The joy of maps

The sale of paper Ordnance Survey maps has risen, despite the greater ease of using a mobile phone to find the way to Swansea or Aberdeen. Perhaps that’s the point: any excuse to read something other than a screen is welcome.

But also there’s a tangible beauty in physical maps that the digital version cannot compete with, as well as the challenge, having unfolded one, of putting it all back together again. Expanding maps used to navigate the countryside begin as a small booklet, open up to the size of a tent, and when desperately condensed back down to size in the middle of a rain storm, look like an origami frog.

Of course, there is a danger with a map, as with a phone, of becoming over-engrossed and missing what’s around you. Sometimes, the truly old-fashioned thing to do is just get lost.