James Avery’s blog

I’d just like to wish a quick Happy Thanksgiving to any of our American cousins across the pond.  For those who want to have a go at the World Chess Map puzzle, there are five American cities on the board, that is if you include Anchorage of course!  That’s about as generous as the chessboard world map gets — I know there were horrendous events in Mumbai last night, but India is the only other country to come close, with four cities on the board. 

Greater China also has four cities, if you include the former British colony (now Special Administrative Region) of Hong Kong and the Taiwanese capital Taipei; again as I said yesterday, I don’t want to get too involved in the political machinations of international borders.  This map has no borders, and nowhere is more than 16 Squares from anywhere else, so let’s keep everything peaceful now!

To go back to the USA though, I can think of three very notable omissions, especially when it comes to airports — Atlanta, Chicago and Denver.  Atlanta and Chicago might be well known as having the world’s busiest and second busiest airports respectively, but in my opinion, Denver International airport has to be one of the best.  Denver is also an important high-tech industry hub, not to mention the fact that it is Gateway to the wonderful rocky mountains.  I am slightly biased towards Denver, as I spent three months there in 1996.  Having said that, I spent the summer in Boston in 1995, and that hasn’t made the map either. Unfortunately, there was only space on the chessboard map for two columns to feature US cities, so any thing which wasn’t on the East or West coast never really stood a chance. 

On the tourism front, I suppose Las Vegas and Florida also deserve a mention, but the same point comes up again — hopefully, you can work out which four cities are remaining, and can agree on why they are still the best candidates for inclusion.

Where are you on the world chess board map?

I have been working on a new version of Flightmapping for a while, and let’s just say that some of our maps are going to be a little bit different to the norm.  However, I can’t keep everything under wraps forever, and I need to get some feedback from potential users, so here is a quick taster.

Imagine the whole world as a chessboard, with the most important cities represented at the intersection of each square.  Our chessboard map does feature cities from A-Z, but in terms of reaching the corners of the earth, we tried to do A,B, C and D, but we found that only A and D worked.  So we’re giving you Anchorage in Alaska (a1) and Dunedin in New Zealand (i9), for starters. 

Of course, any map like this is going to be contentious — why have we included x, but excluded y or z? All I can say is that the process has been part scientific and part random, but I hope that I can stimulate some good old-fashioned debate before bringing this map to life on Flightmapping.com — something we plan to do early next year.

This map is also something of a teaser — if anyone wants to have a go, I’ll e-mail over the first letter, or the IATA airport code for each city, but as it is my dad’s 75th birthday today, I hope that he’ll be able to complete it without any help.  He might still be teaching medical students and running triathlons on sunny Nevis, but he has always been a passionate yachtsman and Geographer as well.  As well as having a distinguished medical career, dad is also a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, so I have every faith that he will be able to e-mail his version of the map by the end of the weekend.

Why a chessboard?

Well, I’ve never been a sporting type, but I was captain of the school chess team, and if you’ll excuse my being corny, the notion of “check” hails back to the Czech Republic, and my granny was born in Prague.  Chess might be a game of war, but I hope this map is much more of a peaceful exercise. Most of the places on the map are attractive to visit for one reason or another, but there are one or two on their which have historical significance for less than pleasant reasons.

Around the World in 80 Dots

A chessboard has 8 x 8 squares, which gives 64; and 9 x 9 lines, which would give 81 cities.  I have decided to leave the centre point blank, as this roughly corresponds to the Holy land, or the great Pyramid at Giza in Cairo, which is the only ancient wonder of the world to have survived to the present day.  I think this map should be provocative enough as it is without starting any religious wars!  Phileas Fogg might have gone around the world in 80 days, so you are now invited to go around the chessboard in 80 dots.

The reasons for inclusion of each city vary across the world, but 8 factors include:

• Prominent architectural or natural landmarks.
• Tourist attractions.
• Transport hubs, including major international airports, rail hubs, and ports.
• Prominent sporting teams or venues.
• Cultural activities, including concert venues, birthplaces of composers or hotbeds of musical talent, artists etc.
• High standards of living.
• Major financial centres, including corporate headquarters, banks and stock markets.
• Large centres of population.
 

[Blank world chess board map]

Based on an original idea and Copyright (C) 2008 James Avery

[Typed listening to live commentary on BBC Radio 2]

So it seems that Peter Stringfellow has got his knickers in a twist over government plans to label lapdancing joints as ‘Sex Encounter Establishments.’

Well, it isn’t difficult to SEE why the powers that be want to change yet another law over this, but I think it would be much better to call them ‘Sex Appetiser Establishments’ (SAEs) - but I’m still not convinced that you would get a good lick with any of them.

Letters to the editor
Coventry Evening Telegraph
Monday 11 October 2008
by hand
Dear Sir,
What is the point in spending billions of pounds regenerating the centre of Coventry, if we can’t even attract a single tourist to visit the city through our own airport?  Meanwhile, local visitors will continue to be put off, as long as shabby Coventry station is run by the tremendously arrogant, incompetent and rude staff employed by Virgin Trains.  And with the current state of the credit crunch, wouldn’t it be much better to just apply a new lick of paint to the much loved market, rather than opting for an all-out blitzkrieg?
We’ve seen enough damage to Coventry done by the Nazis, and then by the well-meaning, but well past its sell-by date Gibson plan, so why should we now place any trust in some dodgy Californian architect who is much more accustomed to helping casinos empty their patrons’ wallets, rather than building genuinely liveable urban spaces?
The so-called concrete collar which goes round Coventry might well be monumentally ugly, but it does at least keep traffic moving.  So, rather than turning over more roads to under-used busways and expensive tram systems, can’t we just learn a little bit from some of our twin cities about how to make Coventry much more accessible for pedestrians and cyclists?  I’ve had a good look around all the glossy images that the Jerde partnership have drawn, and I have yet to see a single bicycle in any of them.  If there are 9 million bicycles in Jinan*, then surely it isn’t too Batty^ to propose working towards having one million in Coventry?

Notes:

*9 million bicycles in Beijing was written by Mike Batt for Katie Melia.  Coventry is twinned with Jinan, China - approx 300 miles south of Beijing.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good rant, but somehow I’ve managed to keep most of my opinions about the 2008 US election to myself.

Now that we’ve finally reached polling day, I am happy to say that even though I consider myself Conservative by UK standards, I am solidly behind Barack Obama tonight. So what’s Milton Keynes got to do with it? Well, MK is a city I go through regularly on the train, and if we put the jokes about concrete cows to one side, it is actually quite likeable.

If Milton Keynes had an airport, its IATA code might easily be MLK*, which would take us to civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, who is perhaps best known for his “I Have A Dream” speech in 1963. Whatever your opinions on Milton Keynes, somebody had a dream to build it, and if you ever get a chance to fly over it, MK does look like a giant circuit board, complete with tiny cars efficiently moving around its quiet streets.

MLK is featured twice on the U2 album “The Unforgettable Fire”, firstly in the anthemic Pride (In The Name of Love), and then on the final self titled track.

Here’s my favourite bit of Pride^:

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

So, I’m not going to be staying up to watch the polls (Glowny means Central in Polish), but I do hope to wake up tomorrow to some long awaited good news from across the pond!

(*MLK is actually the IATA code for Malta, Montana; ^ - actually took place at 6.01pm)