Neighbourhood Fix-It launches

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"Neighbourhood Fix- It makes it as easy as possible for citizens across the UK to report local problems like fly tipping, broken lights, graffiti etc, whilst opening the problems up to browsing and public discussion of solutions...

Councils across the UK do an excellent job of fixing local problems when they’re reported by citizens. However, the model for handling the information is a system of doctor-patient style confidentiality. A citizen who makes a report normally knows about a problem, and so does the council, but there is no general public way of finding out what has been reported or fixed.

Given that the nature of public problems being reported is that they are public, this seems a strange situation.

... It opens up and democratizes the process of discovering and reporting problems, so people can see what other reports have been filed locally using the site, and can leave extra feedback and comments on the problems if they see fit."

Flickr: The From Memory (was: Maps From Memory) Pool

Flickr: The Maps From Memory Pool [Waxy]

This reminds me two things. First, it brings to mind the Parish Maps project of Common Ground and its emphasis on a, for a lack of a better phrase for it, vernacular of mapping.

It also brings to mind how drawing from memory gives a brutally accurate account of one's real memory, as opposed to what we think we know. Want proof? Just try drawing a map of the middle east from memory. After that, try this quiz to see if that help you learn some geography.

4-0-Wonderland in particular

Some years ago, I lived in England for four months on a 'busman's holiday' as they would call it. Before I moved there I was would say that I was a bit of an Anglophobe - I didn't understand the endless layers of British culture that would made things like Paddington Bear, Princess Di, and Monty Python make sense to me. After my four months, I wouldn't say that I converted into an Anglophile (as I don't worship all things British for the sake of being British) but there are certain aspects of British culture that I admire tremendously.

One such British thing the arts and environmental group Common Ground. Inspired by their book England in particular : a celebration of the commonplace, the local, the vernacular, and the distinctive - I am re-imaging the world around me through their work.

For example, Common Ground has created a list of places to find snowdrops in February.

And so I started to think... what is the equivalent of early blooming snowdrops for Southwestern Ontario? According to some local field naturalists, candidates for the first flowers to bloom in these parts are trilliums, jack in the pulpit, and the wood rush.

Postcards from the centre

Geography + Information: Distribution Project [mefi]

I like the idea of the geography-themed postcard. The "Industry and Resources" card reminds of a story told to me by one of my friends from school. He had traveled to Bangladesh in the 1980s and was frequently approached by curious locals who were filled with questions. He said he was frequently stumped by their questions about what was produced from where he was from and wished he had carried an national almanac with him.

I have never heard of ShaWindsor

List of city nicknames : Cities in Canada

Its not Greenwich Mean Time. Its all the emotions

"The Greenwich Emotion Map is a collaborative art project using BioMapping to chart an emotional landscape. Members of the community borrowed BioMapping devices and went for walks. The devices measure Galvanic skin response throughout the walk, and this suggests emotional response along the path of the walk. 'The resulting maps encourage personal reflection on the complex relationship between us, our environment and our fellow citizens. By sharing this information we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.'" [WorldChanging]

Inspired by William Stafford, Bob reworked this passage by Thomas De Zengotita

(found poem)

Say you car breaks down
In the middle of nowhere,
The middle of Saskatchewan, say.

You have no cell phone,
Nothing to read,
No gear to fiddle with,
You just have to wait.

Pretty soon you notice
How everything around you
Just happens to be there.

And it just happens to be there in this very
Precise but unfamiliar way. You are
So not used to this.

Every tuft of weed,
The scattered pebbles,
The lapsing fence,
The flow of clouds against the sky---
Everything is very specifically exactly
The way it is.

And none of it is for you;
Nothing here was designed to affect you;
It isn’t arranged so that you can experience it,
And didn’t plan to experience it.

There is no screen, no display, no entrance, no brochure,
Nothing special to look at,
No dramatic scenery or wildlife,
No tour guide, no campsites,
No benches, no paths, no
Viewing platform with natural-
Historical information posted
Under slanted Plexiglas lectern things.

Whatever is there is just there,
And so are you.
You begin to get a sense of what it would be like
If you weren’t the centre of it all.

Fordlândia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fordlândia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"Fordlândia ('Ford-land') was a vast tract of land purchased by American automobile tycoon Henry Ford in the 1920s. Covering over 10,000 km² of land, it was situated near the city of Santarém, Brazil, and approximately 960 kilometres from the mouth of the Amazon River at Belém."

There's a Ford City in Windsor, Ontario.

Category:Cultural geography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Cultural geography - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BBC - Radio 4 - Where in the World?

BBC - Radio 4 - Where in the World?:
"John Simpson presents the geographical panel game which takes a whistle-stop tour of the globe."

October 21st is Apple Day

Apple Day: "Apple Day is an annual celebration of apple, orchards and local distinctiveness, initiated by Common Ground in 1990 it has since been celebrated each year by people organising hundreds of local events. Why not join in?

Apple Day is a way of celebrating and demonstrating that variety and richness matter to a locality and that it is possible to affect change in your place. Common Ground has used the apple as a symbol of the physical, cultural and genetic diversity we should not let slip away. In linking particular apples with their place of origin, we hope that orchards will be recognised and conserved for their contribution to local distinctiveness, including the rich diversity of wild life they support."

Stand in the place where you live...

Now, face North. Think about direction. Wonder why you haven't before.

The lines above are from R.E.M's song, Stand from their album Green. Speaking of green, I don't think of this song as an environmental pop song as much as a geographical pop song: "Think about the place where you live. Wonder why you haven't before."

I've been thinking about the place where I live. I live in 4-0-Wonderland ("It's the end of the highway - not the end of the world"). Otherwise known as Windsoria. Otherwise known as Windsor. That is, the Windsor that is in Ontario (not Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, or the UK for that matter) and the Ontario that is in Canada.


The above picture notwithstanding, north of Windsor is Detroit. Because of our geography, Americans are our neighbours to the North of us which is upside down to most every other place in Canada. Windsor is upside down to the rest of Canada in many other ways too.

Quick - where is North? Did you have to think about it? Do you wonder why you hadn't before?