Cultural Geography Blog

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 Buoy

"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

David Rogers is going to spend the 15th of July on a special fund raising effort. Here's the inspiration for his charity effort. How many times can I get up and down Pen y Fan in 24 hours? David said: "Pen y Fan and Bannau Brycheiniog as well as the Preseli Hills are where I learnt how to navigate and explore the mountains. I became comfortable being uncomfortable in all sorts of weather. I am therefore really excited to return to the area for my next challenge. On the 15th July I will be seeing how many times I can summit Pen y Fan in 24 hours. I’ll be at Love Trails for the weekend, so it made sense to tie the two together. 6.1km 440m Per lap. This is a solo adventure to raise money and awareness for bigmoose and training for the 250km ultra of Why We Run in September this year. How can you help: donate - let’s help save more lives Talk - check in with your friends and family. Don’t judge. Don't give advice. join in - Heckle me via social media or come along for a lap o

 In this National Fieldwork Festival month, it's good to have a new alternative for you in the shape of Salaam Geographia's Urban Fieldwork experience. Link below: https://salaamgeographia.com/2024/06/17/sg-launching-gcse-a-level-urban-fieldwork-experience/ From the link you can access the Google Form to register your interest. Learning walks will take place for students from September 2024 to July 2025. Launching a new fieldwork experience: ‘Unveiling Southall’s Diverse Urban Tapestry‘Secondary schools (GCSE and A Level) welcome to witness community and expand on place and space knowledge. ​ Discover diversity in dynamic places within West London such as Southall, West Ealing and Ealing Broadway.​ Register interest here: https://forms.gle/Ytz2aVczaK1d7FRa9 ​ Dates available in July 2024.

A good piece in a recent Observer on the power of fish and chips.  It's written by Daniel Gray, and I have his new book 'Food of the Cods' Heart of the batter: my lifelong love affair with fish and chips https://t.co/eRTpnvexrD — The Guardian (@guardian) June 2, 2024   Fish and chips are an integral feature of daily life, and British culture. A chippy tea on Friday was an integral part of my life growing up - we were lucky to have an excellent chippy called the XL Fisheries close to where we lived.   Well worth a read...

Last week, I headed down to South London to present once again for the Prince's Teaching Institute. It's always a pleasure to do this. I've spoken in a number of locations including Harrogate and Cambridge previously. It was a really good morning and I enjoyed my time down in Bromley at the Primary Hub meeting for a group of schools - which had also attracted some secondary school teachers. My talk was on mapping for Primary geographers. Here's my slide deck. There was a lot of supporting material, but I hope I got across my message that there is more to mapping than OS sheets and four figure grid references. As Jack Dangermond said in this piece here , "maps are the language of geography".

Macondo is the fictional village which is the location for the main action in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's classic 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Now the village of Aracataca , which is the basis for the village is poised for an influx of new tourists as a result of a new Netflix adaptation which is going to be appearing soon.  It will have 16 episodes. This Guardian article explores the impact on Marquez's hometown in Colombia. Some locals feel betrayed that the series was not filmed there. Instead, it was shot in the industrial city of Ibagué, 430 miles to the south. “We’re disappointed that Netflix decided not to film here, but we all know that anyone inspired by the series will have to come to Aracataca, as the heart of Macondo lies here,” said Robinson Mulford, a local high-school teacher.

  This has been getting a lot of coverage... a cultural "sense of place" offering for cultural geographers... Leon Mallett's version of another song, but with plenty of East Anglia references. You can find the full version of the song online.

  The ERAS tour is heading for the UK soon, and there's plenty of geography to be had in exploring the economic and environmental impact of the tour and associated music as well as the interesting cultural implications of the event: the demographics of a typical crowd etc.  The tour is said to have a major impact on an entire country's economy when it comes into town. The first date is next week in Scotland, and it continues through June in Wales and Liverpool for several days, then returns to Wembley Stadium in August. Liverpool is rebranding itself as Taylor Town. The University of Liverpool will host Tay Day, which it describes as a "symposium for fans, students and academics to engage with the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift". It will take place on 12 June and see academics from across Europe speaking on topics such as Swift's place in feminism. It is sold out. I've been putting together some ideas for a while now, and half term is as good a tim

As you'll have perhaps seen from a post at the end of April, I'm going to be working as the Vice President: Education of the RGS  from June.  As with any major project that I get involved with, or new role, I've started a new blog. This will track my work over the coming years, and also publicise relevant RGS-IBG activity.  When I started out on my GA Presidential journey,  I started a blog which now has over 850 posts on it, and includes a biography of every GA President to date as well as much more on the history of the Association and its activities. No. 1 Kensington Gore is known as "the Home of Geography".  I've taken that as the name for my new blog, as I'll be visiting more regularly than I have for a few years. Lowther Lodge has been the home of the Royal Geographical Society for over 100 years.  You can visit the new blog here.  Please check back regularly over the months to come...

This is a classic book  and in the top ten books I have read if I was pushed. This is the edition I have in paperback. It was written in 1967 by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I first read this book 40 years ago, the year after the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read most of his other books as well. Some people prefer a later work 'Love in the time of Cholera' but there is a great deal of geographical interest in this book as well as the author's characteristic "magic realism". There are some remarkable descriptive passages and memorable characters: notably the mysterious Melquiades. There are some particularly geographical scenes and stories peppered throughout the book, including an introduction to ice in the opening chapter which introduces the idea of 'magic realism'. I love the description of the rocks in the river bed of Macondo: like dinosaurs eggs. There is the invasion of the banana company who force their way into the jungle and fence off

  It's important to check out any art in your local area, particularly when it's site-specific art. I'm fortunate to be able to visit Ely Cathedral regularly. At the moment, there is an exhibition of sculptures from Sean Henry.   I'm going to enjoy encountering these artworks numerous times over the coming months of the summer term. It's called 'Am I my brother's keeper?'. They are all figures of different scales made from a range of materials. Sean Henry says “I am very excited to be exhibiting my sculptures in and around the ancient space of Ely Cathedral and grateful for the opportunity. My sculptures, while often inspired by aspects of real people, are rarely portraits and not motivated by status as in much traditional figurative art. I am interested in what it is to be human and inspired by the felt sense of shared humanity. The excitement of exhibiting in Ely Cathedral is a sense of multi-generational history, of the lives both great and forgotten

  May the Fourth, and the Ordnance Survey has created a map of locations where Star Wars scenes were filmed...

  I've been connected with the RGS-IBG for quite a number of years in various ways. In 2007 I became a Fellow of the RGS and Chartered Geographer (Teacher) and have been ever since. In 2008, I was awarded their Ordnance Survey Award for excellence in Secondary Geography Teaching. This was a proud moment and came at the culmination (I thought) of my teaching career as I was joining the Geographical Association and stepping out of the classroom. I didn't realise I'd be back again within five years. I had also spoken at the RGS as part of a student day - with Alastair Owens actually - although I only found that out much later when digging through some old papers. It's a wonderful thing to stand on the stage in the Ondaatje Theatre where so many greats have stood before. We also took students there for a range of events, and I took part in an event representing the Guardian / DfE once as well. I ended up having lunch with Nicholas Crane and have bumped into all sorts of ex

In 1982, I saw the Pat Metheny Group play live for the first time, on the 'First Circle' tour. In November this year I will see Pat for around the 12th time, playing solo in Barbican Hall for the London Jazz Festival.  Here's a few earlier tours of note: 'The Way Up' (2005) Song for Bilbao (2002)

A new version of the classic board game 'Catan' is coming out soon. Various websites give different dates. It can be pre-ordered from a number of places. I'm definitely interested in this... It’s the 21st Century and Catan is at a crossroads. Long gone is the agrarian society of the island’s Viking ancestors. Today’s Catanians need energy to keep society moving and growing, but pollution is wreaking havoc on the island. You must decide: Invest in clean energy resources or opt for cheaper fossil fuels, potentially causing disastrous effects for the island? CATAN – New Energies is a brand new standalone game that is rooted in classic CATAN mechanics of harvesting, trading, and building. New gameplay elements including power plants, energy tokens, and environmental events add new strategies and stories to a familiar foundation. Beautiful art by Ian O'Toole brings players from the age of the Vikings into the present day with a striking new rendering of the island of Catan.

  A reminder of the Zoom backgrounds that the BBC has shared which include sets from sitcoms and other locations, to add a cultural sense of place to your Zoom calls... Anyone recognise this hotel bar?

A new website which will explore the geography of 'the North'. There's a Twitter account to follow as well.

  Watched this tonight on MUBI. It's a lovely meditative film following the life of a toilet cleaner who likes routines, and noticing... and trees... His routine keeps getting interrupted by various events. There's plenty of little vignettes of the city... and a sense of lots of lives intersecting briefly... and other relationships built by repetition. Very much a quotidian story and a personal psychogeography of Tokyo based around toilets, an underground noodle bar, and the laundrette... and a weekly exchange of film and photographs. This review nails it: “Next time is next time, now is now.” Throughout Perfect Days entire two hour runtime, we stay together with our protagonist Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, as he lives his life of quiet, lovely solitude, one moment at a time. There are no flashbacks, no exposition dumps, no cutaways to another time or place. We never leave Hirayama’s side, and Hirayama himself never strays from being truly present in every single moment

I was entering reports onto the school system recently while listening to Spotify. I came across a song by a band called Andromeda which came into my feed. The song is called 'Survival of the Richest'. I checked out the lyrics. It talks about Boxing Day and a slate being wiped clean... and I realised it was referencing the Boxing Day tsunami. Refugee camps were set up for the local people whose houses had been destroyed by the water. Tourists were able to return home. Check it out...

 Bradford is to be the City of Culture for 2025. Plenty more to come as more plans emerge... This is Bradford 2025, this is the UK City of Culture, this is us 💥 Announcing our brand new look, new website, first events and our Ambassador, the one and only @ZaynMalik 🔥 Check us out: https://t.co/c25ujASWkU pic.twitter.com/EQjldKeScY — Bradford 2025 (@bradford2025) March 19, 2024

  That is the theme of the 2024 Young Geographer of the Year competition , which is always revealed about the time of the GA Conference, with postcards and other information on the RGS stand. There has never been a better or more important time to study geography. Geography helps you to make sense of the world around you. It's hands on, relevant, and fun. Whatever your passion for the world – fascination with landscapes or concerns about sustainability – geography will provide you with knowledge and transferable skills that will reward you personally and advance you professionally. The Society invites you to create your own #ChooseGeography poster to promote the value of choosing geography at school, in further study and in the workplace, linking geographical skills to real people and jobs that make a difference. We are looking for eye catching, creative and informative posters that promote geography as an excellent choice, highlighting its relevance and demonstrating how studying

Thanks for your continued interest in the blog.

This weekend, I managed to make it to London despite the best efforts of the train companies, and headed down through the city to the BFI IMAX to see Dune Part Two. This is the largest screen in the UK, and also the only place to see a 15: 70mm film projection in true aspect ratio. I've been waiting for this book for almost fifty years. Denis Villeneuve has done a wonderful job, although there are quite a few changes, which purists don't like of course. The venue was epic as always, and the image was even 'bigger' than when we saw 'Oppenheimer' - you frequently had to look down at the image as well as up. The screening was sold out. There was a nice introduction from a staff member, and the film was excellent. More on my Geography on Film blog.

This video forms part of a resource which I have been putting together over the last few months following the amazing scale and financial clout of Taylor Swift's ERAS tour, which is on course to raise over $1.5 billion - more than any other music tour in history, and that's without all the associated money that is spent on accommodation, travel etc. connected with the concerts - people even travel without a ticket just to stand outside the stadium while the concerts are on. Another useful video on this web page which has the title: 'Why is the world obsessed with Taylor Swift"'  It mentions a Swiftposium meeting. There are also links with the demographic influence she has. The effect is already affecting Australia, as can be seen in this article here, which suggested a few other industries to benefit, including tattoo artists. She's also heading to Europe as well. At the AAG , which this year takes place in Honolulu (happy to accept some support for me to get

The geography of video games is an area which has received attention from geography researchers over the years. Last year some 3.2bn people played video games, about four in ten people worldwide. The number has risen by about 100m a year, with a big jump during covid lockdowns in 2020. In rich countries two-thirds of people play, nearly half of them women. And though gaming is disproportionately a young person’s hobby (nine out of ten British 16- to 24-year-olds play games) older folk are picking up the habit, including half those aged 55-64. Worldwide, there are more console owners aged 35-44 than aged 16-24, says Karol Severin.  As he puts it, gamers are no longer just “young guys covered in crisps”. Source: The Economist. Phil Jones has written about the sense of place that can be evoked by a game, and I attended an excellent session that he presented. There are also some additional elements to add accuracy, including the representations of weather according to this article. It fe

  A new stamp issue with a geographical theme is always something that I can get behind. In recent years, I've bought stamps linked with the Windrush Generation, UK Wildlife, National Parks and Polar explorers. The latest is celebrating 170 years of the Met Office and weather forecasting. They feature a number of important people and events, including Luke Howard , who invented the classification for different cloud types. Second Class Luke Howard, pioneer meteorologist, classified clouds in 1803 Second Class Storm barometer of Robert FitzRoy, founder of the Met Office in 1854 First Class Terra Nova Expedition studied extreme weather in 1910-12 First Class Marine buoys collect data for the Shipping Forecast, first broadcast in 1924 £2.00 Weather observers were vital to the success of the D-Day invasion in 1944 £2.00 Radar and computers improved forecasting accuracy from the 1950s £2.20 Barbara Edwards became the first British female TV weather presenter in 1974 £2.20 Supercomputers

A cross posting from my GeoLibrary blog - over 500 books and other resources for geography teachers have been placed on the shelves of the library so far. A cli-fi novel, which has been turned into a film, which is now out in cinemas. The original book was published in 2017. I read it yesterday in one sitting. It features a mother who gives birth at the same time as a disastrous flood inundates London (and presumably other areas in the south of England) leading to a breakdown in society, and martial law style interventions with refugee camps in Scotland and riots and fights breaking out over food. She is separated from her partner and family and fights to protect 'Z' - her child. All characters are identified only by a letter, and the text is broken up into short snippets and sections of just three or four lines in one go at most. It mostly works, and certainly creates a pace to the read. As things slowly start to improve, she aims to return 'home' to see what is left.

  Making Space for Sand is a project I was made aware of recently. The ‘Building Community Resilience on a Dynamic Coastline by Making Space for Sand’ project (also known as Making Space for Sand or MS4S) is one of 25 national projects funded by DEFRA as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme (FCRIP).  The programme will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate. The project website has an excellent section outlining the formation of Sand Dunes, particularly within the located context of Cornwall. Sand Dunes are an important part of the coastal defences in the locations where they are found. I am particularly familiar with the dunes on the North Norfolk Coast at places like Holkham.  I've previously carried out fieldwork on those dunes with both GCSE and 'A' level students, and also  Atkins has provided GIS support and created some visualisations of future landscapes.

I was there at the London concert featured at the end of this piece... and I still have the t-shirt...

  A cross posting from my Geography on Film blog. The new film by Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos is called 'Poor Things' and it's a remarkable piece of work. Warning: may contain spoilers. It is based on a book by Alasdair Gray - the original book was generally thought to be unfilmable, and like a lot of his work is structured in an unconventional way and heavily illustrated. Check out 'Lanark' as another example of his style. The book is a mix of a cyber-punk world, where a Frankenstein-style experiment plays out and is unleased on the world in the shape of Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone. There is a lot of sex I should warn you - don't watch it with your mum and dad. Bella visits Lisbon, Alexandria and Paris - as well as London. In fact the versions of these cities she visits are realised in great detail, as is the ship she travels on, and is a different version of these places, much like the variation on Oxford in 'His Dark Materials'. Here's t