Names, Names, Names!

When choosing a name for a baby sometimes there is some trouble. Click on the gap filling exercise and discover some funny situations.
After that you can get more information about how to name a baby , how to escape from a silly name , a list of unusual baby names or listen to the BBC article.

Mozart in London?

Thanks to BBC The Blue Plaque articles we can know about famous people who lived in London during some time of their lives.
Learn about the famous composer Mozart,who was brought to London as a child of eight in the spring of 1764, together with his sister Nannerl, to impress English audiences with the same feats of precocious musical genius that had already created a stir on the Continent.

His father, Leopold, court musician to the Archbishop of Salzburg, installed the family in lodgings, first in Cecil Court off Tottenham Court Road and then in Frith Street in Soho, and set about advertising the arrival of the prodigies.

In a newspaper of March 1765, Leopold assured prospective visitors to the Mozarts that they 'may not only hear this young Music Master and his Sister perform in private; but likewise try his surprising Musical Capacity, by giving him anything to play at sight, or any Music without Bass, which he will write upon the spot, without recurring to his Harpsichord.'

London music lovers were suitably impressed and a report by the philosopher Daines Barrington on Wolfgang's remarkable abilities was presented to the Royal Society. The young Wolfgang also appeared three times at court where he easily mastered the keyboard exercises King George III had devised for him.

The Mozarts moved to Ebury Street, where the blue plaque can be seen, for several weeks in the summer of 1764 after Leopold had fallen ill. Barred from playing any musical instruments during his father's recuperation, Wolfgang amused himself with composition. His first symphony was one of the results and it was performed at one of the concerts the Mozarts undertook after Leopold recovered.

The Mozarts left London in July 1765, after fifteen months in the capital, and Wolfgang never returned. In 1790, the year before his death, he was offered the opportunity to conduct a series of concerts in the city but he declined.

Vocabulary
Comprehension Quiz

Surfing in Ferrolterra

Perhaps as you know, surfing is practised on the North West of Spain, on a brave beach called Pantin.

The Pantin Classic is being held this week and you can see it alive travelling there or visiting its web page.

But if you want to know the history of surfing, start reading below and continue in "Surfing for life" web page.

On Captain James Cook's third expedition to the Pacific, his ships, HMS Discovery and Resolution, made the first recorded European visit to Hawai'i in 1778, when they stopped at the western end of the island chain on their way from Tahiti to the northwest coast of North America. After a frustrating year fruitlessly looking for a passage from the North Pacific into the Atlantic, Cook brought his ships back to the Hawaiian chain, this time stopping at the Big Island of Hawaii. There, at Kealakekua Bay, Cook was killed by Hawaiians when he made a misguided attempt to kidnap their high chief to force the return of a stolen boat.
After Cook's death in 1779 but before the Discovery and Resolution returned to England, Lt. King devoted two full pages to a description of surfboard riding, as practiced by the locals at Kealakekua Bay on the Kona coast of the Big Island. His following entry is the earliest written account of surfing.

Amazing, isn't it?

Moses at the Bat

While baseball is generally considered a "modern" sport, there are references in the Bible that could lead one to deduce that, in fact, there were Giants in those days as well:

And Abner said to Joab, "Let the young men...arise and play before us" (II Samuel 2:14)
...[and] all the people rose up... (Exodus 33:8)
And Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; and Sheva was scribe... (II Samuel 20:24-25)
And they said unto Jephthah, "Come and be our [Captain]" (Judges 11:6)
...and he measured two lines... (II Samuel 8:2)
And he set the bases... (I Kings 7:39)
And they stood every man in his place round about the camp (Judges 7:21)...

Go on reading on the Smithsonian Magazine

Let's Blog

Hi, again! After resting for a month, I'm here to start this new year with energy... and I hope you take part in new ideas to enjoy learning English, so LET's BLOG.
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