I’ve revisited three blogs recently, all of which stand out. They are diverse in content, reflecting my inner intellectual butterfly, but they’re all worth a dip into to, for a bit of ‘brain food’ as my friend Dan would say.
I have no idea how Maria Popova has generated such an amazing body of work since 2006. The blog reflects her intellectual life as a vociferous reader and voluminous writer. It is the blog I’d love to write if only I had the time – or the talent!
My particular favourites on recent visits were book reviews about growth and self-realisation and the complex relationship between attention and reality.
Matthew Taylor’s RSA blogs
Not as easy to provide a single link to, as Matthew’s blogs are mixed in amongst those of his (former) RSA colleagues. During his time as Chief Executive of the UK’s Royal Society of Arts (a self-styled ‘do tank’), Matthew wrote 1300 blogs up to this final post in 2021. As you can imagine from the head of a fertile intellectual organisation, Matthew’s posts covered a broad range of topics touching on everything from specific policy problems facing the UK to more philosophical concerns about the purpose of work.
Amongst my favourite posts from Matthew are a series he published in the lead up to his departure from the RSA which put forward ‘co-ordination theory’: a framework for understanding human motivation:
- If Covid provides an opportunity to reset we should seize it.
- The patterns we all wear.
- The secret life of organisational culture.
- Policy, politics and human motivation.
- Co-ordination Theory: the basis for working together?
- Individualist investment banks, hierarchical totalitarian regimes and solidaristic communes.
- The underachieving normal.
- The overheating engine of progress.
- The best and the worst of us. (Matthew starts to lose count here and refers to this as the eighth post in the series, when it is actually the ninth.)
- Hierarchy: can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
- Between wisdom and despair.
This is practically a book spread across eleven posts, but bear with it.
Living Geography
A very different blog, certainly less general interest, this blog is a treasure trove for geography educators but that said I’m sure there is lots you would find amongst the posts which are of interest to non-teachers. Alan Parkinson has somehow amassed over eleven thousand posts covering events, useful resources, teaching ideas and more. Alan was and remains amongst the vanguard of geography educators using the Internet as a platform for enhancing teaching and learning. He’s also a very nice chap who I’ve had the privilege to work with, albeit only a handful of times and in a small way.
And if eleven thousand posts on Living Geography isn’t enough, his Blogger profile lists a dozen other blogs he’s created over the years. Some of the links are dead ends, but many aren’t. I particularly recommend Quotidian Geographies and, for the real geography teacher nerd, his compilation of biographies of past presidents of the Geographical Association (which Alan himself is now a past-president of).
Commonplace 