Living Geography - literally....

I'm literally sitting on the train writing this blog post... (someone has just said in the carriage: "I'm literally on the train"...)

Yesterday evening was an interesting one. I walked across London in Dan Raven Ellison style (but without the photographs) to the Royal Geographical Society to see Charley Boorman speak at the Monday night lecture.

I have to confess to being a little disappointed - out of 40 minutes talk, 9 minutes of that was a video, and a few more visuals would have been nice: one of the biggest inspirations of the trip was a picture of Mongolia hanging in the RGS... but we didn't have an image of it, and a sense of the GEOGRAPHY in Charley's trips was lacking. The Dakar Rally trip was an incredible

 experience, and some dramatic images of the scale of the event came across. He was an engaging speaker, and there were a lot of people who came out on a chilly Monday night.

After that it was back to Carluccio's in the Brunswick Centre.

Carluccio's seemed to be surviving the credit crunch so far: it was packed. 

Wandered back towards Euston, and Justin Woolliscroft demonstrated his extensive knowledge of the pubs around the station.

Image of Hamilton House by Flickr user Jamie Barras

Up early this morning to walk to Hamilton House, across Euston Road from the British Library, for first of Living Geography conferences. We set up the rooms, and the delegates started arriving: everybody arrived on time. First keynote was a bit nerve wracking. I recorded myself for the first time, and it sounded quite good - few too many pauses. Good to see a few familiar faces among the delegates. There will be 5 Living Geography events, and this first one was in some ways a trial run for the organisation of the day. There were 29 delegates, who came from as far away as Bristol, Ramsgate and King's Lynn. We learned a few things about the organisation and content, and already tweaked my sessions for next time. Really enjoyed some of Jeff's ideas for exploring places, and his performance of Bill Bryson stood on a chair, and David Waugh anecdote...

We all felt really happy about the way the event went. Thanks to David Lambert too, for coming in at the beginning and the end of the (long) day as well.
There were some impressive folk presenting today's event , and very many thanks to Lucy, Ruth, Justin, Jeff and Julie.

The next Living Geography event will take place in York on the 9th of June. Book online, or ring Lucy Oxley on 01142960088