Tim Marshall and the 'Future of Geography'

The final Monday night lecture for this term was held at the RGS on Monday night this week.

The speaker was Tim Marshall - best-selling author of 'Prisoners of Geography' - and a fellow Leeds United fan.

The Ondaatje Theatre was packed out and there were a similar number joining online.

He told us that 'Prisoners of Geography' had now passed the three million mark in terms of sales.

When I arrived, I bumped into Tim and had a brief chat where I mentioned the work that I am doing on a new unit based on Space, and Samantha Harvey's book 'Orbital'. It was good to have a chat, and hopefully put him at ease before a lecture in front of a full house.

I also had a chance to say hello to Mark Maslin - author of "How to save our Planet", and chat to the explorer and Amazon expert John Hemming, a previous Director of the RGS. These events are all helping me to piece together something of the history of the Society (as my previous work at the GA helped me to piece together the history of the Association and its former Presidents.)

The lecture was excellent, with good humour and sharp insight, and some good historical clips. I'd been skim reading the book on the way down to London to work out some quotes that I could use in a new unit I'm working on based on the Booker Prize winning 'Orbital'.

Tim's book looks up, 'Orbital' looks down.

There were some good visuals, some good questions and it was an excellent evening.

Here's a couple of official images taken from the RGS Facebook page - see if you can spot me....

Image credit: Royal Geographical Society