"Look at it this way"

“Nothing gives the British more pleasure than discussing how to get from here to somewhere else". New Bill Bryson has been getting a few good reviews. I enjoyed reading it too. It's got some good insights into Britain, and its landscape and culture. This Guardian article , which I read earlier in the print version is good too. I'm with Bryson on the topic of dogs as well...

Via Twitter, I love this set of snapshots from Google Maps (?) Depressing place names snipped out of the map and taken out of context. Also reminds me of a tweet from last night of this location. How about a set of happy places, or toponyms, or people's names, or .....

Thanks to Sharon Witt for the tipoff to this book, which I have now ordered. It's about the Norfolk Broads, and offers a range of interesting short pieces on the nature of the landscape in that area. Written by David Matless. Scope for using the approach to explore other regions with students... The introduction discusses an injunction by Georges Perec to ‘see more flatly’ (wryly apt considering the landscape being seen), and the pieces do try to look beyond official accounts of place to draw on tiny concrete details, lived experience, historical perspective, technical boating matters, economics, and so on and so forth. Of course, unless you note  everything , the very act of selecting details unflattens them, making (to mix my spatial metaphors horribly) salient features out of what had been background trifles. Similarly, the alphabetical ordering of the pieces is a way of insisting on the ‘non-hierarchical’ approach; I think Matless wouldn’t object if you read them i...