Cultural Geography Blog

Ordinary Abundance

2026-09-29T10:02:50.974+01:00

Ordinary Abundance is a really intriguing site.

Useful for my Y8 topic on 'stuff' and the things that we fill our houses with.

A modern apartment / flat contains items which would once have been attracted awe and wonder because of their very nature.

The book references one by Edward Bellamy. It can be read on the Project Gutenberg link here.

When Julian West falls into a hypnotic sleep in 1887 Boston, he awakens 113 years later to find America transformed into a socialist utopia. Through conversations with his guide, Doctor Leete, West discovers a radically reimagined society where industry is nationalized, goods are equally distributed, and citizens retire at 45.

Geography Curriculum thinking - I have the perfect book for you...

2026-09-12T20:13:22.450+01:00

The cover for the new book coming out early in 2027 which I have co-written with Alex Standish and the 2023 cohort of Fawcett Fellows, and co-edited with Alex is here.

Out in early 2027.

It is available to pre-order here.

It will be published by Bloomsbury - the first time I've published with them.

This book invites geography subject leaders to reveal the intricacies of how they construct, implement and evaluate their secondary curricula. Through these reflections, they outline their vision of the geography students they want to nurture, core concepts, how units of study are sequenced for progression, how skills and fieldwork are integrated, opportunities to explore geographical issues and values, and links to academic geography.

Each chapter explains how these teachers decide which places, case studies and issues to study, how they attempt to avoid stereotypes and single story narratives, and how they develop pupils’ ability to examine issues from different perspectives. They also discuss what is meant by a knowledge-turn in curriculum, why this was called for, how social realist epistemology can help schools as they re-contextualise knowledge and principles of curriculum design.

This book grows out of the UCL Fawcett Fellowship scheme for geography teachers. In 2022-23, a group of seven experienced geography teachers worked together to research curriculum theory and geography education. While each teacher was in a different situation with respect to curriculum development in their school, they learnt collaboratively and developed ways to improve curriculum structure, depth, coherence and progression in their department.

Table of Contents
Introduction, Alex Standish (University College London, UK)
1. Knowledge and Curriculum Design in Geography, Alex Standish (University College London, UK)
2. Considering the Importance of Contemporary Events in Post-COVID Geography Curriculum Making and the Implications for Curriculum Coherence, Alan Parkinson (Kings Ely School, UK)
3. Our Vision is our Mission: Curriculum design for geographers of the future, Fiona Sheriff (Kingsthorpe College, Northampton, UK)
4. Geography Curriculum Planning at Bedford Free School, Charlotte Fulham (Head of Department, Bedford Free School, UK)
5. Reforming our Curriculum Journey, Julia Fleet (Woodford School, UK)
6. Creating a 'Journey-like' Curriculum to Progressively Develop Geographical Thinking, Giordano Battistel (Warlingham School, UK)
7. Developing Enquiry in the Geography Curriculum, Kathryn McGrath, Sandbach School, UK)
8. Our Curriculum Story, Joanne Clarke (Queen Anne's School, Caversham, UK)
Conclusion, Alex Standish (University College London, UK) and Alan Parkinson (Kings Ely School, UK)

It will be the 44th book that I've written / co-written / edited / co-edited.

Hopefully helpful for thinking around the implications of the curriculum review.

On Rotation

2026-09-12T17:41:16.134+01:00

Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tipoff to this new music data visualisation website.

The website has a globe showing the songs currently charting in 166 countries and 174 cities.

Each place on the globe highlights a record that the rest of the world isn't playing.

Click on a country or city and the record starts playing, turning the map into a kind of interactive global jukebox.

You can also switch between different chart sources, including Spotify, Apple Music and Shazam, to see how the picture changes.

I clicked on Iceland first of course, and it shows how Icelanders like listening to music made by Icelandic musicians.

Needs a little more exploration....

One Soundtrack to rule them all...

2026-09-09T16:25:50.762+01:00

A cross posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.

Classic FM viewers have been voting for their favourite film scores.

The results are here - you can count down from 100 to the winner.

The top five are as follows:

Here's an extract from the winning score.

And the first part of a series on the making of the music... seek out the others.

North Norfolk Landscape and Literature Festival

2026-09-07T15:55:09.397+01:00

This has all the makings of a superb weekend. I'm going to attend a few of the events all being well.

It's been running for a few years now.

The Festival features a whole range of events broadly on the theme of landscape, connected to North Norfolk. This includes art, literature, and field events.

They mostly take place in and around the Norfolk town of Wells next the Sea, including some boat trips on the marshes and a few events outside of the town.

Here's some of the events on Saturday

There is an exhibition of paintings including some from one of my favourite contemporary artists: Fred Ingrams, who frequently paints in the Fens. I have the catalogue of one of his exhibitions of Fenland paintings which has a great introduction and description of the landscape from Jonathan Meades.

“There’s a real experience behind each of my paintings. They say I have stood in this landscape, been bitten alive by midges, drenched by massive storm clouds. You can’t fake it.”

Fred’s work connects him with the deep history of the landscapes he paints – the strange stories and myths of places that exist on the outside of a world beyond the horizon.

Spending time in these fragile ecosystems he also sees how threatened they are – by natural processes or well-meant schemes, from crumbling coastlines to drainage to conifer plantations to massive wind farms encroaching into a pristine wilderness.

There are some excellent additional trips running:

several boat trips through the marshes
a tour of Holkham Estate including some of the management of the different landscapes that it has
exhibitions and poetry

What I've Heard

2026-09-02T17:01:48.905+01:00

A cross posting from my World of Music blog - check it out....

I've just heard about this site.

It's an interesting visual variation on Setlist.FM - using its data / API. There's a few issues as the first act I tried: Mike Oldfield had some concerts without set lists on the site so the data is incomplete..

Pick a band, tick off the nights you were actually in the room, and get the record back: every song you’ve heard them play live, how many times you’ve heard each one, the tours you were part of, and a print-resolution poster of it all.

It’s free, there’s nothing to install, and an account is optional - your nights are saved on your own device unless you ask them to follow you elsewhere.
How it works

Find the band.

Search any artist, or start from the names in the ticket fan.
Tick the nights you were at. Their whole documented touring history is there, newest first - dates, venues, cities and tours.

Already log your shows on setlist.fm? Paste your username on the home page and your “I was there” list arrives already ticked.
Read your record.

Every song you’ve heard live and how often, your tours, your cities and countries, the rarities you happened to catch - and the nights that made them.
Print it.

An A4, print-resolution poster styled for the artist, plus ticket stubs and a map of where you’ve been. Keep them in your collection and re-print any time.

It allows you to generate various graphics such as the ones below:

And here's one for Rush... again, it's not quite correct...

Burning Man and the playa

2026-08-30T14:32:00.000+01:00

A cross posting from my World of Music blog. Please check it out and fill in the Google Forms or consider a guest post.

Burning Man is a festival which takes place each year in the desert

This year's event starts today.

Since 1990, the event has been held at Black Rock City in northwestern Nevada, a temporary city erected in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles (160 km) north-northeast of Reno.

This year's event takes place at the end of August.

Those who take part in the event are called 'Burners'.

It has made the news a few times because of weather or other issues which have caused issues for festival goers and the landscape within which the festival takes place.

A heavy rainstorm in 2023 turned the desert surface, called playa, into a quagmire and trapped tens of thousands of people. This is a fragile environment and the potential for damage is controversial.

Unlike most festivals, the organisers have had to provide a 20 page Survival Guide which provides guidance on preparations and staying safe in what is an extreme - dry, hot and dusty environment.

Downloadable as a PDF.

Accompanying text:

Black Rock City has a way of bringing about once-in-a-lifetime experiences. While the big, flashy moments make the headlines and become the clickbait, many of the most memorable encounters come from small, personal, and whimsical interactions.
This year, I challenge you to do something personal that fosters interaction and connection. Think of traveling the backstreets, sharing your gifts with new friends, or sparking a moment of serendipity beneath a small art piece. These moments of self-expression and open-hearted connection are truly the ones that resonate, creating ripples in the dust and in our lives.
Joining a crew or communal effort is a great way to get involved. There are so many possibilities; find one that matches your interests and energy levels. However you choose to participate — organizing a camp, building art or a vehicle, helping with civic infrastructure or making the city run — know you are contributing to something bigger than yourself.
I am sure your time here will open new horizons and you’ll meet some amazing people. Ask anyone on a Burning Man crew or volunteer team what they love most about it, and they will tell you it’s about the work, and the friendships.

Imagine who you could meet — someone who could change your life, not just in Black Rock City, but forever.
Whether this is your first, or twenty-first Burn, I can’t wait to share this experience with you.
Charlie Dolman, Director of Event Operations

It contains some really interesting contents.

Would be useful to develop this as a tourism / extreme environments case study.

Via LinkedIn and a piece by Amanda Shendruk: a visual journalist.

Each year, 70,000 people gather on a dry lakebed in Nevada to build a city from scratch. This is Black Rock City, home to the infamous Burning Man event. Eight days later, it's gone.

But 150 people remain. They line up — side by side, an arms width apart — and slowly walk the 3,800 acres (15.4 km²) of dusty playa. They're looking for MOOP: Matter Out of Place. A screw, a sequin, a cigarette butt.

This forensic-style sweep takes weeks; everything they find is removed and logged. At the end, they're left with a remarkable accounting of what 70,000 people left behind: The MOOP Map. And I'm obsessed.

Intangible Cultural Heritage

2026-08-30T11:25:38.101+01:00

I've posted before about UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. There are hundreds of examples of this around the world, which include music, dancing, food etc.

I came across this work via LinkedIn.

Claire Farrell said:

Earlier this year, the UK National Commission for UNESCO and Nottingham Trent University (NTU) launched four pilot projects exploring how intangible cultural heritage gives UNESCO-designated places meaning.

I was invited to write about some of the work taking place to bring living heritage to life through community-led placemaking and creative practice across four historic communities within the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site.

Who is the Sky? - Coming to cinemas

2026-08-28T14:31:50.012+01:00

A cross-posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.

I was very pleased to hear last night that David Byrne's current tour has been filmed. It continues the tradition when Jonathan Demme made 'Stop Making Sense' and Spike Lee filmed his 'American Utopia' tour.

This concert, that I saw in March at the Hammersmith Apollo was the best of the year (so far) and a tremendous visual spectacle.

The film is being made by Brady Corbet: director of 'The Brutalist' and has been shot in 70mm film... this is going to be awesome.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Canterbury Cathedral's Bell Ceremony

2026-08-21T19:45:26.757+01:00

Canterbury Cathedral is the oldest cathedral in the UK. I visited last week as part of a trip to the city which included visiting some of the locations of 'A Canterbury Tale' and heading for Dungeness.

I visited last week and happened to be there at the time when the Bell Ceremony was to take place in one of the transepts. The service has taken place every year for 100 years.

It's a short daily act of remembrance.

It was a privilege to be there and to be a small part of it.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Field Notes

2026-08-21T19:34:18.742+01:00

I'm a big fan of Field Notes notebooks.

I have some good limited edition versions including US National Parks and NASA Apollo missions. I also have an Underland set which was sent to me as a gift by Robert MacFarlane.

The latest ones to feature Robert MacFarlane are the following and are linked to her book 'Is a river alive?'

The Smallfilms Gallery at the Beaney

2026-08-21T19:21:22.065+01:00

One of the places I visited last week was the Beaney Museum in Canterbury.

This is not only free to enter, but holds the Smallfilms Gallery, which has a huge range of resources connected to the work of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, who had decades of huge creativity where they created the TV series and huge amounts of related books, merchandise and other activity based around a number of 'worlds' they created. In early 1999, Bagpuss topped a BBC poll for the UK's favourite children's television programme.

They include some of the most well loved of all TV characters, and their animation was wonderful. For people my age, we grew up with the Clangers, Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Pogles Wood, Pingwings (I was too young for those) and - my personal favourite - Noggin the Nog.

Outside of that they were also involved in material for Basil Brush and a range of other animations and series, including design work.

The interest in Smallfilms work continues to the present day. A recently discovered archive of Peter Firmin's artwork recently went up for auction.

It's wonderful to browse through this catalogue of artwork.

Here's a wonderful map of a village in an Ivor the Engine book as part of one lot, which sold for ten times its estimate - many other auction lots did the same.

Image: Peter Firmin (1979)

To finish, here's 'Noggin and the Ice Dragon' - a classic... forget your minions and computer generated flatness... this is pure craft and hand made...

Shaun or Timmy?

2026-08-19T14:09:29.281+01:00

I've had a busy summer of Aardman related things.

I've been to Bristol where there was a special exhibition at the MShed, marking 50 years of Aardman.

I also saw another exhibition at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, and the one at the Young V&A in Bethnal Green.

There's now a chance to vote for either Shaun or Timmy to be added to the new list of storm names for 2026-27 which will be announced in September. They have teamed up with the MetOffice. Go to one of their social channels to vote.

Voting closes at 11:00 am on Friday 21 August 2026
Members of the public can vote for either Shaun or Timmy
The vote relates specifically to which Aardman character will be added to this year’s storm names list
The result of the public vote will be announced on Friday 21 August and included in the 2026/27 storm names list

Predictably some people are saying this is inappropriate as these storms may cause damage and even lead to fatalities... others that we'll soon have sponsored storms... others say it's a bit of fun and raises awareness of why storms are named.

The Met Office say:

Storm naming is an important public safety tool, helping people notice, remember and discuss severe weather when it has the potential to cause significant impacts. By working with Aardman, the Met Office hopes to reach new audiences and encourage conversations about severe weather preparedness in an engaging and accessible way.

The announcement also forms part of Aardman's 50th anniversary celebrations and comes ahead of the release of  Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, which arrives in UK cinemas on the 18th of September.

As a sustainability ambassador and one of Britain's most recognisable animated characters, Shaun has long been associated with themes of nature and the environment, making him a natural fit for a campaign focused on weather awareness and preparedness.

Met Office Head of Warnings and Guidance, Holly Clements, said: "Naming storms helps our weather warnings reach more people and encourages the public to take notice when severe weather is approaching. This collaboration with Aardman gives us a fantastic opportunity to engage new audiences and explain why storm naming matters, helping people understand the risks severe weather can bring and the actions they can take to stay safe."

Hopefully we won't reach 'S' in the alphabet next year....

Can you map music?

2026-08-08T12:01:56.780+01:00

That's the question asked by GIS consultant Madeleine Ratcliffe, who works for ESRI.

On a recent LinkedIn post she described the inspiration for an ESRI StoryMap she has created.

I first heard Smetana's Vltava (or The Moldau) while driving with my mum. We're both flautists, and she knows the piece well. As we listened she explained how it traces the course of the Vltava River through Czechia. It begins where two mountain streams meet, represented by two intertwining flutes. From there, the music carries you downstream past hunters in the forest, a village wedding, moonlit dancing by the water, the dramatic St. John's Rapids, and finally to Vyšehrad Castle in Prague.

She gave a running commentary as we listened, and it completely changed how I thought about music. I hadn't realised it could tell such a vivid geographical story.

When I joined Esri UK two years ago, I couldn't shake the idea of bringing this piece to life on a map.

Using an ArcGIS StoryMap, I've traced the journey of Vltava along the river itself. As you explore, you can listen to each section of the music, discover the historical and cultural context behind it, and see how the landscape, geography and composition are all woven together.

Thanks to Brendan Conway for the tipoff to Madeleine's work.

One million page views!

2026-08-07T20:29:37.572+01:00

The blog has now passed one million page views.

Thanks to all those who have visited the blog since I started creating it back in August 2007 - making it one of my older blogs.

I hope it has proved helpful to colleagues exploring topics broadly within the remit of "cultural geography".

UK's UNESCO sites - a new map available

2026-07-28T13:35:03.672+01:00

A new updated map from the UK National Commission for UNESCO.

It can be downloaded as a PDF.

It shows the 65 locations in the UK which have some sort of UNESCO designation.

These include cities of literature, national landscapes and World Heritage Sites, such as the Jurassic Coast and Stonehenge.

How many of these are you visiting this summer?

Saving the postcard

2026-07-18T16:26:37.393+01:00

An interesting piece on the disappearance of the traditional seaside postcard and a campaign to save it.

This has been set up by English Heritage.

I think the price of stamps is the real issue here perhaps... postcards are cheap enough...

A whisky with a story

2026-07-18T16:20:18.432+01:00

I was interested in the story of this whisky from the Nc'Nean distillery.

They make organic single malt whisky.

This would make a good sustainability story for a qualification but probably not for school age because of the connection with alcohol.... OK for undergraduate age courses perhaps.

The company has B Corp and Sustainability qualifiications.

The Coastal Exploration Company recently transported 200 limited edition bottles of Nc’Nean from their west coast distillery in Scotland to Norfolk, under sail and electric vehicle, exploring a lower-impact way to travel.

The whisky made its way aboard Victorious, a traditional sailing smack, following the coastline to reach us in Norfolk. A slower, lower-impact journey, but one that reflects so much of what matters - doing things thoughtfully and sustainably.

The voyage is captured on the bottle through artwork by Norfolk artist Sally Temple, inspired by Victorious returning to harbour after the journey.

The whisky tastes nice too...

'The Welcome Table'

2026-07-12T18:08:34.114+01:00

A cross posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.

I've got a subscription to HBO Max / TNT Sports for the month so that I can watch as much as possible of the Tour de France.

As I had this I noticed that there was access to this film, which I'd blogged about separately so watched it this morning.

This is a documentary film by Josh Fox.
The film starts with a song: ‘The Welcome Table’
This is a song which was originally written as a gospel song, sung by enslaved people who wanted to be made to feel welcome.

Alice Walker also wrote a short story with the same name.

I was particularly taken by the opening few minutes of the film, which very successfully introduced the big themes of the film which were that in the coming decades, more people than ever will have to be on the move... but that we are also all migrants...

From the script:
People have always migrated.
Always looking for that elusive home on the horizon.
What tells us we’re home?
Where is home?
Home tells us who we are
Home tells us what we’re like. It tells us who we love.
What we eat
What we say and in what language
Home is how the sun should feel on your skin.
Nobody wants to leave the ground they’re rooted to.
The sounds, the smells, the smiles.
The familiarity
The comfort of all that we know.
Of all we were made by.
Sometimes we have no choice but to move.
Here’s the hard part.
We’ve all left home.
We’ve all migrated without knowing it.
We’ve all moved to a different planet.
A climate-changed planet.
A climate that’s very unlike any that human beings have ever lived on.
And we’re all moving there now; whether we like it or not.
And that means everything’s going to change and we may never go home again.
All that’s left of the steadiness in this world is about to evaporate.
Governments know it is coming… and they are building walls. Border security and incarceration.
This side is ours, that’s yours.
When all of us have to move, where will we go?

From sea to shining sea, there is no security.
Where will we be safe? There is no geographical answer…

A series of stories are featured in the film - and the tellers of those stories join the table.

The first story was the wildfire inferno at Paradise, California. This displaced over 20 000 people, many of them are now living in an RV.

This is followed by the US Virgin Islands, which were affected by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

We then visit San Sebastiao, Brazil – flooding affected the favelas here.

Humus is a first response organisation that goes from one disaster to the next.

Poorer people live in the riskier areas of such places.

The film visits the aftermath of a flood in a favela where people died, and these are becoming more common.

Earth’s atmosphere is 5% wetter than it would otherwise be as a result of climate change.

The film then moves to showing detention centres in the southern USA, where thousands of children have been separated from families.There are thousands of missing women in cities on the Mexican border.

The film then moves to the Calabrian Coast of Italy and the Mediterranean. It suggests that the EU is using the Mediterranean like a wall… thousands have drowned in the sea - the real number is unknown.

It mentions a musician called Chris Obehi, and shares some images from his "Non Siamo Pesci" video.

“We are not fish, we are humans…”

The director fo the film explains his own family story. His family had an Italian background, but his family left there… he is also a migrant. His grandma was born in Calabria – but there was no work so the family left for New York. Southern Italy’s chief export in 1900s was migrants.

Even back then there were cartoons depicting them as rats – with knives in their mouths.

It then moves on to the Mayor of a town called Riace.
He has decided to invite migrants into the empty houses hat many villages have in this area.

Villagio Globale.

The mayor is called Domenico Lucano. The authorities didn't welcome his efforts.

The film outlines the importance of the Paris Agreement.

The headline was "1.5 to stay alive."

The IPCC made it clear that every fraction of a degree is dangerous, as it leads to tipping points.

That fraction of a degree means:

Where the roof flies off instead of staying put
A child getting a disease
A species going extinct
A family that abandons their home
A war
A genocide
A fire starting
A life saved
A town still standing
A roof keeping out the rain.

127 different types of catastrophe were mentioned in the IPCC report. These included:

Coral bleaching
Wildfires
Flooding
Food security
Excess deaths from heat
Social inequality
Economic stress
Droughts
Criminality
Weaponisation of water
Gender based violence

The story then moves on to Africa and the work of an organisation called Impact Kenya.

The organisation works with the Turkana of East Africa – the original human beings and pastoralists.

Migration out of their home is taking place following a six year drought.
Pastoralists have left. Arot is now dependent on one water well
This is leading to food insecurity – the people who have done the least to cause the problem are suffering the most from its impacts.

The film then moves to the Amazon – and the collaborative space of the Achuar
Amazon Watch work in this area.

The community is threatened by oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon
PetroPeru wants to drill in the territory.

They claim to operate sustainably - the film suggests otherwise.

The final person invited to the welcome table is from Australia, home to "the World’s oldest culture".
Indigenous Aboriginal Australians are “the carers of country”.

The Bundjalung people are from what is now called 'New South Wales'.
One of their number, called Bobby Bumberbin – watched the first European ships arrive.
Between 1-2 million people were killed and others enslaved by the colonisers.
The original population was moved in the 1840s onto "missions" and the Enlgish took the resources.
Only 1% of rainforests are left – they cut it down to make it look like the English countryside.
Flooding is the consequence.

In Lismore, the Government built pod houses and pod villages.
These are known by residents as “The Facility”

Land was seized – including Cabbage Tree Island – home of indigenous people – this survived the flood because houses were built on stilts. They were forced to leave and their houses were deliberately trashed with appliances etc. removed.

The government forced people to pods just 5km to the north.

This reminded the director of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in August 2005
Levee failure after Katrina led to poorer areas flooding.
Climate gentrification is one result.

The film finishes in the Treme neighbourhood. – he speaks to someone who wrote the most famous song about the district. Carl Lee wrote about that in my World of Music blog.
John Boutté

And the final link is with the actions of ICE.
Everyone comes from somewhere else.
Fascism and dehumanisation of immigrants is happening under Trump.

The group of people talked for five days on the levee and came up with solutions.

If people are in need, you should help them.
Listening to stories and telling our own stories are vital – respecting each other.
A wall on its side can be table.

The film ends with a shot of a long table around which people sit and share their stories and returns to the original song.

Please find the time to watch this film yourself...

KCSIE and Climate Change - a new resource

2026-07-12T17:17:30.567+01:00

Kit Marie Rackley has been busy.

She has created a very impressive, thoughtful and helpful new set of materials for potential use in those staff gatherings at the start of each academic year when staff have their KCSIE updates from their DSL or DSO.

KCSIE is short for 'Keeping children safe in education' and outlines statutory actions and guidance provided by the DfE for all those working with young people. The most recent updates seem to have paid no attention to the fact that extreme temperatures have caused some schools to close, and distress to some students (and staff) in those that decided to stay open.

KCSIE 2026 talks extensively about mental health, contextual risk, children potentially at greater risk, absence, information sharing, online harms, professional curiosity and whole-school safeguarding. Yet it still fails to name climate change as a foreseeable, context-shaping condition already affecting children’s physical welfare, emotional wellbeing, attendance, safety, learning environments and family circumstances.

Kit has stepped in and produced an illustrated set of guidance materials for DSLs.

As I enter the 2nd week of my school holidays already, I remember that some schools still haven't finished for the summer and next week sees another run of temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s.

My last week of term featured some very hot and uncomfortable temperatures in my classroom.

The guidance that Kit has produced (all free to use under CC license) includes scenarios to consider.

A heatwave is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A flood is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A drought warning is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A pupil expressing climate worry is not automatically a safeguarding concern.

But any of these can become relevant to safeguarding when they affect a child’s welfare, visibility, attendance, behaviour, safety, access to learning, home circumstances or mental and physical health. That is the point KCSIE misses.

Climate risks are not always safeguarding concerns in themselves. They are safeguarding amplifiers. They can intensify existing vulnerabilities or make hidden ones more visible: housing insecurity, domestic stress, poverty, food and water insecurity, transport barriers, medical vulnerability, SEND-related needs, sensory distress, caring responsibilities, absence from education, poor mental health, social isolation, exposure to misinformation, and unequal access to safe outdoor space.

Kit outlines why context matters here: both home and school.

She then provides a series of scenarios with illustrations and questions. For example:

What questions and decisions need to be made here:

The practical staff model can remain very simple:

Notice the context.
Respond proportionately.
Record factually.
Refer if concerned.
Review patterns.

That is KCSIE applied with context, and not an extra burden.

These resources should find their way into many schools - particularly those which faced difficult choices in late May and through June.

Follow this link to download them.

World Cup Music #1

2026-07-07T11:37:37.363+01:00

A cross posting from my World of Music blog and LivingGeography blogs.

A few World Cup playlists on Spotify.

There is an official World Cup album here.

If you've been watching the coverage (or been in the stadiums in person), you will have heard some familiar songs played at most matches.

These are often from the official FIFA playlist.

This article explains the background to perhaps why certain songs like 'Freed from Desire' and 'Livin' on a Prayer' can often be heard.

The songs are not random. Hundreds — more than 750, in fact, according to soccer governing body FIFA — are chosen in advance. FIFA has a "Stadium Entertainment Team" that works with the participating national associations to create playlists ‌that mix stadium classics with country-specific favourites.

Each team has a "signature" song played when the line-up is announced, a warm-up song, and a track that is played if they score a goal. And one set of fans after each game gets to sing along to the post-match winning-team tune.

The playlists give an interesting cultural snapshot of the World Cup, in which 48 teams participated for the first time in 2026.

Some tracks — such as The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" and, yes, 1990s Eurodance hit "Freed from Desire" by Gala, which has been doing the rounds of sports stadiums for at least a decade — have global reach, appearing on more than one list.

Cities also have themes. Here's Mexico City's...

This one collects World Cup songs 2010-2026.

Here's the official World Cup Theme... bland...

The England fans have also adopted this song, which ends up being sung at the end of matches between the team and the fans...

I'll return to this theme in some later blog posts as we head for the Final, where I explore some of the choices of particular countries and go into more detail on the cultural significance of their choices....

Relooted

2026-07-04T11:32:15.468+01:00

I first read about this game in The Guardian a few months ago when it was featured in a few newspaper articles and reviews.

It looks at the issue of stolen artefacts in museums and galleries through a different lens.

We know that most British museums are full of items which were originally stolen from somewhere.

The game is now out on Steam and other platforms.

Near the end of the 21st century, the political powers that be brokered a Transatlantic Returns Treaty, promising the repatriation of African artefacts from museums. Good old fashioned diplomacy was working — until it wasn’t. An amendment switched up the terms and conditions of which objects were to be returned. Museums, now knowing that only publicly displayed artifacts would be given back, were slowly removing artefacts from public display.

When life gives you lemons and museums pulling shady moves, it’s time to chuck the lemons back at life and try a new, stealthier form of diplomacy. You’ve got 70 of these artefacts to (re)loot, all of which exist in real-life and are of huge cultural, historical, and spiritual significance to the people they were taken from.

Football and Futhark

2026-06-28T15:15:26.090+01:00

The Norwegians have been attracting a lot of attention with their 'Ro!' command and synchronised rowing action amongst the crowds - similar to the Icelandic clap.

Their kit is also reflecting their cultural heritage and identity, being inspired by the Elder Futhark runic system.

Nike and the Norway National Team have taken inspiration from the centuries-old alphabet, given it a modern spin, and as a result, have one of the most distinct-looking kits in North America this summer. Notably, the jersey numbers and names on the kits are printed in the typeface of the ancient script. The kit is a unique ode to the Scandinavian nation’s Viking past, married to Nike’s latest fabric technologies.

Cultural geography and place-making

2026-06-21T10:39:10.662+01:00

GTA6 will be open for pre-orders next week - ending a long wait for players.

As always, the game is played in an alternative version of a real place: modelled on Miami and other locations. Huge effort has gone into making the location as vividly accurate as possible, and a massive world for the player to explore and engage with. It is set in the state of Leonida.

This will also result in more money being spent than many movies and most other cultural creations.

This video explains a little more:

An early trailer introduced some of the varied biomes that players will encounter.

Here's the trailer:

The rush to pre-order starts next week...

Jerry's Map - now available as an interactive map

2026-06-19T19:49:36.472+01:00

I've blogged about the remarkable work of Jerry Gretzinger before - but not for 14 years.

Back in 2011, I became aware of Jerry's work to create a massive map based on imagination. Dan Raven Ellison sent me a link to a Vimeo film.

Over 60 years ago, in 1963, Jerry drew a map of his fictional city Wybourne on a piece of A4 paper.

When it was complete, he continued on more pieces of paper, sticking them all together to create a whole new world. When the map got really big, Jerry started to revise it, using aprocess involving a pack of cards to decidewhat amends should be made. In 1983 he put it in the attic and stopped making it, until it was discovered by his son.

In 2011, I was able to contact Jerry and he provided me with some answers to some questions which ended up in GA Magazine - that section is shown to the right here from the Spring 2012 issue. Inspired by the map, I purchased a piece of the map on eBay. Jerry was selling off pieces back then to fund the map's development.

They returned in 2014 and now you can buy some pieces of his generative art.

Earlier today, I saw that Keir Clarke on the wonderful Google Maps Mania blog had shared a new rendering of Jerry's map as an interactive map.

Jerry's Map consists of more than 4,000 individual 8-by-10-inch panels arranged in a giant circular formation. Together they form a sprawling imaginary world that sits somewhere between a city plan, an abstract artwork, and a living organism.

It's been made with Leaflet. Pan and zoom....

Watch the video of Jerry here.

Explore the map. You're in for a treat...