The Heat - What is it?

We've all noticed the uprising of the gorgeous weather on Monday 27th June 2011 - but is this the start of something great for the UK? Or the beginning of the end?


In a recent survey done in London Center, surveyors asked shoppers if "they'd like the weather to stay this way, even if it meant harm to the world in 50 years time?" - an overwhelming 65% of shoppers said they wouldn't mind if the weather stayed at a great temperature all year round.
This brought me to think, do these 65% even know what Global Warming, or Climate Change is? And if so, do they know the effects it may have on not just the world, but them?

Obviously, I couldn't let this go, so to anyone unsure what Climate Change is, here's it in brief:

100 years ago, the Industrial Revolution happened. This created more pollutant gases, which polluted the cities and atmosphere. Due to more and more people buying cars; flying to foreign countries; using tons of aerosols without checking for pollutant gases and other environmentally crippling cases, we've now got more pollution then ever before. This creates the 'Advanced Greenhouse Effect' - which captures more heat, thus making it hotter and the weather more unstable. This is Climate Change in short.

This is just the beginning though, researchers say in 100 years time - all of Australia will be baron and unlivable; Nigeria will have a "gulf" due to intense tsunamis and floods; the Amazon rain-forest will be flat due to mass-deforestation and forest-fires; most of the UK will be underwater; Japan will be completely gone off the map; one of the only livable places will be Greenland; 4/5 of all ice from the North-Pole will be gone.

All of that, in just 100 years. Scary, right?
Well then stop driving so much!

Population Pyramids? How they work!

If you're, like so many of youth today, a GCSE Geography Student, then this is bound to come up somewhere in your course.
Population Pyramids: to put it simply; A chart where Y is age and X is female-male. The 'Pyramid' bit comes from it's design. Due to there being less old people than youth, the chart seems to thin the further up you go. Making a "Pyramid" shape.

The Population Pyramid is split into two graphs: MEDC (More Economically Developed Countries) & LEDC (Less Economically Developed Countries)

The one to our left is the MEDC Pyramid. The one to the right is, quite obviously, the LEDC one.

Now, there are some factors that are obvious just by looking at the graph. The first is, the LEDC one is much, much more steep, more like the Empire State Building. While the MEDC one is buffed out on all sections, except the over 80's, where it starts to thin upwards. (LEDC Pyramid is a graph of Mozambique population) (MEDC Pyramid is a graph of Britain's population)

Secondly, the LEDC graph has a large 0-9 section - with more than 2.3 million children. But this significantly drops in periods 10-14, then again in 15-19, to round about's 1.3 million. That means approximately one million children that are born in Mozambique don't live over teenager age. Why?

There are many reasons for low life expectancy in Mozambique. It's in an continent where many countries suffer from severe poverty (Africa) and is close to some of the most poverty stricken countries in the world, such as: Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Botswana. This means many children die of illness and disease.
The large decrease has other factors, including that many LEDC families have around 8 (average) children - the main reason is because the mother knows only 1-2 will survive the poverty. Crime and youth armies are also two factors that decrease the population. With many teenagers being took from their homes into African armies/tribes.

The MEDC graph also has a "baby-boom" period, in the 30-40's. How did this occur? After WWII, in 1945, many women were relieved to see their husbands back home. Very relieved. And so the happiness took over and many expressed the need to have a baby. This create a huge population boost in 1946 - with around 3 million more babies being born that year. Now, 70 years on, many of the children in the War boom have had children. These children are now 30-40 years old.

The main point on the Y graph is the age difference. On the MEDC graph, it goes up to 100+, whilst on the LEDC graph it sticks to 80+ - This is due to nearly nobody in the LEDC's getting past 80 years of age. With only around 300,000 people reaching that age in Mozambique. The MEDC graph will go to 100+ because of the "elderly population" Britain has, where there is more people aged 50-54 then 0-4. There is also approximately 1 million people over the age of 80 in Britain, while in Mozambique it's only a third of that figure.

That's what Population Pyramids are, I hope you liked this short, brief tutorial on them. They're simple once you understand the concept of the graph. Good luck Geographers!

What was your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?

Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Moo, you like cows?

The King of...Pointless TV.

After two weeks of the same advertisement, King of finally aired on Channel 4. On Friday the 17th of June. With the host Claudia Winkleman. The new "entertainment" show gave us a good look at how Channel 4's idea's just aren't up to scratch this year; as Skins & Shameless also received their lowest ratings since their beginnings.

The show consisted of mediocre comedians/celebrities talking about what is their "king of" or favorite thing out of a number of options; i.e. Favorite cheese - Cheddar. After a heated and almost boring debate about what is "The King of", the celebrity will give their verdict. Commonly, on game-shows, the decision by the guest is the one hosts take, but not on the King of. Where the host has all power over decisions, rendering the point of guests on the show useless, unless they believe that there is an "amusing" side to the show, which so far, there isn't.

This weeks guests were Sarah Millican; the "Live at the Apollo" comedian and Radio 2's Chris Evans. For the opening show, where you're hoping to grab the viewers, the guest really didn't have my eyes watching. Sarah Millican kicked the show off, with "King of holidays", even though Sarah Millican is a great comic, and has good material on stand-up, she's no good on other peoples script. I found her performance a-bit dull and lifeless, like she herself didn't really want to be there. Winkleman finished with the result, and she picked "Spa Breaks" as the best holiday. I hope I wasn't the only one that thought my god, I'd much rather be sitting in the sun in Spain - then in a mud-pool in Manchester.

Chris Evans then came on, his pick of the King's was with Cheeses. Chris immediately confessed to loving cheese and started blabbering on in his usual manner, one that nobody really listens to but keeps turned on. After around 10 minutes of more boring banter over which cheese was the best, they came to the conclusion that Chris's favorite was. Which was equally weird since it's the one nobody's ever heard of; apart from major cheese eaters.

They then ended the show with "King of Jobs", now - we all know, King of Jobs would be something like a Footballer, TV Presenter, or something else that you get paid millions for a year. But instead, Winkleman went for the weirder approach - bringing out a penguin which chased her around the room for three minutes, while at first funny, at the end I'm sure most of us were thinking "thank god that's over" - they then picked the best job. Which was again, one nobody in real life would've picked.

The show scored ratings of 3.0 out of 5.0, and in some mag's got 2.5. For the first episode, it doesn't seem to be going well for Claudia. Maybe she'll not need that book and can just write down all the King of's on a piece of lined paper.

Good luck Claudia. King of ways to shoot Channel 4's failing comedy again? I'm going to go with this show.