The Universty Library closes today for Christmas and won’t reopen until Wednesday 5th January 2011. Here at TOTD we’d like to wish all our readers a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with this amusing library cartoon.
http://www.unshelved.com/strips/20101220.gif
Thanks to JM for this suggestion.
TOTD has been struggling to wrap some tricky presents this year. This video shows that with a little patience even the trickest present can look lovely
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm3dm5J5r0A&feature=player_embedded
Note: The cat appears happy and unharmed!
With Christmas nearly upon us, TOTD was searching for a site that would help us to make the most of the Christmas season. So here it is
http://www.allthingschristmas.com/
All Things Christmas has tips, tricks and info on all kinds of Christmas traditions from carols and recipes to decorations and cards. If you want to do something a little different this Christmas check out this site.
TOTD recently enjoyed our end of term coffee morning all about spices. Much was learnt about the origins and uses of various spices and some delicious examples of their use in cookery were eaten.
Michael McIntyre has a wonderfully funny sketch about herbs and spices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az080LXT7FA
I’m sure many of you will recognise your own spice cupboards!!
Following on from yesterday’s post, it would be unfair not to mention another exhibition being held at the British Museum about the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/book_of_the_dead.aspx
A new exhibition opened at the British Library this week charting the evolution of the English language. Here is their website with details, events and a quiz:
Recently, John James Audubon’s Birds of America went on sale at Sotherby’s Auction House and made £7,321,250. There are only one hundred and nineteen copies of this book available:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11242275
Needless to say, it’s very unlikely anyone will be donating this to us anytime soon, but you never know…
Today is Monkey Day, an unofficial holiday celebrated all over the world to raise awareness of monkeys and their roles in evolution, animal rights and nature. There are various competitions held all over the world such as monkey costumes, knitting and storytelling:
Canadian actor, Leslie Nielsen, sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago. After starting out acting in serious roles, he made his name in spoof comedy films such as Airplane, the Naked Gun Trilogy and Spy Hard. Here is a Wikipedia entry with links to various websites:
Milldam Mail, the online newspaper run by the Journalism students at the University of Portsmouth, has a piece here about the new library that is due to open on the old Woolworths site in Southsea.
http://milldam-mail.co.uk/?p=1715
This will be a welcome addition to the services within the Southsea shopping centre, however it comes at a time when others are protesting about the ‘vandalism’ to our library services, as reported in this Guardian article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/06/writers-protest-vandalism-library-services
[Thanks to RG for highlighting this article]
