Liverpool: the place to get you thinking about ships and slavery & the Beatles

This blog looks at ways of learning about the world without having to get on a plane (in a bid to reduce our carbon footprint). While a friend sails from Liverpool to cross the Atlantic twice (respect!!) mum and daughter explore a city where travel can be a force for good or very, very bad. Words from Nicola Baird.

Clipper Race 2017 - 12 boats lined up for
display and tours at Albert Dock.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

1 “Thousands of ships must have left from this dock,” said the man taking photos of the Clipper Race as the first of the 12 boats headed out of the Albert Dock and towards the start line in the Mersey. As the 20 crew members, including my friend Nicky, waved excitedly to their landlubber friends and family, I found the site of the Sanya Serenity beginning her first leg of the around-the-world leg made me cry. It wasn’t just saying goodbye to Nicky, but also the thought of all those goodbyes that had happened here on the Liverpool docks.

There’s something about waving off a ship that is potent with the past. Of course some ships made their fortune in a good way, although Nicky’s goddaughter, Nell, and I had already seen a display at the Museum of Liverpool about the way hundreds of Chinese sailors, many with Liverpool families, had been compulsorily repatriated – with no warning – in October 1945. And of course we knew something about Liverpool’s slave trade history. But going to sea has the potential to be a make or break move… we know our friend is really looking forward to the challenge, but as her boat put up its sails and turned into a tiny, sleek dot on the River Mersey it felt very sad.

The bigger story
Liverpool played a key part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But because the enslaved were taken from Africa to the Caribbean slave markets and plantations – what’s now known as the Middle Passage – it was, at first, easy to avoid, ignore or even justify. At the Museum of Slavery there’s a huge amount of information about the slavery and forced transportation of Africans, a voyage that invariably saw many people die thanks to the terrible and cramped conditions they were kept in for the 30+ day passage.

Slavery implicated so many people. Even the foods that today we are either struggling to avoid, or may even claim we are addicted to, such as coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate (and possibly rum) were all brought to the home market from the Caribbean because of the work the slaves did. What we did was sickening but I really only heard the term “middle passage” earlier this year. A short film from the poet Benjamin Zephaniah shows him calling it a “holocaust”, which seems exactly the right term.

The exhibition also contains a section about modern day slavery, which is thankfully becoming better reported than it was, and thus easier to tackle. During the summer I’ve read about the Filipino mother abused by her employers who over worked her and refused to give her pay or her passport; the Vietnamese girls sold to be Chinese brides; the East Europeans trafficked into prostitution; the Nigerian teenagers tricked into bondage. Modern day slavery is under our British noses too: in August 2017 a UK family was convicted of keeping at least 18 people as slaves for around 26 years. 

Tip: There’s a lot to see in Liverpool but the Museum of Slavery is a must visit, and it’s free. At it’s conjoined with the Merseyside MaritimeMuseum do go and see the exhibition about the work of the Border Agency which plays a big role in identifying trafficked people – as well as tracking the illegal movement of rare animals, ivory, alcohol etc. 

2 Liverpool always seems a long, long way from my home. But once I booked a train ticket I discovered it’s really not far at all, just two hours from Euston station. As this was part of my holiday Nell and I went there via Bangor and all those Welsh tourist resorts.

Tip: Liverpool Lime Street station has baggage storage. It gets full up quickly, especially when the football is on. Solution: get there early, be super polite or pick another time to visit…

3 Liverpool is still in a building frenzy. I last visited about 10 years ago and I doubt I’d be able to recognise that Liverpool from now – although the iconic Liver birds are still atop the Liver Building near the Mersey. It’s a useful landmark if you don’t know the area well, as it’s roughly where you’ll find the Albert Dock.

Tip: Go to the Museum of Liverpool and see pictures of what Liverpool used to look like. Even when the Beatles were playing in The Cavern it was grey and positively run down. 

Classic Liverpool, there's even the Liver Building in the pic.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

4 Zillions of visitors head to the Albert Dock and waterfront area for the festivals, food stalls, galleries and restaurants. A taxi driver told me that three cruise ships had pitched up a week or so ago, each with 1,000 people, but still managed to be absorbed without overwhelming the city. The absolute best part of Liverpool for visitors is the incredible signposting to all the places you might want to go – The Beatles Story, the Tate Liverpool, the Maritime Museum, bus station, train station and shopping streets – and a huge number of traffic free shopping streets. Somehow this doesn’t seem to have put off drivers as they’ve been provided with 4,000+ parking spaces in the city centre. 

Tip: The only downside I came across on my 2-day Liverpool adventure is that different companies won’t accept return or all day rovers on their buses if you’d booked the initial ticket with another bus company.

5 You’ve got to find out something about the Beatles. We booked the Beatles Story (on line to ensure we didn’t have to queue), which is a fantastic exhibition. It’s pricey – but everything else on the docks to look at was free. It’s also valid for 48 hours so if you’ve only made it up to The Yellow Submarine phase you can take a break and then re-visit the following day. Like so many of the places we went to at Liverpool the staff were super-friendly. They also all seemed to have Liverpool accents, which we loved because it made us feel as if we were really travelling. Long live regional distinctions.  By the end of the exhibition I was an unexpected fan of George Harrison (his involvement in Handmade Films helped get my favourite film Withnail & I funded and he had a cameo role in Monty Python). I also learnt that Ringo Starr had narrated Thomas The Tank Engine for TV and that Paul met John Lennon at Woolton Fete; oh yes and that Eleanor Rigby was a real person, dead in a Liverpool Graveyard. 

Tip: The Beatles Story is totally recommended. It’s pricey – but everything else on the docks to look at was free (and pints are cheaper than down south which eased some of the pain). The entry ticket is also valid for 48 hours, so if you’ve only made it up to The Yellow Submarine phase you can take a break and then re-visit the following day.

6 On a two-day break we also had time to visit the Tate Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery, both with fantastic art displays in huge, beautiful buildings. I particularly loved the Walker Art Gallery as it reveals much about how Liverpool tradesmen saw themselves and it’s also been curated to make clear why this picture is here in this Liverpool gallery. 

Nicky's godchildren Nell and Max (with Zimbabwe flag) pose in Liverpool.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

Summing up: in 2008 Liverpool was nominated as a European cultural capital, alongside Stavanger, Norway and it has the bonus of having several city centre areas designated as World Heritage sites. It’s an old city and a busy one with a long industrial record which has kept its pride thanks to the Mersey Beat (especially the Beatles). Slavery was a hideous part of its history, but one - as the Liverpool museums make clear - that wasn’t very obvious thanks to the dirty work of shipping people across the Middle Passage so many miles from where the ship originally set sail, or returned home. We know more now and it is important not just to see the historical evidence, but to understand why that’s created an imbalance of power between the status quo and black African and Caribbean-heritage families here in the UK.

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There are many heroes who made efforts to bring slavery to an end from Wilberforce to Plimsoll, but it is quite shocking to learn how the slave owners were the ones to get compensation when their “property” was begrudgingly freed. In a just world it would have been the people given their freedom who’d have been offered additional financial compensation to help them find their feet. But it isn’t a just world, still.

In today's Liverpool the obvious signs of great wealth (fabulous public architecture for example), and the people able to have fun without watching their wallets, are never far from the homeless or families in very rundown homes. It's not slavery, of course, but it ought to make us all think about ways we as individuals can help the people who have a great need.  

Nicky, my sailing friend  who was the reason we all went to Liverpool in August has set up a fundraising page to raise money for Migrants Organise, which works with refugees. If you'd like to donate that would be fantastic, here's the link. Thank you.

Indian style in the heart of Brighton

This blog looks at ways of learning about the world without having to get on a plane. Here's a look inside George IV's crazy Brighton Pavilion which is a mix up of India and China, places that the King never visited. Best of all it's full of dragons. Words from Nicola Baird.

Brighton Pavilion - the regent's love nest with an Indian style
exterior, Chinese inside. Like me George IV hadn't visited either country.

For years I've wanted to go to India - via the famous Brighton Pavilion, in Brighton. I had no idea what was inside (and now I know why - it's because it's not a place that encourages photos or instagram feeds although the website has a fantastic intro video, see here). But I'd heard it was something special. So I abandoned the dog and took a late afternoon trip to Brighton. What an absolute treat awaits you just a 10 minute easy downhill stroll from the train station.... a glorious garden and an eye-popping building in Indo-Saracenic Revival style (get that!) with minarets, domes, bumpy things all in a beautiful pale quarry stone. 

Inside the decor is as over the top as is possible, and I loved it. There's a room which is full of dragons. Snakes are wriggling down the walls. Birds are captured in the hand-painted wallpaper and beautiful bamboo motifs keep repeating themselves on chairs, staircase balustrades and walls. It looks Indian outside, Chinese pagoda inside. And then there are the domes with incredible shiny scales, and lights that are as big as vast upturned umbrellas.

You can have a virtual tour of the banqueting room on this link  (but it's much better being in the room).

George IV was only king from 1830-37 but he was also Prince Regent before his coronation. The Brighton Pavilion was for lavish entertaining.  Eventually it was inherited by Queen Victoria who found it far too public and sold it. It's now owned by Brighton, but has had various uses including an Indian Hospital and a venue for baby shows, flower shows, tea rooms and even a flea circus...

Head down North Road past the Dome and turn right into the gardens. The Dome
used to be George IV's stables and there is a secret tunnel from here to the pavilion,
used by George when he felt too fat shamed by the ever-staring public.

As might be obvious I didn't take a guided tour, or buy the guide book so learnt minimal factual info. But who needs facts in a building that kick starts the senses? If you have a chance do go - and i think it would be a lovely visit with children too as there are so many animals, birds, reptiles and insects scattered in the pattern to distract (aka find) while you oh and ah over the decor. For example you can find moths motifs woven into the domed music room carpet. It is an expensive visit (approx £20 but that can give you a year's visiting rights) but clearly it's an expensive building to maintain. Apparently you often see conservators at work.

And if you do go, try getting a cup of tea in the upstairs cafe with it's lovely tile decor and beautiful rooftop balcony with views over the gardens.

I have to admit that i've always been a bit anti Brighton - it's a place that feels like it is permanently holiday time - but clearly I'm mellowing. Not only was the Brighton Pavilion a pleasure to visit, the locals were really helpful about pointing us in the correct direction. And as for this famous symbol of Brighton, well, I especially like the way George never visited India or China, despite Britain's huge Empire of the time. Instead he brought "exotic" versions of these two vast countries to the UK in the form of this pleasure palace - clearly he was also a fan of virtual travel.

• Info about the Brighton Pavilion - a once royal palace - is on this website. Tickets bought on line are 10 per cheaper.

Celebrating our National Trails: the joy of a long walk

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. The world has many long walks - from the Great Wall of China to mega trips undertaken by adventurers who know it's all taking the first step. Pete May gets some tips from writer Paddy Dillon about where to go in the UK for his next big walk.

Pete May and dog tackle the Thames Path on a very wet day.

AroundBritain No Plane enjoyed celebrating Cicerone’s very useful guides to National Trails at Foyles Bookshop in London. Now the guides include an OS-style mapping booklet that gives you all the mapping you need for the Pennine Way, Coast to Coast, Cotswold Way, Hadrian’s Wall, Offa’s Dyke, Pembrokeshire Coast Path, Great Glen Way, Thames Path and West Highland Way. The dedicated route maps eliminate the need for buying lots of separate maps and can be used in either direction. They were praised by Kate Ashbrook, President of The Ramblers. And all the guides also have very useful accommodation sections and tips on who baggage carriers, if that's what you or your family need.

Cicerone writer Paddy Dillon gave an entertaining talk on walking all the long distance trails of Britain — and he’s now walking them again to revise his guides. Paddy, who grew up with Burnley, first walked the Pennine Way at 16, “when I did absolutely everything wrong, so I could only get better!” He showed pictures of his travels around the UK’s trails and introduced us to some of the more obscure but interesting paths such as the Yorkshire Wolds Way, Peddars Way and North Norfolk Coastal Path, the Pennine Bridleway, the Speyside Way and Glyndŵr’s Way.

By this time I was tempted to tackle the North Norfolk Coastal Path or the Yorkshire Wolds Way this summer.

The next speaker, Ursula Martin of OneWomanWalksWales, got me thinking about how to walk across Wales.

After being diagnosed with ovarian cancer Ursula decided to walk 400 miles to her next hospital appointment in Bristol to raise money for cancer charities. She eventually completed 3000 miles along trails like Offa’s Dyke, the Cistercian Way, the Severn Way, the high-level Cambrian Way (“which almost broke me”) and the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path (“my favourite”). “People’s kindness was overwhelming. I planned to rough camp, but I was given so much stuff, tea, meals, and beds for the night. There was a lot of serendipity.” 

Initially she planned to walk 19 miles a day but then suffered a tendon injury. “In the end I let go of time and distance and just walked.” After her treatment Ursula has been clear of cancer for four years and is now writing a book about her journey. Her next project is to walk and sail through Europe.

A morning spent talking national trails can’t help but inspire some wanderlust for Britain’s vast array of walkways and Cicerone’s very thorough guides are the ideal way to plan your route. 

• Details of Cicerone’s guides can be found at http://www.cicerone.co.uk
• Details of One WomanWalks Wales can be found at http://www.onewomanwalkswales.com

Over to you

Do share your best long distance routes - have you tried doing a long walk on your own or do you have any tips to tempt your family along?

Maybe it's time to learn a little Chinese?

This blog is about low-carbon family travel. Staying home shouldn't be a barrier to getting prepared for meeting people. Here Nicola Baird considers whether to challenge the family to take a few Chinese lessons with the aid of a new Mandarin book.

In my house language is learnt via the washing up sink - the moment I put on my rubber gloves on goes a different radio channel. For the past few months the dishes have been soaped, scrubbed and rinsed to a lot of terrible French pop music. Perhaps it's time for a change?

Learning Mandarin has never been top of my to do list - but I do like celebrating the Chinese New Year and in 2015 it will be Thursday, 19 February (when the honours go to the goat.) Perhaps there's time for me - and the kids - to learn a few phrases by then? It'd be fun to listen to people greeting each other in China Town or start to hear the words used at a Chinese restaurant.

If you love to eat delicious Chinese food (pork and fish in this pic) isn't it just courtesy
 to have a go learning a few words as well as how to use chopsticks? 

As a friend, Elinor Greenwood, has recently written a book to get children learning Chinese maybe I should give her language lessons a go? I like the way they are described as "fun" and "easy". As for the stickers and app that it comes with, well they'll be a great way to ensure my daughters join in too...

You can order Fun and Easy Chinese from Amazon.

When all you want is Glamour in Chinese

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here I find a tiny shop in London where you can find 139 Conde Nast titles (like GQ, Vogue and Vanity Fair) published in 25 countries... Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs). I also publish an interview every week with people who live or work in Islington at islingtonfacesblog.com - there's a prize for the 100th follower.

Around 39 million people read Vogue each month
 - so can you guess how many countries Vogue is published in?

Tucked beside a high street bank on the less glam side of Hanover Square there's a slim, white-walled newsagent which only stocks Conde Nast titles. The result is amazing - a wall of fabulous magazines in different languages, discretely ordered using the correct national flag.

If you want to learn French reading a glamorous magazine, travel like an upmarket Italian or swot up in the hope of joining Conde Nast's research team for the few countries which don't yet have their titles, then this is the newsagent to visit.

We all know Vogue and GQ, but since 2001 Conde Nast has organised 86 magazine launches around the world. There are now 20 Vogue, 18 GQ, 14 Glamour, eight Architectural Digest, two Tatler (Russia and the UK) and six Conde Nast Traveller.

2014 will see two new launches - a French Vanity Fair and a Traveller for the Middle East.

For any magazine addict it is a pleasure to visit this shop and imagine the zillions of different readers throughout the globe opening up a fresh copy of their favourite magazine.

Verdict: The perfect place for virtual travel, or simply try the website 

Living history at Ironbridge

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at the joys of visiting the birthplace of the industrial revolution and wondering what it must have been like in its heyday... was Ironbridge the sort of hell some unregulated resource hotspots seem to be now - say when making mobile phones on Indonesia's Bangka island?  Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

It's rare that I make a long car journey with my family, mostly because taking a train is far more comfortable. However in August we decided to drive from London for a fortnight in Wales so hired a car which would allow us to make a detour. For kids who don't use cars much a pitstop at a motorway service station can be a highlight, so what we needed was a place to stretch our legs.

Ironbridge was the obvious candidate for a cultural stop-off too. It's the birthplace of industrial history - a fact I kept sharing with my passengers as we turned in the direction of another brown tourist sign that led us to Ironbridge from the M54. 

To begin with the kids, dog and my partner all seemed underwhelmed by the prospect of visiting an iron bridge (this is a very literally named location but it was built in 1779 so should be forgiven for that!). 

However when my family saw that Ironbridge is set in a beautiful gorge the mood changed. There are 10 museums to visit, and most are open every day from 10am-5pm. Some are free although the family pass offers 12 months of visits and on our short stop-over we didn't need to pay for anything, other than the snacks we picked up. 

Best of all the area offers a real sense of Victorian working history - not just the bosses, but also the workers involved. This honest interpretation is clearly liked by visitors - recently Tripadvisor rated Ironbridge as a better place to visit that the Pyramids in Egypt. It's also rated one of the top UNESCO sites in the world (ie, in a beauty/historic battle against Macchu Pichu, Peru and the Great Wall of China). See UNESCO's info here.

What I liked after hours of motorway driving was the serenity... yet in it's hey day Ironbridge and the surrounding area was simply hell. This is partly explained by a journalist writing for The Daily Telegraph, see the link here:

The gorge contains a four-mile stretch of the River Severn, flowing south from the Welsh mountains to the Bristol Channel. There has been iron-making there for centuries: what put it on the map and – arguably – fuelled the industrial revolution was mass production. In 1709 a Bristol Quaker, Abraham Darby, began smelting with coke from the Shropshire coalfield instead of woodland charcoal. His Coalbrookdale Ironworks churned out the raw material that would underpin everything from railways to steam power. The gorge glowed with industry 24 hours a day like a vision of hell. Darby’s grandson built the elegant, single-span, cast-iron bridge itself in 1779.

It made us all think about how industry has been cleaned up - at least in most of the UK. Yet for some workers conditions remain life-threatening and environmentally destructive. For instance the business of mining for the materials needed to make smartphones devastates parts of the coast and farm land on the Indonesian island of Bangka. 

In the end we walked over the iron bridge and took the dog for a run along one of the many footpaths that follow old railway routes (it helps that the area is so well signposted, see pic above). We also sped around a tiny  museum (free) and then stocked up on pies and coffee. I could have stayed for several days, and indeed plan to return as there's a huge amount to explore at the Blists Hill Victorian Museums, Ironbridge Museums and Coalbrookdales Museums sites. 

Best of all it's a very car-free friendly location - with free park and ride well signposted.

Find out more at www.ironbridge.org.uk including the special evening events and Christmas weekends (16-17 November 2013).

For updates about Friends of the Earth's make it better campaign, see http://www.foe.co.uk/what_we_do/make_it_better_about_37804.html

Fireworks make us go Chinese

Rambutans plus exotic cartons of juice.

Fireworks are a Chinese invention - stumbled on in the 7th century after a cook spilt saltpeter (a gunpowder ingredient) on to their cooking fire with explosive results. This useful bit of knowledge means that around early November the amount of colourful explosions celebrating Bonfire Night (5 November) make me think of noodles, soaring towerblocks and all things Chinese. It's such a vast country, and in many ways I'm astonishingly ignorant about both it, and the strong links China has to the UK.  You can find out masses about how Chinese people came to the UK - dating from around 1901 - at the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, which takes a fascinating look at how the Chinese have become such an important part of the UK economy. The site estimates around 500,000 Chinese are now living in the UK (with the majority in London). This website also suggests that without Chinese students in the very best UK public schools these private schools wouldn't be able to continue economically. Food for thought to say the least.

Of course many countries - and lots of cities including Liverpool (which boasts a massive ceremonial arch imported from Shanghai), Manchester and Newcastle off Stowell Street - have a "Chinatown", so as a half-term treat I took Lola and her friend Freya for a Chinese meal in London's Chinatown. Both girls are 14, but neither seems to have eaten much Chinese food. This is really quite strange seeing as the Chinese take-away was probably the first exotic food that their grandparents probably tried (and Lola's great grandfather spent years soldiering in Hong Kong)... Even now there's a huge number of Chinese take-aways in the UK serving fabulous food. The most popular takeaway dishes according to this site are: 

1. Chow mien
2. Beef in oyster sauce
3. Chicken with cashew nuts
4. Sweet and sour pork
5. Sweet and sour prawn

However we three diners are all vegetarian - so we began our search for a tasty meal near Leicester Square at Yang Guang, the Chinese supermarket on the corner of Newport Court (which also has a branch at Monk Street in Newcastle) to see what might be on offer. The girls were amazed by the huge white Chinese radishes and the plethora of exotic cartons of drink and encouraged me to buy juices labelled as sugar cane, lychee and chrysanthemum as well as a bottle filled with a mix of lurid green jelly-like liquid in which basil seeds seem to float - a dead ringer for frog spawn. Then on Gerrard Street we found New Loon Moon Supermarket and added some rambutans to our goodie bag.

Lola and Freya in London's Chinatown.

Chinatown is a magnet for people wanting a Chinese meal...but it's not necessarily the best place to go. A Chinese friend told me that it's filled with chains now, so a trip there could end up with you eating in the equivalent of McDonalds or Nandos. 

We ended up eating in New Aroma - an old fashioned place at 11 Gerrard Street which serves Fujian and Sichuan dishes at tables covered with white linen table cloths. Lola noticed it had been given a food and hygiene rating of just one, which I rather dismissed seeing as there were plenty of Chinese people enjoying tasty looking, piping-hot dishes -surely the test for whether to eat in a restaurant, or not. We then set to work with chopsticks to demolish vegetable noodles, broccoli in chilli sauce, aubergines and various rather snail-textured mushrooms and water chestnuts. The girls loved it, and it made me very happy that a short tube ride from our home we can find a completely different food world.

Over to you
Do you ever cook Chinese food at home - have you figured out the difference between a Chinese fast food set up (as many now are on Gerrard Street in London) and expert regional cooking? Any tips how I can work it out? Or where to go without leaving the UK...

Water source: canal and river exploration

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post sees our family dreaming up two winter projects to help us explore the world and get to know two river routes out of London. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).  

New River appears at Clissold Park - here it is allowed to be an area for dogs to splash around.

This blog has done it: it's just gone over 25,000 views. This year it's also included our efforts to finish off the Hadrian's Wall walk, and the Capital Ring which encircles London. Great achievements... but I had a restless feeling that we needed another family project.  Strangely after a few months struggling to think what to do, two plans burst into mind which will keep us occupied and offer fascinating contrasts. 

Find this in Finsbury Park.

The plan is to walk the New River - which is famously neither new, nor a river - but a canal that brings water up to London from Hertfordshire. Its source is Ware, not so far from where I grew up, and  the route ends up  Sadler's Wells, Islington not so far from where I live now. Amazingly the New River was completed in 1613, nearly 400 years ago (anniversary in 2013) but it now brings water to the East and West Reservoirs on the edge of Green Lanes, Hackney - from there the water for London either goes into a massive great pipe called the London Ring, or looks set to be doing this. I only found out this thing existed when we looked at plans of our house when we were buying it and saw that there was a huge tunnel that wasn't a tube marked as crossing under our cellar some 30m, maybe 50m down. A journey down the New River has to take us via the world's biggest canals - Suez, Panama and the Grand Canal of China. There are loads more which I hope to discover things about during our time plodding along beside the New River.

We also intend to walk from the sea to the source of The River Thames - an exploration made possible by the fact that this is a very well-trod long distance path with an extremely tidy ending: a pub and station at Kemble just a couple of fields from the spring that is the surprisingly unspectacular source of this great river. This journey will give us the chance to replicate some of the amazing explorers' journeys to find the Nile, the Congo, the Amazon etc. Here's hoping.

is there a river or canal near you that you could explore? If so, do join in with your own river trip. Let me know how you go - or what are the best parts of river exploration.

Here is another post I've written about river exploration.
http://aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/journey-to-end-of-nile.html

Air pollution is very high in dot dot dot

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how air pollution in London makes me think of all the places I'd rather not live. Except that I live in one of them. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs).   Pic is of numbered pegs - try the air pollution challenge. Which county (or country) do you think is the most polluted, peg them up... Or pop an answer in the comment box.

Air pollution today - 16 March 2012 - is very high in, dot dot dot.

Actually I'm thinking London. But it's also bad in Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Los Angeles, Beijing and a spread of Chinese cities (not long ago a report found that 16 out of 20 of the world's worst polluted places were in China).

"It's the fog," says my husband looking out at a gloomy London.

"NO it's not!!" I reply, almost screaming (sorry). It's pollution trapped by the fog. The fog is not the cause.

Wake up people - ask your local councillors what they can do about it. Ask your MPs. Then remember that this is the exact perfect example of where we have to think global and act local.

This link gives you up to date facts around the UK. Purple is very bad. Red is pretty terrible. Today London is wearing purple. Lots of good info about how to campaign for clean air here.

This clip is of my youngest daughter talking about how air pollution triggers asthma. More precisely, how she feels when she gets asthma.

Over to you
Which countries/counties do you think are the most polluted?