Long Way Round, Google Earth Style

If you haven’t heard of this excellent series, here’s the skinny (from the official website):

Setting off in London in April 2004, Ewan and Charley travelled through some of the most beautiful, and at times dangerous, terrain the world has to offer. Crossing over into mainland Europe, they rode through France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada before arriving 115 days later at their final destination, New York City, USA.

Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, taking the long way round the world from London to New York on motorcycles. The series (and the book) chronicle the journey from preparation through to completion, and is one of the most interesting shows I’ve seen recently, so much so that I bought it on DVD.

Now, being that Long Way Round was about travel, what better way to track it than with Google Earth? Finding some of the smaller stops isn’t easy though, but never fear – I’ve done it for you! Running off the DVD liner notes I’ve put together a KML file of all (barring one or two) the stops along the way, as precise as I could make them – numbering 75 in total.

Grab the latest version of Google Earth from their website, then grab the KML file and enjoy your tour!

Journalistic Integrity and Tabloid Television

So, yeah, um, lack of entries. Well I kinda forewarned you.

There’s been a few subjects that I’ve considered posting about, one in particular on rap music that I’m gonna save for later. There was also one about the Mark Lundy mock trial on TV the other day but again, I’ll delay that one a little for now.

I was watching TV during work today, as I usually do, when a mate of mine called me at work to let me know that 60 Minutes were running a story on the next Star Wars movie (anyone who knows me in real life knows that I’m a total Star Wars nutbag) shortly. It turned out that it was an airing of the 60 Minutes piece from the US that I’d already read the transcript for anyways (but it was still neat to see the pictures). But anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.

The story preceeding the Star Wars one was about Australian girls being raped/killed/eaten in Tokyo brothels (I tried to find a referencing link to this but understandably, googling for “tokyo rape cannibalism” doesn’t come up with many decent results). Watching the programme, and comparing it to other 60 Minutes articles I’ve been unfortunate enough to catch, makes me realise how much that programme smacks of scaremongering. Basically, the show is an hour-long television version of the average tabloid, Weekly World News-esque magazine. The only purpose I see for these sorts of articles to be shown is morbid curiosity on the part of some viewers, because the views they’re showing are so far from what is the norm in most cases that its ridiculous. The story I mentioned portrayed Tokyo as an incredibly dangerous destination for foreign girls, and basically said “DO NOT GO THERE”. I’ve never been there myself, nor am I a foreign girl, but from what I’ve heard of people that have been there, and from my own common sense, it doesn’t come across as anywhere near that bad.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this sort of stuff doesn’t happen, but the way the show puts it across is entirely misleading and is borderline slander/libel. Unfortunately, in this day and age, journalistic integrity is a rare find. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for the rise and rise of blogging like this – its a method for those who are sick of hearing biased information to get their stories and points of view out without having to worry about spin, political sensibilities, or other such bullshit.

Go the blog!