Rockall Where Art Thou?

A link to Rockall 2011 came across my desk (inbox) today. It'll be 200 years since the first recorded landfall of Rockall back in 1811. I expect it's just as unfriendly to live on today. I love the link to Ben Fogle who wanted to claim it as "Ben Land" (watch that ego fly). The story is in full here and once you get going on Rockall et al you find all interesting websites such as Islomaniac. I am veering off subject.

Back to the position of Rockall. It is was positioned in 1967 with respect to OSGB36, the extension of which is a bit of a stretch into the North Sea let alone the Atlantic Ocean. It must have been GPS'ed by now. Anyway, one to watch in 2011. In the meantime, all best wishes to my reader(s) for 2009

It's a Geo Christmas!

Christmas would not be Christmas without the obligatory map.

However, if Christmas Island doesn't do it for you how about a custom made map Christmas card to send to your nearest and dearest? Or a Stanfords one? Or some cool North Pole ones?

And look where it may get you...marriage made in heaven?

PS. For those of you who view this blog tonight - check out where Santa is!

Geo Tie

Well, I'm definitely on a roll. We have cake, stamps and now tie. It'll be headscarves next (I think not).

I was up in London on Thursday for the annual Geomatics International Faculty Board meeting of the RICS. We have board meetings quarterly but it's only at Christmas that we scrape the cash together to fly in our colleagues from New Zealand, Hong Kong, Oman and Canada. It makes it the largest board meeting per year I chair and I hope I didn't scare anyone too much with my occasional moments of autocratic chairmanship. We had a tight schedule so I sometimes had to stop people and move things on. Perhaps I'm being harsh on myself. I got a round of applause at the end which was a first.

Following the meeting we had an evening lecture. Sir Martin Sweeting of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd gave a fascinating talk on small satellites.

I must confess I think of small satellites as something you can get in your living room; but Martin's idea is something you can pop in your shopping basket or even pocket. Nano and pico sized. Small but sweet.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Martin for our dinner. We were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Land Division of the RICS (don't panic, the hydro bit came along a tad later) and had gathered as many ex-presidents/chairs as we could. Some old, familiar faces mingled most happily with the new faculty board. We have a lot to learn from these 'giants' of surveying.

Geo Stamps

Firstly we had a cake, now we have stamps. Have just come across a stamp website (don't ask why) containing oodles of stamps with maps on. Cool eh?

Geo Cake

I have never, ever, come across such a fantastic geo cake as this! We had a craft festival at work today and two of the guys worked through the night, so the rumour goes, to create this work of art. I have their permission to blog this so all credit (and copyright!) to Simon and George! Long may your cake baking fame live.

Are we in a Dying Profession?

And on the 'yes' side we have Dr Derby who points out that the average age of a surveyor in the US is 55 years (makes me terribly young!) and in the 'no' camp we have A Mir.

I side with Mr Mir for the very simple reason that I have a good 20 years left in this profession and I don't want it to peeter out on me!

Discuss.