My crazy dad
Just actuality there is a crazy man called Tom green, my father . Tom do lots of weird things like put pants on his head. One day I I brought him a new pair of trouser and then he cuts them up and makes a picture out of them.
The next day he wakes up and went to the lighthouse and went to the top and hangs pants on it.People were so shocked.Then he grabbed a child and got her work and scribbled all over it.
I went up to my dad and said:
– what’s up with her?.
My dad said that there was nothing wrong so then i said:
– Well, if there is come to me.
I think my dad is a very good but still a little crazy but still i think he is a very,very good father and i play a lot of adventures with him.
Ellie G.
CE Sant Michael’s Church Primary School, Lincolnshire.
The secret quality
One upon a time there lived a boy called don Mark. He was a very lazy person, so much than people thought that was the lasier person they’ve ever seen before.
Don Mark had a lazy dog too called Milo. It was a white and small dog, always sleeps. One day they went together to the school and something happened, the dog bit everyone! And they told the teacher, she was fuores! And the teacher sent him out! So they tropalld on and he found his houem . But this dog had a hidden quality.
A neighbor in the area found very excited that the dog didn’t bit the children for no reason, the dog was waiting patiently at the crossing of school watching children come in and out of the school. So the neighbor could see how the dog prevented children from being hit by cars with a small bite.
Eleanor K. B.
CE Sant Michael’s Church Primary School, Lincolnshire.
Little Steven
Once upon a time there lived a man called Don Nick and his servant small Steven.
Small Steven was a 97860 year old donkey. The next day Don nick thourt his trousers was a pig “ your weird” said Steven, as he looked at don Nick ‘‘ you’ve got A hole in your under pants sir or don nick” mutterd Steaven . Mr donkey dragged don Nick out into a FAR AWAY field for save the beautifuls women in that village into the FAR AWAY fields.
The old old old donkey will live over 876567 years more in the field.
10,00000000000900000 years later
THE DONKEY IS STILL
ALIVE
THE END
Daniel D.
CE Sant Michael’s Church Primary School, Lincolnshire.
The Quijote in my life
1st prize Category 7-11 y. o.
My Don Quijote is my Grandad Fred. He was born in 1939 in Liverpool, just before World War II started. His dad was also called Fred and was the 7th son of a 7th son. This was supposed to be lucky but he was miserable and angry. To avoid him, Fred and his dog called Rinty used to have lots of adventures down at Dam woods; they caught rabbits for his mum to cook for tea. He had good imagination; for example, he pretended his name was Frederick Harvey Winstanley Norman however his wife, two Daughters and Son believed this for 20 long years, even though his name was Frederick Norman.
When he was 10, people started cutting down Dam woods to build Liverpool Airport. He saw the airplanes landing and he imagined what it was like to live in a different country. When he exclaimed to his friends that he wanted to travel and live in sunny countries, they rudely pointed out, ‘You’re not brave enough. Why do you want to do that? That’s rubbish.’ But Fred still wanted to live his dream and he believed in himself.
My Grandad has a quest for adventure; at the age of 15, he joined the Merchant Navy. Where he travelled around the world! He saw: sunny blue skies, deserts and smelled the salty sea; he wanted to feel the warm weather and taste different foods and spices.
One day he went on a boat from Liverpool to take goods to India, the quickest way was to sail through the Suez Canal. However, at that time, there was a war called the Suez crisis – he was on this canal when they shut the gates tight. He wondered if a bomb might hit his boat and explode the Canal. He was stuck there for several weeks! He was only 16.
My Grandad went to Brazil and Argentina, where after drinking beer at the port, he missed his ship and spent two days with no sleep and no food, chasing it to another port, miles up the river Plate. The Captain fined him two weeks pay. He travelled to the Caribbean, India and North America, where he bought Elvis Presley records before he was even heard of in England!
Grandad wore suits he had made very cheaply in Singapore. He was wearing one when he met Grandma, when he was back in Liverpool. My Grandma’s step-mum thought that my Grandad was a trouble maker because he wore a red tie and fancy suits. She married him anyway. Now my Grandad and Grandma live in Spain. Grandma is like Grandad’s Sancho Panza.
When we visit them in Spain, we get caught up in Grandad’s adventures. He always gets lost; we once drove to a restaurant which was supposed to be 5 miles away; we took one of Grandad’s “shortcuts” and 30 miles later we finally arrived!
I think, like Don Quijote and my Grandad, you should be brave and live your dream.
My Grandad encouraged his family to travel; my mum has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia and has visited many countries. My Grandad is still living his dream; he won’t wake up as Alonso Quijana like poor Don Quijote.
Alex V.
Park Road Community Primary School
«Travels in Portugal… and Spain» by H. F. Link
Following his interest in botany, entomology and ornithology, Henry Frederick Link visited Spain with the Count of Hoffmannfegg, in 1798. The origin of this journey was initially to do a research focused in Portugal, as Link himself underlines in the introduction of the book “to collect materials for Fauna and Flora Lusitaniae”.
However, his exploration spread out to Spain and France and he went beyond his scientific purpose and decided to write a travel book about these three countries.
“At the time we had no idea of publishing and account of our travels as such; our chief attention was directed to investigating the works of nature, especially the botanical riches of the country”
Nevertheless on his return, after reading numerous accounts of travels in Portugal, Link discovered so many inaccuracies that he decided to “seize the pen to defend my friends the Portugueze” and wrote Travels in Portugal and through France and Spain. With a dissertation on the literature of Portugal, and the Spanish and Portugueze Languages.
Written in 1801 and translated from the German by John Hincley the copy available in our library was published that year by Nichols and Son Printers, in London. The information related to Spain is gathered in six chapters of the book (VII-XI), from Biscay to Extremadura, through Castile and Madrid.
USEFUL LINKS
About the author:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Friedrich_Link
About the book:
(pdf – page 18)
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/fichero_articulo?codigo=2857118&orden=0
Online book:
Club de lectura = Reading group
El Colectivo invites you to the Reading Group that organizes in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes. It offers you the opportunity to talk about and discuss Spanish and Latin American literature, imitating the traditional Spanish tertulia. The reading group meets one Friday per month at 6.30pm in the Instituto Cervantes; it is free to join and you are welcome to come along to any session. In order to participate, there is only one requirement: to have read the scheduled book.- Todas las almas de Javier Marías -26 de marzo, 6.30pm
- El olvido que seremos de Héctor Abad -23 de abril, 6.30pm
- La virgen de los sicarios de Fernando Vallejo -28 mayo, 6.30pm
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El mundo de Juan José Millás -25 junio, 6.30pm
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La invención de Morel de Bioy Casares -16 julio, 6.30pm
Laughing over lemons
WE DON’T do stand-up comedy at the Instituto Cervantes, we don’t even do sit-down comedy very often, but last night’s audience with Chris ‘Driving Over Lemons’ Stewart was the funniest evening LondonSpanish has had for some time.
Chris proved he is just as witty a speaker as he is a writer, and another packed house was soon laughing along as he recounted his latest adventures and embarrassments in the Alpujarras. Like the rest of Andalusia, the area has seen rainfall of epic proportions in the past few months, and Chris told how a flood swept away one of its many ham-curing houses.
Locals gathered downstream hoping to salvage some of the contents as they were washed up – only to find the meat had been smashed away by the torrent and just bones remained. As Chris would later point out, mountain people are a little, um, different.
“Tourist in Spain» (1837) by Thomas Roscoe
Thomas Roscoe (Liverpool, 1791) was a British journalist and travel-writer. The account of his journeys was published by Mr. Jennings within the collection Landscape Annual. Although Mr. Roscoe wrote four volumes on Spain –which can be found in our library–, Tourist in Spain: Biscay and the Castile’s is his most representative piece of travel writing. He also wrote works on France, Italy and Morocco and The Life and Writings of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
In Tourist in Spain (1837) the author relates the events that took place throughout his travels around Spain, starting in the autumn of 1935. Bayonne is the starting point of the peninsular tour, through the Pyrenees, visiting then Vitoria, Burgos, Segovia, Madrid and ending in Toledo. Within the first half of the volume, Mr. Roscoe stresses the events related to the conflict that is taking place during that period, the First Carlist War, and its “barbarous excesses committed on both sides throughout this lamentable war”.
Besides Roscoe’s personal adventures, the author relates stories from other people that he met during his journey. With regard to the Spaniards, the journalist states that “they do not govern themselves here by the laws of ethics, but by custom, or according to the rules they can suck out of the pith of old proverbs, mostly antediluvian, and just suited to the world as it existed before the flood”.
The engravings by David Roberts that illustrate the book are one of the most remarkable features of this volume. According to Spectator, “The engravings are so uniformly excellent, that we cannot, without doing injustice to the other, name any one in particular. They are, for the most part, perfect”.
USEFUL LINKS
About the author:
http://www.hanesybont.co.uk/earlytourists/roscoe.htm
Online book:
Other works on Spain by Roscoe:
The Silent Revolution
ICLL Podcast series: New Episode (in Spanish)
The Silent Revolution
Graphic design between 1920 and 1950 constituted a means of distribution for aesthetic and political avant-garde ideas. In contrast with the Muralist movement, its presence was rather more modest but its scope was wider.
While the muralists were painting their masterpieces on official buildings, graphic art was being distributed through educational channels and channels for literacy campaigns all over the country. Some of the best artists participated in this work: Leopoldo Méndez, Alvarado Lang, Jean Charlot, Emilio Amero.
Small print production cooperatives such as Escuelas al Aire Libre, Taller de la Gráfica Popular (TGP) and artistic movements such as Los Estridentistas emerged.
Participants
José Manuel Springer
Collaborating Organisation
Embajada de México (Reino Unido)
“Spain and its People” by Eugène Poitou
First published in France in 1869, Spain and its People. A record of Recent Travel with historical and topographical notes, was translated by William Henry Davenport Adams, an English writer and journalist (whose biography is available in Wikipedia) in 1872.
The copy accessible in our library contains numerous engravings by V. Foulquier portraying scenes of the everyday life in Spain, its landscapes, traditions and main episodes of its History.
As Davenport points out in the preface,
if Poitou´s pages pretend to no great depth of reflection, they sketch the present condition of Spain, – they delineate its landscapes, they cull the choicest episodes of its history, and touch upon the more conspicuous features of the Spanish character,- with unfailing good sense, quick discrimination, and considerable facility.
Spanish people and their manners are the object of a lot of criticism made by Poitou through this book, staying such things as “They have no taste” or “Spain, nevertheless, is very good! But, I must own, the Spaniards have somewhat spoiled it; and thanks to them, I return more persuaded that ever of the truth of the adage, that we always learn something by travelling, if it be only to love better our own country”.
Don Quixote
Starting from the northern cities bordering on France and heading southwards, the author takes particular interest in describing the Cathedral of Toledo, Museo del Prado in Madrid or Zaragoza, which the author believes to be “the most interesting city of Spain”. At the beginning of every chapter a poem of renowned author is included, verses by Byron, Southey and Jorge Manrique, among others.
USEFUL LINKS
About the author:
http://www.fernandoiwasaki.com/articulos_archivos/Poitou.pdf
About the book:
Online book:
http://www.archive.org/details/voyageenespagne01poitgoog
Spanish Courses Winter 2023
Online Spanish courses
