With Brazil hosting the World Cup for the first time since 1950, what better time to look at just how Brazilians became addicted to their most popular sport…
We can go down the boring route of looking at socio-economic and cultural reasons, height of the Empire political reasons, British naval power in the late 19th and early 20th century… but why do this when we can read into the legend of Englishman Charles William Miller?
Firstly, though, let’s not call him English: his father was from Scotland, his mother was from Brazil and he was himself born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1874 (140 years before this world cup). Nevertheless, he did go to the home of association football in 1884: he was educated in Southampton and fell in love with football (and other team games), and as every Southampton fan knows, he played for them when they were called St. Mary’s.
And he returned to Brazil in 1894 with a passion for the beautiful game and two footballs- and the rest, as they say, is history. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil the whole story for you, so why not finish reading about it on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: www.oxforddnb.com?
So there’s my argument about how England handed Brazil the World Cup! Would the Brazilians have had the same passion and enthusiasm for football (which has earned them the trophy and the honour of hosting the tournament on two occasions!) if Mr Miller had not stepped off the quay at Santos with footballing passion in his heart and two footballs in his arms?
We will never know for sure (although I think they probably could’ve got hold of the footballs) but the story is definitely intriguing- let’s hope it will inspire the England team to do better in the next game…
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
(Chaucer – Prologue to the Canterbury tales)
We could have done with some more gentle weather over Easter for our Cityread London story and craft session at North Kensington Library. A handful of children braved the wind and snow to attend the session at on Thursday 8 April. Senior Customer Service Assistant, Adisa led the transport themed session.
Making buses at North Kensington Library
Children coloured and cut out models of buses, taxis, trains etc and completed transport themed puzzles and quizzes. Eventually the snow stopped, the session ended and then scores more children were blown in through the doors so we left the craft materials out so the late arrivals could continue.
Zvezdana with her dodecahedron!
The following week, Thursday 11 April, the weather faired much better. No snow so plenty of children arrived for the football themed session led by Senior Customer Service Assistant, Zvezdena. The children coloured and cut out an ingenious dodecahedron template, demonstrated by Zvezdana, to create their own personalised footballs.
Colouring in footballs at North Kensington LibraryAnd yet more footballs being created at North Kensington Library
Gaynor Lynch
Lending Librarian
Chatterbooks at Kensal Library
Chatterbooks
Chatterbooks is held one Thursday a month from 4 to 5pm. The group are very lively but welcoming and often make me laugh. We always have room for new members – so do come along!
To find out more about Chatterbooks and when our next meeting is – check out the Chatterbooks page on the library’s website.
Natasha Chaoui
Senior Customer Services Assistant
Reading Group at North Kensington Library
Reading group logo
Our reading group meets every first Monday of the month at 6.30pm, in the Learning Space at North Kensington Library. We are a small and very friendly group, always open to new members if you would like to come along and try it.
Some of the things members have said about the group are:
I like coming because it makes me read something completely different than what I normally read, and I have discovered some new authors that I love
It’s great fun to talk with other people about a book we’ve all read
I get fantastic book recommendations from other book club members
We read a broad range of fiction, a different book each month, so there is something for everyone. Recently the group has read ‘Mary Barton’ by Elizabeth Gaskell, ‘My Name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk, ‘This Book Will Change Your Life by A.M. Holmes and we read the Cityread London book ‘A Week in December’ by Sebastian Faulks.
The group will meet next on Monday 13 May at 6.30pm and we’ll be discussing ‘Sweet Tooth’ by Ian McEwan. If you would like more information about the reading group, or would like to join and borrow a copy of the book for next month, contact me at North Kensington Library.
Ishwari Prince
Ishwari Prince
Senior Customer Services Assistant
Craft session at Notting Hill Gate
Father and child at Notting Hill Gate second craft session, with paper aeroplane
Today we had our second Craft session at Notting Hill Gate Library. We made and decorated paper aeroplanes, then flew them around the library!
Notting Hill Gate’s second craft session
We also decorated pictures of flying dragons. Parents and staff joined in on the fun, flying, collecting and trying to find aeroplanes around the library when they would land in the wrong target zone.
Hello from us all at Chelsea Library! Chelsea Children’s Library has been very busy as we ran a number of successful children’s events over the school holidays. This month we’re starting a new mini series on The Chelsea Blog – some interesting facts about Chelsea Reference Library.
Children’s events
Our events this month tied in with the London wide Cityread London campaign. This year’s book is ‘A Week In December’ by Sebastian Faulks. We tailored our craft events to themes in the novel.
A London Underground bookmark
For our first event we prepared materials with a London Underground and football theme. Boys and girls relished making their very own designed bookmarks.
A football bookmarkAnother football bookmark
And as you can see the results were impressive! The children then gathered around for a Thomas the Tank engine story.
Easter crafts
Our next event was on the lines of an Easter egg hunt only this time we used miniature chocolate footballs. First of all the children cut out a card template and then assembled with glue a little Easter basket . This was then filled with shredded paper to resemble straw.
An Easter bunny mask
We hid clues for the hunt throughout the children’s library and excitedly the boys and girls went off in search of the chocolate balls. We then read ‘Football crazy’ by Colin McNaughton.
Baby rhyme time was exciting this month as it had a London theme too – we all sang:
London Bridge is falling down
Oranges and lemons
Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been?
Do you know the muffin man?
Everyone joined in and promised to come to storytime the next day where we continued the London theme – we adapted ‘Puss in Boots’ and to a London setting and the Marquis of Carabas became the Marquis of Sloane Square and the river in the story changed to the Thames.
Details of when our children’s events are can be found on the ‘What’s on page’ on our website.
Rob Symmons
Lending Librarian
Great facts about Chelsea Reference Library
#1.The Fashion Collection
Chelsea Reference Library has an extensive collection of fashion books as well as a large archive of fashion magazines dating back to 1924.
Traditional costume
The book collection covers a wide range of subjects such as costume and fashion history, regional and national costumes, occupational attire, military uniforms and different types of accessories including jewellery, shoes, hats etcetera. Our fashion books are beautifully illustrated and have great content. The fashion and costume collection is widely used by students from Chelsea College of Art and Design based in Chelsea as well as other library users with a particular interest in fashion.
Vogue Magazine – January 2013
Our magazine archives include Vogue Magazine (1923 till present) Harper’s Bazaar (1950 till present, albeit with a small gap in the sequence) and L’Officiel (1947-2001). We also have a small collection of Manufacturing Clothier (1973-1988) and Vogue USA.
Hello and welcome to our third blog post of the year. This month we thought we’d tell you about how new monthly story and craft session for children is going, some new displays and lastly something completely different….!
Story and crafts
Story and craft sessions
Our new monthly story and craft sessions started in February – over to Haider and Gemma to tell you more….
The first session started off with great success, after finishing the short story ‘The Rhyming Rabbit’ by Julia Donaldson, we started with the crafts section of the hour. Both parents and children seemed to be thrilled by the idea of making their own rabbit ears, some parents more than their kids.
Haider wearing his rabbit ears!
Gradually as the crafts section continued we had more and more kids and parents coming along to make their own set of ears, I personally believe my rabbit ears were by far the best, but then again a certain little chap seemed to have been the next Neil Buchanan. However all petty competition aside, the first story and craft session seemed to have gone off with a bang, having gotten back some really good feedback from the participators as well as ideas of what they want from the next sessions.
Our second session in March had a football theme – we read ‘Harry and the Dinosaurs United’ by Ian Whybrow and made footballers.
Haider and Gemma at our second session
Our sessions are the second Saturday of the month, 2 to 3pm. Check our website for dates – we’d love to see you!
Haider Ali, Customer Services Assistant
Gemma Baker, Senior Customer Services Assistant
New displays
We’re really lucky to have so much space to display our books at this library. I thought you’d like to see some of the displays we’ve had to celebrate various things such as St Patrick’s Day, International Book Week and the 150 year anniversary of the London Underground. If you’ve got an idea for a display – please let us know via the comments section below.
London Underground 150 year anniversarySt Patrick’s DayInternational Book Week, 18 to 22 March 2013National Science and Engineering Week, 15 to 24 March 2013
And now for something completely different….
To celebrate Red Nose Day and to support Comic Relief, Kensington and Chelsea staff were asked if they’d like to take part in a RBKC Harlem Shake. We’d thought you’d like to see what our colleagues did:
rbkc libraries blog 