Cultural Geography Blog

The humanities prepare students to be good citizens and help them understand a complicated, interlocking world. The humanities teach us critical thinking, how to analyse arguments and how to imagine life from the point of view of someone unlike yourself. Martha Nussbaum It was a pleasure on Wednesday afternoon this week to sit and chat with Anthony Barlow  to record a podcast for the Humanities 2020 website and project. The project has a manifesto. Primary schools have a duty to equip children for the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the primary school curriculum in England is failing to do this or to fulfil the legal requirement for a balanced and broadly-based curriculum. Literacy and numeracy dominate the curriculum while other vital aspects of learning are often ignored. This is wrong. We want young children to be literate and numerate, but much more than that. We affirm that every child is entitled to rich, stimulating and engaging learning experiences. We want chil

I've blogged previously about the space probe Voyager, which left the solar system a while ago. It has featured in one of the early Star Trek movies and elsewhere. It carries a Golden Record which provides details on the location of the Earth and sounds and images representing life on earth. The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University, et. al. Dr. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind and thunder, birds, whales, and other animals. To this they added musical selections from different cultures and eras, and spoken greetings from Earth-people in fifty-five languages, and printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim. The band Big Big Train have a track called Voyager, which is all about the space probe. Some selected lyrics: Heading further out To reach uncharted shorelines Setting sail for the distant stars The won

  An interesting read in Conde Nast traveller  exploring the idea of authenticity in tourist experiences...  I'm reminded of this as we get closer to Christmas and families start flying to 'Lapland' to see where Father Christmas lives. One for units on tourism and cultural geography.

For World Rivers Day - a Jethro Tull rarity from over 30 years ago... on the theme of river pollution...

Sometime in the mid 1970s, my long-haired Uncle Steve played an album while I was at my nana's house in Rotherham. It was unlike anything I'd heard before and I was immediately fascinated by it. It turned out to be an album that was quite new, and was selling thousands of copies.  The album came out on the 25th of May 1973, and had its 50th Anniversary earlier this year. I went to a special orchestral performance at the Royal Albert Hall, with  It had been recorded by one person, who had spent weeks multi-tracking himself playing a whole range of instruments - particularly guitars - a young man called Michael Gordon Oldfield. It was the first issue on a new record label called Virgin records. Friends also liked it very much. I bought a copy when I was in my record-buying phases and also had a copy on cassette tape. I consequently bought every release from Mike Oldfield in at least one format. He was still my most-listened-to artist according to my end of 2022 Spotify statistics

A new piece of music from Bruce Hornsby is always a pleasure.  I'm loving this one from the 25th anniversary reissue of the album 'Spirit Trail'...