Philip Pullman

Connection with Oxford

The Lyra’s Oxford was published in 2003 as a short book. This story is set in Oxford two years after the end of The Amber spyglass. The story is about a witch that wants vengeance because of the death of his son in the Authority war and takes to Lyra to a trap. The birds save her miraculously and she met an alchemist that had been the lover of the witch.

In 1463 he attended to Exeter College, Oxford; Taught middle school in summertown; taught part time at Westminster college, Oxford.

Films

One of his bestselling books is now one of the most important films in the U.K. The book is named “The Golden Compass”, this film was made in 2007 directed by Chris Weitz. It talks about the story of Lyra Belacqua and her journeys to the North Pole to find some of her best friends and other people from the terrible experiments by a mysterious organization. Some of the scenes in the movie take place in Oxford.

Interviews

When Philip Pullman was interviewed he said that if someone asks him about the meaning  or the message he is trying to send from his books he will never told them the meaning or the message because it depends in you to understand it.

Awards

Philip pullman has written a lot of books, the most important and more famous have been the thrilogy called The Dark Materials, and a fictionalized Biography of Jesus.

The first book of the dark materials has been turned into the film The Golden Compass, also the books sally lockharts, I Was a Rat has been adapted to the television.

He also has written a lot of short stories more like fairy tales.

He has won a lot of prices; the prices he have won are:

1995   British Fantasy Award   (shortlist)   Northern Lights
1996   British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year   Northern Lights
1996   Carnegie Medal   Northern Lights
1996   Guardian Children's Fiction Prize   (joint winner)   Northern Lights
1996   Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Gold Award)   (9-11 years category)   The Firework Maker's Daughter
1997   Carnegie Medal   (shortlist)   Clockwork
1997   Whitbread Children's Book Award   (shortlist)   Clockwork
2000   British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year   The Amber Spyglass
2001   British Book Awards Author of the Year
2001   Whitbread Book of the Year   The Amber Spyglass
2001   World Fantasy Award for Best Novel   (shortlist)   The Amber Spyglass
2002   Eleanor Farjeon Award
2003   British Book Awards Audiobook of the Year   (shortlist)   His Dark Materials
2003   British Book Awards Author of the Year   (shortlist)
2003   British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year   (shortlist)   Lyra's Oxford
2005   Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (Sweden)   (joint winner)
2005   Carnegie Medal   (shortlist)   The Scarecrow and his Servant
2005   Nestlé Smarties Book Prize   (shortlist, 9-11 years category)   The Scarecrow and his Servant
2007   Carnegie of Carnegies   Northern Lights

Trailer
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1279459353/

By Alejandro Ascencio 

Luis Gerardo Guerra

Enrique Desentis

Something about Evelyn Waugh...

English writer that was born in London 1903, he was one of the leading satirical novelist of his day.He studied in Hetford College, he arrived in Oxford in January 1922 and he gave many maiden speeches at the Oxford Union; then he became the secretary of Hetford College debating society and also he wrote a lot of reports for the two main magazines of Oxford (Cherwell and Isis). 

He wrote 16 novels but also he published travel book and biographies, his most popular book was "BRIDESHEAD REVISITED", this novel talks about the life of two students in Oxford, also there appear some problems about alcoholism, good and bad love relations and the environment is not very comfortable because a great majority of the facts in this story is in the half of the 2^nd world war. This novel is consider a dramatic novel because some parts of story talk about the change of religion, break-up of good friend relations and the behavior of nervous . All facts begin before 2^nd world war and it’s because the love before war, is beautiful and grow in pretty environment of Oxford.

Brides Head revisited is one of the best and most beautiful England novels because in it is included some topics like drama, love and war, things that a majority of people think is impossible to find in a good novel.

 This is the most popular book that Evelyn wrote.

Evelyn Waugh was a dedicated person with his city that was oxford and our team decided to talk about him because he wrote a lot of novels, as we search we realized that evelyn had a hard life and he was almost one of the best leading satirical novelist.  

Oxford Writers

John Betjeman

John Betjeman was born on August 28th, 1906, near Highgate, London. He attended his first schools in Highgate. Then, he studied at the Dragon School, Oxford when he was eleven years old. Three years later, he went to Marlborough College.

In 1925, he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. However, because of the distractions of college life, he didn´t complete his degree and failed a Divinity exam. After that, in 1931, his first book of poems “Mount Zion” was published by an old Oxford friend, Edward James.

He was a poet, writer and broadcaster. Some of his poems are “Ghastly Good Taste”, “Continual Dew”, “How to get on in society”, “Christmas”, “Loneliness”, “In a Bath Teashop”, “Winter Landscape”, “Sun and Fun”, etc.

He became popular because of his gift for comic writing, his dazzling, technical abilities and his combination of eccentricity and Englishness. This was his writing style.

This is a fragment of one of his works called “The Last Laugh”:

“I made hay while the sun shone.
My work sold.
Now, if the harvest is over
And the world cold,
Give me the bonus of laughter
As I lose hold”

This poem can be applied to the weather in the UK because in the sunny time, there´s a lot of nature; but, when the winter comes, all die. In a personal way, it means that all the good things you made in the past, have a good future and you can also overcome the problems in your life.

By Blanca, Rodolfo and Viridiana

Colin Dexter

COLIN DEXTER


What we found out about Colin Dexter is that he is a crime writer who was born in September 1930. He is best known for his novels of Inspector Morse, which were adapted to television from 1987 to 2000. 

His novels and tv series take place in Oxford. We can find his connection with Oxford also in the University, he worked there and took up the post of Senior Assistant Secretary at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in Oxford– a job he held until his retirement in 1988.


Inspector Morse is very popular in U.S. as well, many tourists want to know the places where Inspector Morse was, so you can take a tour in Oxford to know those places.

There are 13 novels of Inspector Morse.

He has won many awards such as : two Silver Daggers for Service of All the Dead in 1979 and The Dead of Jericho in 1981; two Gold Daggers for The Wench is Dead in 1989 and The Way Through the Woods in 1992; and a Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 1997. In 1996 Dexter received a Macavity Award for his short story Evans Tries an O-Level. In 1980, he was elected a member of the by-invitation-only Detection Club.

By: Bárbara, Karla, Ana.

Samurai swords

Barbara Marichalar Quezda

Luis Gerardo Guerra Garrido

Samurai Swords

Today we visited the Ashmolean museum and we found very different and interesting objects.

There were two swords, the small one and the big one. The small one was called Wakizashi, it was a curved object made of steel, lacquer, mixed metals and silk. It was signed in 1447 and was used by Goto Tatsujo, who was a Japanese samurai. The large sword was called Katana, it was a curved and straight sword made of steel, lacquer, mixed metals and silk. It was signed in 1457 and was also used by Goto Tatsujo.

We liked this objects because they looked bright and powerful, also they were very interesting weapons in their time.

Egypt Momification

Yesterday, we visited Oxford Natural History museum and we saw a lot of interesting things like: exotic animals, dinosaurs, fishes, and the evolution of those. We think that the most interesting topic was the Egypt mummification so we are going to talk about the methods and spiritual perspective.

Sarcophagus decoration

In the old Egypt the most important people like imperators or politics were the biggest part of all Egypt’s society and it’s because when this type of people die, the decoration of sarcophagus need to be very awesome in the topic of decoration. The Egypt’s tradition said if a sarcophagus has lots of drawings with the actions of the die person, the reward for this person would be better. The judge in the infra-word is Horus the eagle god that put the heart of die person and compares it with a plume in a balance, if the heart has the same weight of the plume; this person had a good life.

Animal’s mummification

Most animals, reptiles, birds and fishes were regarded by the ancient Egyptians as sacred for four main reasons:

·         To allow beloved pets to go on the afterlife

·         To provide food

·         To act as offerings to a particular god

·         And because some were seen as physical manifestations of gods

The most common animals were: dogs, cats, bulls, monkeys, crocodiles, scorpions and represent gods like: ANUBIS, HORUS, SEBEK, ETC. They were treated as same as humans.

Afterlife

They believed that one day the world would end and that the dead would travel to an afterlife where they would stay forever. They would try to mummify the dead bodies because they didn’t want the body’s to rot because they thought if the body would rot then it couldn’t go into the afterlife without all its body parts. Egyptians made it important that the bodies were preserved for them to continue the afterlife.

Method of mummification

º The brain and viscera were removed and preserved in canopic jars.

ºThe body cavities were filled with resin

ºThe balming incision was then sewn up

ºThe body was now impregnated with dry Natron for forty days to desiccate it.

ºThen the body would be anointed with various oils.

In our opinion this was an excited place to visit in Oxford and we learn a lot of things about animals, and other cultures. So if you have the opportunity visits this museum.