Geography Geeking

Last week I went to an exhibition at the British Library all about maps, called Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art. I highly recommend going as it’s a wonderful display of some of the finer pieces of the British Library’s map collection. They are genuine works of art, infused with the politics of the time and assertions of control and power as well as being incredibly beautiful. The Fra Mauro map is a complicated representation of what was, at the time, the known world and is an incredibly delicate and detailed piece.

I’ve always been interested in maps, this probably comes from having a world map blu-tacked up above my desk in my bedroom when I was young. Frequently I’d look up, needing a distraction from my homework, and stare at the map, wondering what those places were like and how people lived there. I guess this is where my interest in geography originated, something which I followed through by studying it at university, and ever since then I’ve always approached the world with that kind of awareness of space and connectivity at the back of my mind.

But the thing that has been making my brain fizz all week was a lecture I went to about maps and mapping. As part of Magnificent Maps the British Library is running a series of talks about the subject, so I decided to pop along to one and indulge my inner geography geek. The talk was done by Professor Danny Dorling from Sheffield University (who taught me briefly while I was at Bristol Uni) and he was talking about using maps to show global inequalities. The stuff he showed us and the things he was talking about frankly blew my mind a little. He first talked about the project he’s been working on, Worldmapper.org, which is highly worth a look. Then he ran through some of the most recent population cartograms that he and the team he works with have been doing. Wow. These are maps that give equal space on the map to every human being. The results are stunning, both beautiful and illuminating, and slightly disturbing. As Dorling pointed out at the lecture, we are visual creatures and maps represent a way for us to conceive of a larger world around us that lies beyond our eyesight. We grow up cultured into the representations of those worlds. We accept that the UK is in the centre of the map, because that’s where we’ve always seen it. We all know what the UK looks like in map form. But when it’s shown through a different prism, that of where population is located, the effect alters our received notion of what our small island looks like. The population cartogram of the UK is a warped and twisted creature, recognisably our home, but distorted around the large bubble that is London and the south-east. It challenges our notion of where we are and how we see our country.

A map of Africa is really interesting, you can see how major urban centres dominate. Many people’s image of Africa is one of being quite rural, the problem being that Africa now has some of the largest urban agglomerations in the world and is rapidly urbanising. Huge tracts of land are reduced to grey lines on the population cartogram as no-one lives there. Mexico becomes a hugely bulbous Mexico City that dominates almost to the exclusion of all others. This interpretation of dry population stats really bring them to life, letting us see what a city of 20 million people looks like when compared to the population of the surrounding areas.

Some of the more disturbing and enlightening maps are produced when different data is inputted to produce a cartogram. Stats on numbers of deaths due to flooding and storms are used as the basis for mapping and produces something highly moving. As would be expected, less well off countries feature prominently, but the extent to which Bangladesh dominates the image is striking. The map is so distorted and enlarged that you can see the rivers within the Ganges delta, which you would barely be able to make out on a land area map of the equivalent size. These are maps that can highlight poverty, risk and inequality in new and powerful ways.

Maps, as visual representations of our world, are imbued with politics and culture and as such can be extremely powerful tools, something we would do well to be more aware of.

A Poverty of Ambition

Joe Ledley: no ambition

According to news reports today it seems that Joe Ledley will finally be leaving Cardiff City and heading to pastures new. And on one hand I think fair enough really, he’s given a lot to the club over the years and I don’t begrudge him a move to try his hand in a better league and improve as a player.

And on the other hand I can’t help feeling that, as a City fan, I’ve been knifed in the back by someone I respect.

Why? Because it appears that he will be moving to Celtic. There are many reasons for thinking this a godawful move. One is that because Ledley is out of contract we don’t get any compensation for bringing him through the ranks, training him and giving all the support and opportunities necessary for him to succeed. If he’d gone to another club in the English set-up we’d be eligible for a tribunal, but instead we’ve lost out on probably a couple of million pounds because he’s gone to Scotland.

Ah yes, Scotland and the SPL. That’s the second rub. While (arguably) a better side than City and certainly more high profile, they play in a worse league than City do. Apart from a handful of clubs in the SPL the rest would be lower mid table or worse in the Championship. In terms of career development it’s hardly a step up, a couple of European matches a season and then destroying most of the opposition for an entire season. He’s gone from the security of being a big fish in a small pond at Cardiff to the, uh, security of a big fish in a small pond at Celtic.

And all this after interest from Premiership clubs such as Stoke. While I heartily dislike Stoke they were probably just the right level for Ledley to get to grips with the Premiership and possibly kick on to a bigger club. I can’t help but feel that a move to the Premiership would have made Ledley a better player, which would have then benefitted the Welsh national side.

Ledley is a good player, albeit one who thinks he’s better than he actually is. If we think back to the 1st part of the 2009/10 season he was largely rubbish, in a serious rut of bad form that was largely of his own causing.  Ledley was clearly in a sulk at not getting a move during the summer, and this hugely affected his performances which were sluggish and devoid of any spark he may have brought before. And once he got into that rut he couldn’t get out. As fellow spectators remarked before the January transfer window opened, if he wanted to move he’d blown his chances by playing shit all season, no-one was going to pay money for him and no-one did. Hence the issue now where you’ve got a player turning his back and effectively walking out. No doubt the lack of a transfer fee has significantly boosted his signing on bonus.

Mind you, seeing as he’s gone to Scotland, perhaps Ledley’s sense of self-regard is not that overblown and he’s realised he probably wouldn’t cut in the Prem.

Whatever, moving to an SPL club shows a deep poverty of ambition as a player and you can’t help but feel in all this that he’s let a lot of people down, most importantly himself.