a way of 'travelling the world'. This article looks at the value of playing the game, particularly during lockdown. There are some very sophisticated grou...

This programme was last broadcast in 2021 , but is being broadcast on Radio 3 again today. You will be able to hear it from tomorrow evening, or perhaps Monday morning. It is presented by Kevin Boniface , a postman based in Huddersfield who has written books on his psychogeographical adventures for uniformbooks. It connects perfectly with my conference theme of Everyday Geographies , and also the work of Georges Perec and his books which look at the infra-ordinary.

A nice programme on Bullseye.  Listen on BBC Sounds. What does it tell us about changes in culture? Which sectors of society were excluded?

Good to have a new Taslisk album out today...  DAWN by Talisk

“The defenseless earth could only lie waiting for its destruction.” This is a book unlike any that I have read before in its style and atmosphere.  It is set in a future (?) world of unnamed countries which are facing the threat of being overtaken by ice, the result of some unspecified nuclear catastrophe.  The protagonist, who has a number of issues himself  which emerge during the book,  is obsessed by a mysterious woman with silver hair - a "glass girl" of "albino paleness" who he pursues through wartorn territories, escaping from numerous perilous situations and always drawn on by the need to see the woman and perhaps 'possess' her. Anna Kavan has written a number of other books but this was her last one, and the most well known. There are plenty of theories of the real meaning of this quite surreal book which I discovered on reading more. I waited until reading the book as I wanted no spoilers. It has a dreamlike quality and has been described as slips...

This 2018 album from the Scottish folk band RURA is excellent .  The theme for the whole album is home and what it means to people, but it also invokes the Scottish landscape - the wider sense of home for all Scots. The title track and a later track includes some nice sampled reflections on home - the only lyrics on the album. The words are explored here in a nice reflection on their meaning. It's an addictive listen. In Praise of Home by RURA

I remember first hearing this one night in around 2008-9 while in a Travelodge in Sheffield. I'd started work for the GA, and was working through some accommodation options.  It was a late night and snowing, and I was listening to the local radio when this came on. I was familiar with the work of the KLF but had never heard this before. Here is a version of the track I heard, which then segued into Jerusalem... Places mentioned: Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Grim_Up_North

The Winter Olympics are underway, fake snow and all, and with a great deal of international condemnation of China's treatment of indigenous groups, and the IOC's decision to award the games to them in the first place. Which well known painting has a detail (shown below) which includes some of the sports that will be featured in the coming weeks?

This has been threatened by the Climate Emergency.