Got some pom-poms handy? UK.gov seeks a geography cheerleader Whitehall is looking for a geography aficionado to emphasise the role the discipline plays in the UK government's work. The newly created position of head of geography will be one of a network of experts across the civil service and sit in the government science and engineering (GSE) section. The person will be an "ambassador …
And when Google Maps are wrong? They are not infallable.
Then just watch some of the embarrasing moments on TV game shows when (sorry to be sexist but the facts are there for all to see) most Female contestants are totally clueless about UK Geography (just where somewhere is in the country). This applies to even very intelligent women eg Lisa on Eggheads.
It frankly embarrases me that my own daughter has virtually no spatial awareness and her mother and I really tried hard to teach her. My wife and I met while out Orienteering.
one of a network of experts across the civil service
I thought official government policy was to ignore experts and rely on unskilled, ignorant and bigoted amateurs?
Although I suppose there's nothing stopping them appointing a new expert and ignoring them in the same way they ignore all people who actually have empirical evidence for their recommendations.
Listening to a presentation at a university open day a couple of weeks ago, the guy doing the presenting (who was a historian, very very good presenter and a funny guy) was going through some of the extra stuff the applicants might be required to do. Science and Maths were some entrance tests, arts subjects were some essays. "If they want to do Geography, they'll probably get them to do some colouring in or something".
Our geography master at my school was very easy going so his lessons were often a it rowdy. We had a craze, making little blow darts from dressmaking pins and cotton thread, we would fire them at ea h other through biro tubes.
One of my mates fired one at me that stuck in the shoulder of my blazer, I returned fire at Lenny, the sod ducked and the dart stuck in the geography master's earlobe.
That day he was ot so easy going I got a weeks worth of detentions , enough homework to keep me busy for a month and a visit to the Headmaster who failed to believe one word about the darts being part of a science project on ballistics.
The lesson? Don't fire when a teacher is in the line of fire and in range.
He was actually a very good teacher, a nice bloke and an ex Oxford rugby blue, it could have been worse.
I don't know if geographers have changed since the long-ago days when I was a palaeoecologist. If they haven't then the likely outcome will be that they'll reinvent whatever field they're asked to advise on, inventing new names for everything.
Now I've written that, I wonder if a lot of them go into marketing. Cloud? DevOps?
Couldn't they just ask Caroline Bellamy to do this? Half a day's worth of work per week should be possible to squeeze in, especially as there is bound to be some overlap between the jobs anyway.
Apparently, outside of London, there are places with green stuff on them, which can be high up, or sometimes low down , and sometimes have wet stuff.
A UK Head of Geography position has been created to investigate this phenomenon, and prepare a report on what to do about it.
Which continent the UK is in - there seems to be some confusion on that point.
Some understanding of human geography might help with the reasons why trade deals are incredibly complex.
I suspect the successful applicant will also be expected to tell them where the magic money trees grow.
"It is geographically, and soon to be politically, an island."
Actually, it's more than one island, but you'd need to take your blinkers off to notice that. Worse still, not all the islands are exclusively the UK, but again, don't let this geographical pedantry disturb you.
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