Chippy Tea?

Growing up in Yorkshire, Friday was generally "chippy tea" night.

We were lucky to have some decent chippies in the village where I grew up. My parents' house was at one stage about 2 minutes walk from the XL Chippy which was decent and did scallop fish cakes - which any northerner will tell you is NOT a fishcake. 

I checked on Street View and it's now a seafood restaurant upstairs.

Image: Alan Parkinson

I've got a reasonable collection of food-related books that reference the cultural importance of fish and chips as part of our identity, but also a meal that we owe to migrants: Portuguese and Jewish amongst others, as well as the arrival of the potato from South America and the risks taken by fishing boats in the waters around Iceland or even further north.

It's worth exploring the story of Fish and Chips.

I've produced a resource on this topic, which I've shared previously elsewhere.

It needed a little update for the 2026 situation.... and I've now completed that.

Fish and Chips - Have They Had Their Chips - 2026 by Alan Parkinson

There's an associated sheet here.

   

Fish and Chips by Alan Parkinson

A new resource which includes more details on the enquiry around this topic will be released in a few months' time as well.

Bonjour Paris!

I'm just back from the 2nd of my Easter trips: this time to Paris. 

It was a great trip, a real highlight of which was the David Hockney 25 exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The building itself is stunning, designed by Frank Gehry and looking like the billowing sails of a galleon from the front. It's in the Bois de Boulogne, which is a Metro ride out from the centre: a lovely area. Hockney was there himself the day before we visited, which was the actual opening day of the exhibition. Room after room of Hockney over four floors.

The building of the Fondation Louis Vuitton - some Snapseed treatment which has made the reflecting pool of water at the top of a cascade a different colour in an unexpected way.

Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photograpique 2007, measuring 12m by 4.5m. Largest of Hockney’s paintings and made up of 50 smaller canvasses of a landscape near the East Yorkshire village of Warter.


Here's a YouTube teaser of what's on offer. 

If you get the chance... go....

Images: top - Alan Parkinson, bottom - Sally Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license.

Grab a coffee, and listen to some geography...

I'm pleased to say that I am the latest of Kit Rackley's guests on the Coffee and Geography Podcast. We chatted about a range of things which Kit picked up on in their summary.

Some of the audio had to be rerecorded by me separately because of problems my end, so there was a little more in the original recording on my GA Presidents blog and the legacy of the former Presidents' work. Well done to Kit on editing that in so smoothly.

Why not head there to listen to me, or perhaps to some of the other guests who are far more interesting than me :)

The Podcast series has also just passed 1000 downloads. Well done to Kit and all the previous and future guests.

Yorkshire - an adventurous landscape ?

When the Tour de France came to Yorkshire from Welcome to Yorkshire on Vimeo.