"Look at it this way"

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Been sent another book via the Cultural Geography blog... This time it's a book called "The Cotwolds: a cultural history" , written by Jane Bingham, and part of a new OUP series called "Landscapes of the Imagination" Will take a look when I get a moment, perhaps on the train to London tomorrow... Plenty on the relationship between the landscape and the people who encounter it in various ways...

A number of e-mails and other circumstances have led me to revisit a presentation that was delivered by Charles Rawding of Edge Hill University at the GTE conference at Madingley Hall in Cambridge earlier in the year. An excellent introduction to looking at the use of the countryside, at a time when the new government is looking at the way that farmers manage the landscape... Follow the link to see lots more GTE presentations...

Image copyright Stephen Walter Part of the British Library's " Magnificent Maps " exhibition, which I shall be visiting next week... The ISLAND by Stephen Walter This page now has an interactive zoomable map which allows you to see the neighbourhood detail which forms part of the whole map. These are stories and personal geographies... The Island satirises the London-centric view of the English capital and its commuter towns as independent from the rest of the country. The artist, a Londoner with a love of his native city, offers up a huge range of local and personal information in words and symbols. Walter speaks in the dialect of today, focusing on what he deems interesting or mundane. Could you and your students create other "islands" of your home town or city ??

Have been accompanied on my travels for the last week by Bill Bryson via a 10 CD audiobook version of his " Notes from a Small Island " borrowed from the library ( don't forget your local library ! ) I've been developing some activities based around his travels, and the impressions that he gives of some of the cities he visits, compared to the views of others, and also the changes that might have occurred since he visited them in 1995 (which is about the time that GCSE students would have been born, so handy for thinking about changes "in your lifetime"...) You can also find a range of video clips from the accompanying TV series on YouTube of course, such as this one... Plenty of cultural geography inspiration, as well as the chance to discuss the nature of the British landscape. Bill Bryson is currently the President of CPRE : the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

Apologies for going "off topic" for a moment... Although obviously the weather does have an impact on the landscape... The three programmes that I recently consulted on for Teachers TV were added to the website on Friday... There are 3 programmes in the series. Each was developed by Beth Newell and colleagues at Brook Lapping from original ideas which we discussed in an Italian cafe in Cambridge last year... Each programmes last for 15 minutes The first one: Today's Forecast, follows a line across the country from east to west and interviews a number of people whose jobs are dependent on the weather... The second: The Great Storm tells the story of the 1987 Great Storm, but from the perspective of the storm itself... The third: Degrees of Change is based on a specially commissioned poem by Mark Cowan and explores the possible impacts of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 degrees of warming in the future... I'd love any feedback if you watch them, and particularly if you use them i...

The National Trust has released an album of sounds recorded at National Trust properties. The sounds have been assembled and turned into an album by Jarvis Cocker, in association with the National Trust, and make for an engaging soundscape... Visit the site and download your own copy ... How about making a soundtrack album for your school grounds and premises ?