Posts

Showing posts from 2020

1000 posts

Image
I started this blog back in August 2007, when I was still teaching at King Edward VII School in King's Lynn, where I had been since 1988. I was teaching the Pilot GCSE Geography Specification at the time, and there was a Cultural Geography module which I taught, developed by Phil Wood. It offered an exciting new geography compared to the other GCSE specification I had been used to. The year after, I left teaching and joined the Geographical Association as Secondary Curriculum Development Leader, where I stayed for 3 years. I ended up meeting lots of Cultural geographers and the blog morphed into a general blog with posts on films, music, art and culture as well as other topics. I started my LivingGeography blog, which became my main outlet for blogging, but maintained this one, along with others. Now I've reached 1000 posts, and the blog has had almost 300 000 views, which is quite respectable. Thanks for reading. I'll continue to post and cross-post relevant stuff here. Al

Caroline Kent

Image
This rather wonderful image is by the artist Caroline Kent, who I have known for almost 40 years. It was submitted to this year's Sunday Times Watercolour Competition  and chosen for the exhibition which is sadly online only at the moment. It is entitled 'Unemployed Gargoyles and Grotesques' and shows the roof of Notre Dame, following the competition theme of the lockdown and Covid-19's impact on society. I am fortunate to own several of Caroline's paintings, and two hang by my desk at home for inspiration. They show familiar landscapes in the Peak District, and a woodland floor packed with fly agaric mushrooms... At this time of year, I also turn back to the work of Ronald Lampitt and his Christmas scenes - seek out art and landscapes at this dark time of year... Image copyright: Caroline E Kent.

River

Image
I watched the wonderful Christmas special of Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing - lovely to see Staithes featured as well, where I had a wonderful White Christmas some years ago. One musical highlight was a snippet of version of this song by Joni Mitchell... excellent...

Weapons of Reason - the book

Image
Just taken delivery of the hard copy of the ' Weapons of Reason ' book, which is most excellent. Here is the contents page from the eBook which I supported on Kickstarter.  There is also a video on this page, which shows you the book and more about its development, following the 8 issues of the magazine.

Expedition Earth - An Explorer's Guide to a Planet in Peril

Image
  Expedition Earth - An Explorer's Guide to a Planet in Peril is a new public lecture by Professor Iain Stewart, which has now been shared on YouTube. “We live on a rock-coated metal ball hurtling at 66,000 miles per hour through space, yet despite our breakneck orbit through a crowded cosmic neighbourhood it is the changes happening closer to home that present the greatest threats to humanity.” Professor Iain Stewart MBE, Director of the Sustainable Earth Institute and Professor of Geoscience Communication.  This is the big picture story of that planet we call ‘home’ – its history, how it works and what that means for us living on it - told through remarkable imagery and amazing science. Listen to explore the Earth’s natural violence, the un-natural shifts in our oceans and climate, and the resulting global challenges that threaten how we live on this extraordinary human planet.  Premiered on 27 November 2020 as part of the University of Plymouth’s FUTURES2020 events, see more -

Islands of Abandonment

Image
New from Cal Flyn and out in January 2021 . I like the sound of this book very much. It sounds like just my sort of thing. Islands of Abandonment has the subtitle: Life in a Post-Human landscape. It's about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places... From the publisher's website: A heavily fortified island which, since the end of the war, has been left to crumble and decay. An exclusion zone thrown up around the smouldering ruin of a nuclear reactor; the surrounding villages emptied and the forests scorched. A dwindling sea, upon whose deserted shoreline a beach has been formed of the scales and bones of fish killed by its toxic waters. A clearing in the woods so poisoned with arsenic that no trees can grow there. A no-man’s land between razor wire fences where jet planes rust on the runway after three decade’s neglect. These are the islands of abandonment. Cal will travel to some of the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth, places which have been forgotten or negle

TM GeographyIcons - my presentation

Image
My presentation for today's event is here .  It is about some lessons from the GA Presidents blog project which have kept me going through this difficult year for all teachers, and which sustain me through over 30 years of teaching. What is the irreplaceable ingredient? I have also recorded the presentation on LOOM as well. You can watch the video by clicking this link here. Remember to top up, and refresh this ingredient over the Christmas break. And big hugs to Victoria for her resilience this morning.

TMGeographyIcons line-up released

Image
 On the 5th of December - free tickets still available. 🚨🚨Line-up for TeachMeet Geography Icons 👇🚨🚨 @geogmum @geography_DAF @geoblogs @charlotteexton @HafsaBobat @geographygem @richardallaway @fiona_616 @daviderogers @geogcannon Looking like an incredible line up! Make sure you get tickets here: https://t.co/y0j4PIotmV — TMGeographyIcons (@geogicons) November 16, 2020 I have to put my presentation slides together still.... I've put a poll on my Twitter feed to ask people what I should talk about. 

Protest songs...

Image
  Siberian Butterfly ... Regular readers of the blogs will be familiar with other Bob Mould masterpieces... Read this interview with Bob for context . He's been part of my musical life for over 30 years.

Sad times...

Image
 

Prepare to explore new worlds

Image
  And the city of Cittàgazze "Well, this was a mercantile city. A city of traders and bankers. We thought we knew about bonds. We thought a bond was something negotiable, something that could be bought and sold and exchanged and converted...But about these bonds, we were wrong. We undid them, and we let the Spectres in."

On the trail of the 'Detectorists'

Image
As I was in Suffolk last week, I headed for Framlingham as I knew that there were various locations from the series 'Detectorists' and also a wonderful pub just a few miles away where we could go for lunch. Parked up in the Market Square, and from there it was a short walk to several locations. Here are plenty more on a map. Managed to track down four locations: the outside of the 'Two Brewers' pub (the interior was filmed elsewhere), Lance's upstairs flat, the shop where Lance's former partner sells Spiritual goods and scented candles, and the village hall where the DMDC met. Here's me outside said hut. Don't forget the uniformbooks book of course. Still available and an excellent read.

Why Study Geography?

Image
​"​ Passionate, humorous, informative, wide ranging, sensible, comprehensive, convincing! What more can I say ..... Why Study Geography? ​i​ s a book for every geography department! ​"​ Professor David Lambert Currently £10.99 on Amazon, or £8.79 on Kindle.

The name's Bond....

Image
Yesterday the death was announced of Sean Connery , who brought Bond to the big screen with a series of films, and also starred in many other classics, such as Highlander. This Vox map shows the countries he visited. Also check out Lisa Funnell and Klaus Dodd's book.

America Undefined

Image
 Images of the USA...

'Why Study Geography?' - now available - repost

Image
Geography is the big-picture subject for our times. It encompasses subjects ranging from the microscopic – how soils form, and how those soils can be protected and managed well to grow food, for example – through to things as large-scale as the future trajectory of megacities and the threat of ever more warming of the planet. Alan Parkinson’s guide clearly and carefully explains why geography is worthy of study, at GCSE, at A level and at university. It is bang up to date. Students, their teachers and parents are all likely to find it essential reading. Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford Just ahead of lockdown, I met with Richard and Sam from the London Publishing Partnership about writing a book in a series explaining why students should study different curriculum subjects. The History book is already published , and others are on the way. The lockdown gave me the time and the inclination to meet a quite tight deadline, and after sev

The British and their Fish

Image
New on the BBC Sounds App this week , is this investigation of the British and their Fish, based in Grimsby. From the BBC World Service. Food and geography are a good match and this is being added to my reading list for investigations of food and a sense of place. From the programme description: By the middle of the 20th century, the English town of Grimsby was the biggest fishing port in the world. When the catch was good “fishermen could live like rock stars”, says Kurt Christensen who first went to sea aged 15. He was instantly addicted to a tough and dangerous life on the waves. But from the 1970s onwards, the industry went into decline. Today it contributes just a tenth of one percent to Britain’s GDP – less than Harrods, London best known department store.   So how can such a tiny industry cause so much political havoc and threaten to scupper a post Brexit deal with Europe?  Fishing communities have often blamed EU membership - and the foreign boats that have arrived as a result

Norfolk Broads resource and competition

Image
Chris Webster of the Geography Fieldwork Academy has teamed up with the Norfolk Broads authority and brought his video making, resource creation and drone flying skills to bear on one of our National Parks, and the nearest one to where I live and teach. He told me: We've teamed up with the Broads Authority as part of the lottery funded Water, Mills & Marshes project to create a series of unique and engaging geography lessons for KS3 students. These lessons are designed to prepare students for GCSE geography by developing maths, fieldwork and GIS skills in addition to increasing their ability to interpret landscapes and analyse data. The end product is here. There are 6 lessons with all the relevant resources in word and PDF format, and they are rather good resources as well, which I am thinking of slotting in to my own KS3 scheme. Powerpoints are available for download, and also some videos. The final few lessons explore the planning of a route for a Broads triathlon , which

His Dark Materials - Season 2

Image
I am very much looking forward to this new series of His Dark Materials, which starts on the 8th of November, before we head back for the second half of the Michaelmas Term.

New Marvellous Map with TMJ inkings

Image
The incredible inkings in our Mission:Explore books were created by the dippy pen and iMac of Tom Morgan Jones.  He has now teamed up with the people behind Strumpshaw, Tincleton and Giggleswick's Marvellous Maps series to produce illustrations for a new map of the funnest things to do in Britain A Great British Map of Wonders. This looks like a suitable Christmas present for the geographer or young person in your life.

Drawdown by Ben Sheppee

Image
  Coming to King's Lynn for the next month or so... This consists of projections which will be shone onto 4 key buildings in the town between next weekend and the end of November. I shall be heading over once the clocks have gone back to take a look at this... More details here. The impact of the 2020 national lock-down has shown us that change can be made and some positive effects have been experienced including people commuting less and becoming more aware of their environment… Can this be the beginning of an influential change? The work aims not to emphasize the problems of climate change, but highlight some of the solutions and provide empowerment through awareness. The project draws on research from Drawdown, a 2017  comprehensive plan to reverse global warming , developed by an international coalition of leading researchers, scientists and policymakers. Their report ranks the top 100 ways to reverse climate change, with #1 being the most effective in sequestering carbon from

Dan's new project

Image
Dan Raven Ellison's ' The UK in 100 Seconds ' was a lovely project which resulted in a film which I have used numerous times and I am not alone, made in association with Friends of the Earth and voiced by Benjamin Zephaniah.  It has apparently been viewed over 500 000 times. Dan has now launched a Crowdfunding campaign for a new film which will tell the story of the UK's amazing National Parks in 100 seconds. As Dan says on the Crowdfunder page: In the UK we have 15 beautiful, distinctive and important National Parks. From the New Forest to the Cairngorms and Pembrokeshire to the Broads, our National Parks include a diverse range of landscapes, habitats and uses. The overall picture is complex, hard to imagine and difficult to get a proper sense of proportion.  When they are all added together... how much of our National Parks are covered in woodlands, crops, pastures, quarries or urban areas?  UK National Parks in 100 Seconds  will give us a first look that's not

Coronavirus cases on the rise

Image
I'm currently working on version 10 of the New PC Geographies document which is approaching 200 pages in length. I recently had cause to google a city and added the word coronavirus and discovered that if you google the name of any large city and add the word 'coronavirus' to your search, you are presented with a map and some statistics in graph form.

The Netherlands in 100 Seconds

Image
Made by Dan Raven Ellison - watch out for his latest project... coming soon.

GERECO Research Seminar

Image
Thanks to GA President Susan Pike for the details of the upcoming  Geography, Education Research Collective Open Forum, in association with UK IGU-CGE Tickets are free. There are three sessions and a discussion - details below - this is a chance for teachers to engage with research in a way which won't take too much time, and connect with the present circumstances which all teachers find themselves in.

Could you be a future GA President?

Image
  Some people ask from time to time what they can do to get more involved with the Geographical Association -  other than the obvious way which is to become a member in the first place. We have the Phase committees (including Early Years, Secondary and Post-16/HE) and other Special Interest Groups (SIGs) which have a changing roster of members and activity. There are opportunities to write for the GA's journals: articles and contributions can take various forms and be of differing lengths. Teachers can also apply to be Consultants to the GA , and work comes through fairly regularly. I've just completed some work with a game design company for example. There is now a chance for you to put yourself forward to get involved with the journey that I am currently involved with, and apply to be a future President of the Geographical Association. There are also positions for trustees and governing body roles. Details are published in the GA magazine for Autumn 2020.

Gilbert White Webinar

Image
A free talk on Gilbert White for those with an interest in this naturalist and observer of the natural world. Join Kimberley James online as she introduces Gilbert White who celebrated his 300th anniversary in 2020. Gilbert White revolutionised the way the world looked at the nature, inspiring future scientists such as Charles Darwin. Gilbert White born in 1720, and changed the way the world looked at nature through his book The Natural History of Selborne, published in 1789 and never out of print since.  Considered by many to be the father of ecology, he was once a household name as familiar as David Attenborough is today.  In this 1 hour talk Collections Manager at Gilbert White’s House Kimberley James will take you through Gilbert’s life from a lively child, to his world wide fame and lasting natural legacy.  The talk will be followed by a Q&A and then both will be available on our YouTube Channel for the rest of the festival.

TENET

Image
I went back to the cinema yesterday for the first time since February when I saw 'Parasite' ahead of its Oscar triumph. My son and I went to the IMAX in Norwich , where Odeon Cinemas had worked out the experience very well. We were shown to our seat which had a bubble of space around it and showed out at the end of the film one row at a time. Once the film was underway and we were in our seats we could remove our masks if we wanted to. The film that drew us back was the new Christopher Nolan film: TENET. The film's action takes place in a number of locations including London, Mumbai, Italy, Oslo and Russia. I discovered that there is a local connection, with wind farm support vessels from Great Yarmouth being used in one of the scenes. An enjoyable return to the cinema - this was certainly the loudest film I've ever seen, and some great performances and set pieces... and the story kept you thinking and working out what was happening throughout. 

Covid-19 cases on the rise

Image
As we get close to the start of term for English schools, cases are rising to levels not seen since late March. Anyone remember what happened then?

Save the Planet: Drink Beer

Image
The brewery Brew Dog has announced a plan to go not only carbon neutral, but actually carbon negative. They are going to plant thousands of acres of woodlands and take other action to offset their industrial activity in creating many different beers, and also operating a number of premises. Their plan has been drawn up with the help of Mike Berners Lee, who wrote an excellent book on carbon footprints of items which has just had a 2nd edition published. Read about it here. Download the plan as a PDF file via this link (PDF download) Here's a useful starter image from the company's James Watt's twitter feed - may need to think about what age group you use this with - perhaps the older students given the language, and also the subject matter of beer... Image:  https://twitter.com/BrewDogJames

Routes Issue 1: now published

Image
The first issue of Routes Journal has now been published. This contains a range of articles, research and book reviews contribute by 6th form geographers and undergraduates. Each article has been peer reviewed by a team of teachers and academics. The first article features an editorial / introduction by Klaus Dodds. Congratulations to all of those involved in the production of this new journal. This would make an excellent project for 6th form students to engage with. Go here to download the articles. I particularly enjoyed the piece by Rebecca Dunn from Loreto Grammar School. Exploring a new exogenous force: Covid-19 and its effects on Didsbury (Manchester, UK) which I shall add in to my latest version of the New PC Geographies document and the resources I am creating for the GA currently. Also Joel While's piece: A ‘strange combination’: neoliberalism and embodiment in the global food system There's also a competition for students to enter with book prizes

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

Image
“The scientists and the policymakers who are concerned about climate change are extremely sympathetic to the massive suffering a huge number of people have had through this pandemic. The entire point is that this is what societal change looks like when something changes.” Helen Czerski Covid-19 has provided a crucial opportunity to make drastic changes to tackle climate change, experts behind this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures have said. The talks, Planet Earth: A User’s Guide , will take audiences on a deep dive into our planet’s workings, from rock formation and Earth’s ancient climate, to the fundamental role of the oceans and the makeup of the air we breathe. Each of the three lectures will be presented by a different scientist from a trio of experts: the oceanographer Dr Helen Czerski , environmental scientist Dr Tara Shine and geologist Prof Chris Jackson. Watch previous lectures here. Details of the lectures this Christmas are here. In this y

Twenty Football Towns

Image
‘To me, football is an important expression of a place-related collective identity, which operates as an important antidote to our increasingly atomised society’ Steve Leach Thanks to David Cooper for the tipoff to this book, which looks very interesting and will be one I invest in at some point. From the blurb for the book: The town where we grew up and all the places we've lived are the bedrock of our lives, and memories of seeing the local team play are inextricably intertwined with our sense of place and identity.  I used the look inside feature on Amazon to read a taster section of the book. I was interested in Barney Ronay's piece on the power of place , particularly as it related to Anfield, and Liverpool's Premier league winning season that has just ended. Even the journey there has a distinct tone and texture, something to do with the angles of the place, the topography of a port city, the way the light beyond the houses carries a sense of being a

Play Time

Image
"It directs us to look around at the world we live in (the one we keep building), then at each other, and to see how funny that relationship is and how many brilliant possibilities we still have in a shopping-mall world that perpetually suggests otherwise; to look and see that there are  many  possibilities and that the  play  between them, activated by the dance of our gaze, can become a kind of comic ballet, one that we both observe and perform..." Jonathan Rosenbaum I've been working through the films of Jacques Tati with my son. He created the character of Mr. Hulot, who reappears in almost all of his films. PlayTime is an absolute classic, but cost so much that it took all of Tati's money and bankrupted him, costing him his house and control over his other films. When you read the story of its creation you can understand why, with weather destroying part of the set during filming. The set was not the usual. Tati actually built a small city block just on

Great British Literature Map

Image
I'm a great fan of the maps produced by ST&G. I've got all their previous maps, and they are lovely things. Their latest map is a Literature Map of the UK. This features: The Top 50 of Britain’s literary spots, a truly thrilling road trip connecting them all, and reading suggestions to bring them to life in unique fashion Over 1,000 settings, fictional locations and real places that inspired fictional locations Follow in the footsteps of your favourite characters with over 30 amazing routes Over 600 brilliant bookshops and lovely libraries Over 250 of the finest literary festivals and events A litany of museums, attractions, graves, memorials, trails, theatres and scenes of other glorious literature-related tales and random nuggets It can be ordered from the Ordnance Survey shop on this link. Or visit their Marvellous Maps website, and 'get smitten with Britain'.

Place 2020

Image
Place 2020 is a new project which has been launched as part of the Centre for Place Writing. The work here explores, via a dynamic mix of new writing (poetry, essay, commentary, reflection and story), films, photography and podcasts, how ideas of ‘place’ shifted radically across the globe in 2020, as billions of people went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement changed how we think about everything. New work will feature on this site throughout 2020. An excellent piece by Amy Liptrot is part of the first few pieces, exploring young people's relationship with nature. I often think about how the geographies of our childhoods define our psyches. I grew up next to cliffs, in big skies with the open ocean and wide horizons. I’m coming to see that my son’s ‘local acre’, his native mile, will be different. Where we now live, in West Yorkshire, is about as landlocked as you can be in the UK. His is a world of woods and rivers, of ter

'Landscapes of Detectorists' - from Uniformbooks

Image
"Alright geography degree, where should we be searching?" I've been waiting for this book for some time, and it's lovely to finally hold it in my hand and flick through its contents before diving in. I didn't quite do a "gold dance" when my lovely postlady left it on the doormat and retreated two metres, but not far off. 'Detectorists' instantly grabbed me when the first episode of the first series was broadcast on the BBC on 2nd of October 2014.  The week before I'd watched another wonderful Toby Jones performance in 'Marvellous'  about the life of Neil Baldwin, so I was keen to see him in this new series too. There was something calming about the series as it progressed, with the relationship between Becky and Andy, the banter about 'University Challenge', their random finds and changing relationships. There are so many small moments of joy (many of which make it into the pages of the book) The random curries made f

OFQUAL Consultation on Fieldwork in GCSEs for 2021

Image
“Fieldwork is the best and most immediate means of bringing the two aspects of the subject (i.e. a body of knowledge and a distinctive method of study) together in the experience of the pupil. Therefore, fieldwork is a necessary part of geographical education; it is not an optional extra”   (Bailey, 1974) Over the years I've been part of many consultations and responses to consultations from the GA and also in a personal capacity.  Over the years the GA and other bodies have had to fight to keep aspects of the subject, indeed the whole subject itself, on the curriculum. Many consultations receive a low number of responses. This often plays to those who want to skew the result in a particular way by saying "look, there's no real opposition to this in the responses to the consultation". OFQUAL has a consultation running until the 16th of July.  TAKE PART! This consultation is on the content and running of the 2021 Exams for GCSE, AS (which nobody really

The new urgency of climate change - Al Gore

Image
"Getting informed consent from 7.8 billion people who have no voice and no say, who are subject to the potentially catastrophic consequences of this wackadoodle proposal that somebody comes up with to try to rearrange the entire Earth's atmosphere and hope and pretend that it's going to cancel out the fact that we're putting 152 million tons of heat trapping manmade global warming pollution into the sky, every day that's what's really insane." New from TED for June 2020. An important interview with Al Gore. I remember 'An Inconvenient Truth'. The coronavirus brought much of the world to a standstill, dropping carbon emissions by five percent. Al Gore says keeping those rates down is now up to us. In this illuminating interview, he discusses how the steadily declining cost of wind and solar energy will transform manufacturing, transportation and agriculture, offer a cheaper alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear energy and creat

Geography SW has launched

Image
A new website for those who are in the SW, and those who aren't. Launched by Simon Ross, John Davidson and Emma Espley, and supported by a team of geographers including Harry West from UWE. The site already includes resources for all key stages and also advice for those wanting to visit the SW, those studying at University, and teachers requiring CPD in the area. Plenty of links through to GA support materials and resources are included. The site will continue to grow over time. There are already some interesting GCSE case studies added for example. Of course, we could now have other groups of geographers stepping up to produce similar portals for other parts of the country. Guidance on how to contribute to the site is here.  This could be a way for those who want to share their work and ideas to have them publicised so that others can easily access them.

Mapping Place, Troubling Space

Image
A multi-media essay from J R Carpenter  - worth a read. Some interesting ideas.

Landscapes of Detectorists

Image
Now available to pre-order on Uniform Books website. ‘Landscapes of Detectorists’ considers the programme’s engagement with landscape, its ecological resonances, and its attention to place and identity. This book offers four distinct geographical readings of Detectorists—Innes M. Keighren attends to the sensory, technological, and emotional interpretation of landscape; Isla Forsyth examines the relationship between objects, memory, and place; the significance of verticality, the aerial, and groundedness is discussed by Andrew Harris; and Joanne Norcup considers the contested interconnections of gender, expertise, and knowledge making. The collection is bookended by reflections on the creative processes and decisions that supported the journey of Detectorists from script to screen: in a foreword written by its writer-director, Mackenzie Crook, and in an afterword written by its originating producer, Adam Tandy. Illustrated throughout with black and white stills from the progra