It’s that time again
when a large part of the world will be glued to their TV sets for almost a
month watching the World Cup and a slightly smaller part will be groaning
inwardly when you announce you’re going to watch Honduras
v. Ecuador.
Maps and wallcharts will start appearing all over the place in offices and
homes, children will fill out the results in World Cup sticker books until the
novelty wears off, but at least it encourages a healthy interest in the
locations of other countries and which of them England are going to beat.
According to my wallchart predictions, England
will beat Germany in the
final having scraped out of the group and then seen off Ivory Coast, Brazil
and Portugal.
Can England
really win the 2014 World Cup? Yes. Will England win the 2014 World Cup?
Your guess is as good as mine. By the time I write next month’s bulletin, we
will be at the quarter final stage – will England still be a contender?!
BCS Symposium
The BCS’ 50th
Annual Symposium is now just 3 weeks away and bookings are at an all-time high.
Well, at least at a high in recent years. No, I haven’t made a mistake.
Although the Society celebrated its 50th Anniversary last year, this
year sees us holding our 50th Annual Symposium. I don’t know who
holds the record for having attended the most Symposia. I’ve attended them all
since 1999, but I am sure there are others who can surpass that. It looks like
being another excellent event this year with a very good range of speakers from
across the cartographic community, some really hands on workshops and our first
ever Mapathon. Full details of the Mapathon can be found on the website, http://www.cartography.org.uk/downloads/mapping2014/Mapathon_flyer.pdf,
but essentially you turn up at Marwell on the Tuesday morning with your laptop
loaded with software of your choice, we give you a dataset to work with and by
the end of the day you have turned that dataset into a map. We are working with
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to produce a map or maps that will help
in their commemoration of the Centenary of the First World War. It is free to
attend, so if you haven’t already signed up, check out the website, sign up and
come along. Help will be at hand for those of you who don’t feel that confident
and everyone is welcome whatever your level of expertise.
The BCS Awards that will
be presented at the Black Tie Gala Dinner on the Wednesday evening have now
closed for 2014. We will be announcing details for the 2015 Awards at the
Symposium and we will be looking for more fantastic and innovative cartography
for next year’s entries. The UKHO Junior Mapmaker Award and the National
Geographic Society New Mapmaker Award are still open and don’t close until the
end of July. There is still time to submit entries and again full details may
be found on the website.
If you have ever
wondered why the event is called a Symposium, I did offer an explanation in my
50th Anniversary speech last year, but an alternative reason has
been offered, if you work your way through this decision tree.
Maps on the Internet
I have recently become
increasingly aware of the neologism ‘infographic’, more of which at the
Symposium. The huge explosion of mapping on the Internet is both a good and a
bad thing. It has popularised maps even more than ever before and has increased
awareness of issues by portraying them within a spatial context that can often
add depth and meaning – when done well. But the flip side is that an awful lot
of it is not done well, in fact it’s done appallingly badly. A recent article
by Business Insider sums it up perfectly, with some pretty hideous examples - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-internets-maps-obsession-2014-5#ixzz31BHOvuDf.
‘Could you make a better
map than this?’ Did you rise to the challenge issued by Knowhere Consulting?
They highlighted a dreadful example on their site http://knowwhereconsulting.co.uk/could-you-make-a-better-map/.
One thing we need to be wary of is becoming the internet police and just
knocking bad maps. As the article says, “By
now you may be thinking ‘why doesn’t he stop knocking the LGA’s map and make a
better one himself?’. Well I am a pretty clumsy user of QGIS and I am certainly
not a cartographer so my effort would be be pretty poor. So here’s a
challenge, download the data, use some OpenData and make a better map”. The
entries will be judged and a prize awarded at the July Geomob event, but BCS
would love to see the entries too. Talking of which, the line up for the next
Geomob event on 17th July has been announced. Full details may be
found at http://geomobldn.org/post/86215066805/july-17th-geomob-lineup.
Okay, so they can’t
spell colour, but GIS lounge has an interesting article on maps for the colour
blind that complements the article in the latest edition of Maplines, http://www.gislounge.com/making-color-blind-friendly-maps/
Not wishing to prolong
this any more than is strictly necessary, the good old chestnut of right
information, wrong projection reared its ugly head again in May. Few of us
would probably have linked The Proclaimers to cartography, but linked they have
been. Check out the Cartonerd’s blog, http://cartonerd.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/i-would-map-500-miles.html
which says it all and we will then quietly draw a line under it.
Sit back from whichever
device you are using to read this before opening the next link or you are in
serious danger of drooling over your keyboard. http://www.pinterest.com/globemakers/the-art-of-maps-cartography/
After highlighting some of the worst examples on the net, here are some of the
most beautiful map images. If there isn’t at least one example on the site that
you will absolutely love I will be amazed.
ICA Mapcarte
So, what have I selected
as my favourites from this months’ selection? It’s a pretty eclectic mix,
starting with a classic, The Times Atlas. First published in 1895 and still
going strong today, this has been the stalwart of the Atlas market, viewed as
the authoritative version. I do have one rather worrying anecdote, however. Whilst
visiting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the late 1990s, I was offered a
tour of some of the more prestigious rooms, including the Foreign Secretary’s
Office. The incumbent was Robin Cook at the time and I was heartened to see a
Times Atlas on a side table and assumed that this was the reference work that
the Foreign Secretary consulted when formulating Britain’s Foreign Policy. I was
slightly disheartened, on opening the front cover to discover that it was the
1963 edition!
‘Where on earth have you
been?’ Well if the Guardian’s map is to be believed, and what looks like a very
heavily pregnant USA
is accurate, most of us seem to have crossed the pond. Australia is pretty rotund as well and as for
our European neighbours it would seem that France
and a particularly pendulous Sweden
are amongst our favourite destinations. As the post says, ‘Simple, Fun and Eye
Catching’.
My last choice is a bit
like the ‘Kevin’ map last month, I know I shouldn’t like it, but I do. ‘The
Londoner’s view of the North’, is a combination of stereotype and humour.
Whilst it can’t be cited as an example of great cartography, anything that
makes you smile can’t be all bad. Come September 18th, I wonder if
the author will have to issue a revised version?!
To view all the maps on the MapCarte site go to http://mapdesign.icaci.org/category/mapcarte/.
Honorary Fellowship
Last year we recognised
the significant contribution to the Society of two of our members, Ann
Sutherland and Dr Seppe Cassettari, with the award of Honorary Fellowships. We
are now inviting nominations for this year. Each year the Society can grant up
to 3 Honorary Fellowships, so if you know of someone who you think the Society
should recognise, please contact our Administrator, Roger Hore.
Technician of the
Year
Congratulations
to BCS member, Mark Szegner from Loughborough
University, who has just
been awarded the Higher Education Authority’s STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Technician of the Year Award
for Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. These awards celebrate the
technician’s contribution to teaching and learning activities and to the wider
HE student experience. Mark is one of the few University Cartographers around
and it is great to be able to celebrate the recognition of cartography in a
field where my source for the original information tells me “This is a really big deal as usually
technicians in white coats tend to win”. A brief resumé of his career can
be found at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/stem-conference-2014/TOTY-GEES.
Congratulations from all your
colleagues in the BCS.
And finally
We have just confirmed our guest
speaker to follow the BCS AGM on 17th November. BBC Weather
presenter Helen Willetts will be speaking to us. As yet I don’t have a title
for her talk but it will have a cartographic element. I heard Helen speak at
the RGS some years ago on climate change and she is very engaging speaker. Full
details will appear on the website soon.
Image courtesy of BBC website
Pete Jones MBE FBCart.S CGeog
3rd June 2014
Email: Peter.Jones991@mod.uk
Twitter: @geomapnut
