Cultural Geography Blog

I'm working my way through the series now that all episodes have been screened. At the end of Episode 6 of 'The Rings of Power' there is a volcanic eruption. This is a pthreatomagmatic eruption it appears, when large amounts of steam are generated when water comes into contact with magma. This is an eruption which has been 'confirmed by volcano specalists' as being possible. Galadriel and others are caught up in a pyroclastic flow, but survive - although that would not be possible. Violent volcanic eruptions occur in large part because water is involved. The water is dissolved in the magma. The magma rises to the surfaces, the water makes bubbles that can turn to steam and the steam and water expand so rapidly that they basically blow the magma apart. That stuff piles up near a central vent and that’s what makes big volcanoes. If that water is in a confined area, like a bottleneck, there’s going to be a steam eruption — we call it a phreatomagmatic eruption. We see...

Very exciting news last week... Hello -- some news! I've adapted Susan Cooper's cult-classic novel, The Dark Is Rising, for a 12-part audio drama/podcast on @bbcworldservice . Dir. & co-adapted by @SimonMcBurney . Starring Toby Jones, Harriet Walter. Music by @JohnnyFlynnHQ & more. #TheDarkIsRising Brief 🧵 pic.twitter.com/FANmyhAAVR — Robert Macfarlane (@RobGMacfarlane) October 20, 2022 This is an excellent book as part of a series of books by Susan Cooper. I have a lovely old edition and have read it regularly over the years. Very much looking forward to this! Toby Jones and Harriet Walter are incredible actors as well...

Kebu - a favourite of mine - a Finnish musician who makes music using analogue synthesisers...

  Some foods are closely linked with the landscapes in which they are created? There is certainly a case to be made for an Edible Landscapes unit focussing on foods with Protected Geographical status. I like the promotion and graphic design on the support for Icelandic lamb, The tagline is good too. I'd go so far as to wear one of those if they were available to buy. The marketing brand book is full of wonderful images of the Icelandic landscape which provides the terroir for this food. And while in Iceland, seek out a bowl of Kjötsúpa!

After the hiatus that was COVID19, I'm pleased to say that I will be heading back to Iceland at the end of October for the first time since before the pandemic.  I had been due to visit three or four times in 2020, but they all had to be cancelled. This also meant missing out on seeing Ben Hennig, who works at the University of Iceland. I am heading there to complete my training as a Field Study Tutor for Rayburn Tours. This means that I've also gone back to adding regular posts to a blog that I put together in 2020 ahead of the original planned visits before COVID19 intervened. This started out as a 365 project, with a post every day for a year, which I managed to complete. I will be directing teachers from the schools that I work with to this as a resource which includes information on a whole range of Icelandic languages and culture. It's called Fieldnotes from Iceland.

I was alerted to the fact that the end credits of Eastenders on Wednesday this week were subtly (ish) changed to act as a trailer for Frozen Planet II. You can see the video of the credits here. The new end credits saw London’s East End transformed to show the river Thames bursting its banks with parts of the capital under water in a hypothetical scenario of what London could look like in the future. It then zoomed out to capture a satellite image of the Arctic and point to the last episode of Sir David Attenborough’s series, underlining the message that the challenge of melting ice in this frozen region could one day affect us all close to home.  

  I worked on this project with Peter Fox , another former President for over a year and a half on and off, with several meetings at Solly Street and some other work remotely. Isabel Richardson had done a great deal of preparatory work at Solly Street on the lantern slide collection, which used to number in the tens of thousands. Isabel had been cataloguing the collection. The plan was to make use of a fund generously donated by former Honorary Treasurer Brian Ellis , to bring these images back out into the open, and provide some ideas for their use in the classroom as well as some context. I worked with Peter Fox and we co-wrote the accompanying text for each image on the GA website. The website area is now live, and there is also an article that I have written for the latest GA Magazine. My original version of the text was a little longer than the final version, which we agreed needed to be a bit tighter to increase the instant accessibility of the resource. For those who may ...