Twinkle, twinkle little star oh I wonder where you are…

Time for some inter-stellar Geography for those of you who thought Geographers only had our heads stuck in Earthly rocks and soil.

In October some areas of the UK saw the most spectacular display of Northern lights ever to grace the skies of the British Isles. But the reason I can’t see them right now outside my flat in Manchester doesn’t have anything to do with not being far enough North (we are as Northern as we like to think) it’s light pollution from the city I and hundreds upon thousands of others live in. We can easily forget the billions of stars that should be in our nightly lives, even if the sky is clear when you look up into the urban night there is nothing twinkling back, apart from the EJ989 to Malaga.

For millennia humanity and Geographers have been staring into the universe, trying to understand our existence through the stars, they’ve been used to determine whether we really are at the centre of the universe, deciphered to guide lost ships home and entrenched in ancient mythology. But now we’ve obscured this window into another way of thinking from our own view in major cities and towns, I can’t help but think we’re blocking something from our natural, instinctive Geographer, our understanding of the universe we live in and perspective on our own planet.

When you go out to the countryside it seems almost impossible not to let your mind wander into thoughts of how small we are, how we can’t possibly be the only planet to sustain life and what those aliens are doing with their spare time. And every now and again just ‘isn’t that sky beautiful?’ I know I’m not revealing a mystery, but the loss of the night sky is a consequence of our modern civilisation we rarely consider, maybe we’d all think a bit clearer for seeing Venus set in the evening or The Plough rise at night. I know I would.

For those of us in Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield that missed out on the Northern Lights last month due to street lights and office blocks here they are over Derwent Water in the Lake District.

Credit: Paul Kingston/Arctic-Images/Getty Images

Amazingly they’re not the only ones of their kind; the Aurora Australis  illuminate the Southern Pole as rays from the sun dance through our atmosphere in a place we don’t visit very often as a species. There aren’t many humans in Antarctica to take pictures or write Wikipedia articles, I don’t know about you but I like it that way, it’s wonderful that our world still holds some mystery and we just can’t reach it. (Luckily the International Space Station can though http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14998679)

Hygge from Copenhagen

I’ve just come back from Copenhagen this week and yes, Scandinavia was everything I dreamed it would be, the bikes, the expensive beer and the masses of contented blondes satisfied my stereotypes entirely. Although Denmark (and the bit of Sweden I saw) work in the way we dream Western Europe would, it’s really really bitterly cold and everything is so extortionately priced my eyes watered.

Got hygge?

So why are Danes the happiest people in the world? Their weather is almost exactly the same as in the UK, they pay massive taxes, and food and alcohol are more expensive than you can imagine. I had a feeling it took a little bit more than well-run public transport and lots of pretty town squares to make them happier than anyone else on the planet.

I could talk about their wonderful government with its first female Statsminister, or the fresh air that fills Copenhagen’s cobbled streets because everyone rides bikes, but that’s already been done and I think the answer is in something a little less obvious. Rather than going the way of the Montrealers and building an entire city underground, the Danes have hygge, roughly translated (there’s never a smooth translation in Danish) it means cosy, comfortable and warm. In reality, it means candles everywhere, log fires at 12 in the afternoon, cafes built into basements and fur rugs on seats. It’s not just cosy, it’s bliss. And it means people still go outside in winter, have meals out with their friends and keep enjoying life even if the weather’s miserable.

Whenever I go to a mainland European city I don’t want to leave, but this time it was something different. In Paris, I fell in love with the utter beauty of the city, in Berlin it was the history and their effortless cool. But Copenhageners just get it, life that is, they’re incredibly friendly, don’t lock their bikes and sit outside when it’s -5 because it’s sunny. And it’s those little things that make a big difference.

I was dreading coming back to Manchester, to complaining about the little things like rubbish on my street or the trams not running on time, so I tried something different. Instead of pining for everything Danish and longing to be sat on cobbled squares drinking wine, I brought a bit of hygge back with me. Every night since I’ve been home I’ve lit candles, put a warm blanket on my couch and felt content where I am. And do you know what it works. Instead of looking at the grey clouds and rain tonight, try lighting a couple of candles, snuggle up and think ‘this is hygge’.

Make yourself feel “tryghed” or tucked in like a snug child, any culture that has a word like that in their vocabulary can’t be anything but happy inside.

CAPTION COMPETITION!

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Geography isn’t just colouring in, but colours do make things more interesting

Today’s news isn’t anything special, but it got me thinking Geopolitics and colourful maps. Don’t worry, I can hear you shouting ‘please don’t start talking about something that sounds like a really boring volcanic eruption of jargon.’ Actually geopolitics like everything hijacking the word geography, involves people, the impact we have on our environment and the effect our environment has on us. And this is where Human geography gets really interesting.

I heard this morning that Israel has threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, potentially starting World War 3 in the process. This might sound like a tit-bit of news (you might not even have noticed it) but by Israel being geographically placed where it is, combined with millennia of religious tension and a psychotic dictator thrown in for good measure, you start to not only see trouble but the impact geography has on international politics.

And you don’t have to look to the Middle East to see the impact geography has on the political world. Look at this map of the UK from the 2010 General Election.

Draw a line at Birmingham and you have to squint to see Labour constituencies south of it and the ones you can see nation-wide are mostly in major conurbations. We now just accept this as the way things are, but why is the Labour heartland in Northern cities and Conservatives’ mostly in Midland and Southern countryside and towns?

The answer begins with a bit of geographical history: space in pollution generating, noisy, dirty cities was generally reserved for the labour force, whereas land in the countryside (and factories in the cities) were traditionally owned by the country gentry. Obvious right? But it means from the beginnings of both major parties the city-based Labour force and country-based traditionalists had their political environment and views affected by the environment around them.

This geographical map has of course changed over 200 years, but not much. Places like Liverpool and Doncaster may have been Labour heartlands from the party’s beginnings, but the breakdown of public services and manufacturing during the last Conservative government continued to foster socialist communities long after the factories and mines disappeared. So, knock on doors with a blue ribbon on in Kensington, Liverpool and you’ll be knocked out, knock on doors in Kensington, Chelsea and you could be looking at your Dad’s business partner.

For these reasons and others, the UK is pretty much cemented in this political map for generations to come, give or take those marginal constituencies where elections are now always decided. Who was that calling for voting reform because we’re stuck in a vicious political cycle? They should have taken Geography, then maybe the argument would have been more convincing.

I know this probably isn’t the most enlightening thing you’ve heard today, but I hope it’s made you think about the effect where you live has on the politics that surround you. Geopolitics is interesting, honestly, even if I had to add in a colourful map to make it so.

-4reezing

As you feel the moisture freezing on the inside of your cheeks, your breath visibly smoke around your sentences and public transport skid to a halt while you wait in -4 degrees, you might be thinking: How do people cope when it’s -40?!

Copyright © 2012 Montreal Underground & J. Winberg

Well, that’s the point, people don’t. Montréal is host to the world’s largest underground city, RÉSO; there are malls, museums, hotels, 30 cinemas, multi-storey houses, offices and a music arena, all built underground just so Montrealers don’t have to face the uninhabitable weather. In fact, most of Montreal is accessible from the 20 miles of subterranean cityscape. Fascinating ey? When atrocious weather batters our small island I don’t think we should be looking to Germany, with their stalwart public transport, or Japan with their heated pavements. Montréal really is the year-round city.

“If you live and work in the underground city, there’s no need to ever emerge from below. To some, that may seem a bit strange, but for Montrealers, who have to endure harsh winters, it’s been a godsend.” www.aviewoncities.com/montreal/reso.htm

If you’re sat there thinking erm it’s quite maritime-ly pleasant in the UK again right now, aren’t blogs supposed to be constantly on the pulse of humanity?? They are, but my research and even posting my blog was impossible for 24 hours due to the online activism from Wikipedia, WordPress and others yesterday. Nice to see folks. For the British audience, just be thankful we don’t have to think about what SOPA/PIPA is. To find out more, check out this great article on Al Jazeera by a very clever media buff from MIT: www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/2012115121928594335.html

The Geog Blogger

Have you ever sat in a Geography lesson and wondered why you were learning about the different shapes of volcano, push and pull migration and the precipitation cycle? Me too, so for some reason I took Human Geography (the one without rocks and soil) at University and the world was opened up to me, quite literally.

I amassed a wealth of useless information about Brazilian governments, Militant Liverpudlians and colonial hangovers all the while becoming a master of pub quizzes – £22,000 in fees was obviously worth it. I keep gathering up this ‘useless’ information about the world and its people so thought I should put it to some use and let people know what Geography was really about.

This blog will be about all of the fascinating insights Geography has allowed me to see, from what made Argentinian mothers bang their pans in protest in the 1980’s, to why tarmac is so important in the DRC.

I’ll be posting about my job at an international NGO as well, because it’s funny and I hope it gives aspiring Geographers an idea of what you can do with your skills. Hopefully I’ll coerce some interesting Geography buddies into the odd post too…