He combines cartographic history and trivia with memoir and oblique observation to create a highly readable expose of the world of maps. With a mix of wry observation and hard fact, the offbeat and the completely pedantic, Parker wages a one-man war against the moronic blandishments of the Sat Nav age. Here he sings their song, celebrating everything cartographic. Have you ever got through an entire day without referring to some kind of navigational aide, be it checking the A-Z, touring the globe on Google Earth, planning a walk or navigating a shopping centre? Maps are everywhere and they are, according to self proclaimed map-addict Mike Parker, the unsung heroes of life. Mike Parker, presenter of Radio 4's On the Map, celebrates the richness of all things maps in this fantastic, critically-acclaimed read. If the British Commonwealth boasts a female counterpart to the Kintyre Peninsula, it might be the Australian island of Tasmania, which has a triangular shape so distinctive that Aussies sometimes refer to a sheila’s nether regions as her “map of Tassie.” A popular item in Tasmanian souvenir shops is a pair of woman’s panties with Tasmania’s outline printed at the appropriate site on the front panel.'My name is Mike and I am a map addict. But the “Mull of Kintyre Rule” appears to be passé now-in 2000, a British Board of Film Classification spokesperson denied that the rule existed, and men in a Kintyre-plus level of excitement are now allowed on occasion on Britain’s cinema and telly screens. In his book Map Addict, Welsh travel writer Mike Parker imagines a beleaguered film director sending an assistant to fetch a road atlas of Scotland to check against the leading man during every take of every sex scene. The crucial part of the male anatomy wasn’t allowed on screen if it got any further from vertical than the Kintyre peninsula on a map of Scotland-the “angle of the dangle,” censors called it. What’s not a coincidence is that the British Board of Film Classification long used the Kintyre peninsula’s suggestive shape as the basis for its “Mull of Kintyre Rule” to determine if a movie with nude scenes was appropriate for general release. It’s just a coincidence that one of the region’s best-known landmarks, a block of sandstone off Arran’s northern coast, is known as the “Cock of Arran.”

You might notice on the map above that the Kintyre peninsula has a notably, er, phallic shape, especially in combination with the island of Arran dangling to the east.

Map addict by mike parker