Cultural Geography Blog

A cross-posting from my relatively new blog: 'At the Home of Geography'.   This is a blog to share work around my work as Vice President:Education of the Royal Geographical Society. The GA's Fieldwork Festival during June has ended, but fieldwork can carry on at any time of course, and we hope that your summer travels may well involve some 'fieldtrips' AKA family holidays, or personal travels. These may be in the local area or further afield. Check out the detailed page on the RGS website which contains a wealth of resources for those planning fieldwork. One issue for teachers when consultations take place is to have ideas for fieldwork which are low cost (ideally free) and can be carried out in the local area. In terms of having ideas for fieldwork. The sharing of ideas in this area are particularly helpful. The RGS has added a useful form to their website. The form can be used to tell us about the fieldwork that you are undertaking, and help share examples of fre...

A cross posting from my GCSE Natural History blog. It's almost exactly 14 years since I went to Latitude festival with the Mission:Explore team. This followed an earlier visit to Glastonbury in the same year. We were working in the children's area running our missions, entertaining young people amongst the festival goers with our subversive take on the festival and its surroundings. Once we'd finished our shift, we were free to enjoy the music. On the 2nd evening, I headed over to the tent where Jonsi from Sigur Ros was going to be performing that evening. I caught a set from American band Yeasayer who were excellent. I then noticed someone wandering in a familiar tasselled jacket and realised it was Jonsi, and had a brief conversation with him. It was just after the launch of his 'Go' album, which remains one of my favourites. Later that evening he gave the most amazing performance in this tent, and I was up front as the music unfolded.  For a taster, catch the tra...

Chillingbourne is the fictional town featuring in the classic film 'A Canterbury Tale' (1946) made by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It is the town where the characters emerge onto the train platform by mistake and encounter 'the glue man'.  The design work was completed by Alfred Junge. Brief biography from a website. Although German by birth, Alfred Junge (1886-1964), contributed most significantly to filmmaking in the British context, arguably becoming the most influential and important art director of his day. Junge discovered his artistic sensibility in his teens by trying his hand at all aspects of theatrical design in local productions in his native Germany, eventually going on to do set design work for the German State Theater and the Berlin National Opera. Establishing his reputation as a visionary craftsman, Junge accompanied the seminal German film director E.A. Dupont to England in the late 1920s to join the prestigious ranks of British International...

  My wife went to Margate last weekend and got me this postcard from Turner Contemporary, as she knew I'd been working on a resource based around Fish and Chips. She was there to see Nile Rodgers and Chic do a gig at Dreamland. The postcard features an instantly recognisable drawing by the illustrator  Olivier Kugler. It shows the global spread of Fish and Chips. It relates to a commission for some art to be placed in 2021. The background: The commission shares everyday stories of migration connected to Kent’s most celebrated high street food. For the ‘Kent Fish & Chips’ Project Kugler and Humphreys have interviewed owners, staff and customers at Fish & Chips shops across Kent. Migration and displacement are central themes. Fish & chips can be traced back to Huguenot and Jewish arrivals in the UK and people from all over the world continue to be central to the farming and fishing industries and the high street shops. Featured Fish & Chip shop owners are: Beach...

"I'm just bull-jiving... It's what we do in Virginia..." There are several musicians who have been part of my life for decades. One of them is Bruce Hornsby. It was 1986 and I was training as a teacher when I bought the first album by Bruce and the Range from a music shop in Hull. The album included the song 'The Way It Is', which was heavily played on the new MTV, which was used to fill late night TV schedules for a while. I first saw him in the late 1980s in Manchester with 'The Range', and it was apparent that he played alternative arrangements of songs, and improvised, as well as being so familiar with the music that he would respond to requests in most shows. Over thirty years later, he still does the same in various formats, including solo and with the 'Noisemakers'. I've seen him as often as I can... his last UK show was at the London Palladium and I was there. A few weeks ago, I went to see him perform at the Royal Festival Hall as ...

The first single from the new album by Public Service Broadcasting is now out... and it's wonderful... Can't wait until the tour in October.

  Thanks to Alasdair Monteith for a link to a new resource from the FT's Education support: FT for Schools. It has an excellent illustration as well by Darrel Rees. Geography class: Inside the mind of a Nimby https://t.co/Ipfbm3CokH — FT for Schools (@ft4s) July 8, 2024 It's written by Julian Baggini, who wrote a book which was one of the key inspirations for my EverydayGeographies conference theme with his exploration of life in the "most average postcode" in the UK: S66 where I grew up.  This would be good for those studying the 'A' level Changing Places topic. Also good on indigenous connections with landscapes such as rivers in New Zealand and the importance of a sense of place and belonging. I can see myself returning to this one for a number of different topics. Also (re) introduced me to the late Roger Scruton's idea of oikophilia Perhaps the most interesting element of Scruton’s brand of conservatism was his emphasis on the love of home, what he ...