A Book

Hi Blogheads:

Today is a free post so I thought I'd like to write about my favourite British authors.

I started reading at quite a young age. I was also a very fast reader and if I liked a book I had a tendency to search for and read books by the same author.

As a child, I read everything by Enid Blyton, C.S.Lewis (the Narnia books), Arthur Ransome. As I got older I read everything Tolkien and Orwell. I then got into Science Fiction and read hundreds of Sci-Fi books. Authors I read included Micheal Moorcock, Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert. Later I got into more existentialist stuff like Sartre and Camus plus authors like Kafka & Dostoyevsky. I later discovered Mervyn Peake who wrote the Gormenghast trilogy and which is possibly my favourite read of all time. 

Since arriving in Chile I've read many books in Castellano. I read many things by Garcia Marquez plus Bolano, Sabato y others. More recently I have been reading British author David Mitchell - who is wonderful - and Haruki Murakami. The last novel that really blew me away was The Book of Strange New Things by Dutch writer Michel Faber. It's sort of something "spiritual" in a Science Fiction setting - but it isn't really Sci-fi. Here's a like to the wiki page: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_Of_Strange_New_Things

I read this year I have read a really good book about the stomach called The Gut and the first half of a book by Murakami but I haven't had too much time to read many novels. 

Write a 200-word post on a book or genre of fiction you like.
Say:
What the book or genre is,
Why you like it,
When you read it for the first time.
Mention anything else you think is important or interesting. Leave a comment on your teacher's blog & on the blogs of 3 classmates.

Technology

Hi Friday Bloggers:)
Post 1 is about a piece of technology you use. I'm a big fan of technology and I try to keep up to date with new electronic gadgets. I love playing with photographic cameras, video cameras, computers and that sort of thing. I guess these appliances have had a big effect on my life. When I was a child my parents brought their first television (black & white!) when I was 6 years old. The Higginson family got its first record player when I was 11 and digital watches and electronic calculators became common whilst I was at secondary school (I could never afford either!). Many of the appliances that people nowadays take for granted have become common during my lifetime, things like digital cameras, cell phones and computers didn't exist when I was a boy. I think the first piece of technology I owned was a synthesizer, a Korg MS10 which I bought in 1978. I never really learnt to use it properly and I must have sold it a few years later when I moved to London. 

My favourite piece of technology nowadays has to be my sampler. I bought it a few years ago and, although I still haven't had time to learn all its functions, it gives me hours of fun. It's an Akai MPC 5000 which is the biggest sampler in the MPC series. It has 16 in pads in 4 banks which means up to 64 samples can be loaded and then played into sequences. Each sequence can have up to 99 tracks. The sequences can then be programmed into songs. Traditionally, the MPC is used to make hip-hop but I experiment will lots of other styles too. Here's something I did on the MPC with a Chilean friend:
Write about your favourite piece of technology. 
Say: 
What it is, 
When you got it, 
What you use it for, 
Why you like it.
Mention anything else you think is important. Write at least 150 words. Leave a comment on your teacher’s blog and on at least 3 of your classmates’ blogs.

A Friend

Hi Striking Bloggers!

Today I'm going to talk about a friend. The person I'm going to tell you about is Martin. I first met him in 1978 when he auditioned as a drummer for the band I played in. I was 18 or 19 and he was 16. We got on well from the start. I like Martin because he has a good sense of humour and is generally a very easy going person. I guess the main things we did together apart from playing music was to go for a drink or watch movies together. We also went to a lot of concerts together like The Clash and David Bowie. We played in the same band for about 5 or 6 years then Martin went to study art in Hull, a city in the North of England, and I moved to London. We kept in touch and Martin used to come and stay with me whenever he was down south. When he finished university he moved to London and we lived in the same place for about 6 months. A few years later we lost touch. I was living in Spain and Martin moved to the USA. We had no contact for about 10 years but I finally managed to track Martin down on the internet. Nowadays Martin lives in New York working as an illustrator and doing restoration of old artworks. About 10 ago, I went to stay with Martin for a week. It was my first time in New York and it was great to have someone who lived there show me all the sights. We spent lots of time walking and talking and it was really nice to catch up after all this time.

Here's a photo of when we were younger:)
 Write about a good friend.
Say:
Who they are,
How long you've known them
Why you like them,
What things you do together.
Mention anything else you think is important.
Write at least 200 words.
Leave a comment on my blog and on the blogs of 3 classmates.

A Group or Artist

Hi Blogheads!

Today I'd like you to write about a group you have seen or would like to see. I'm lucky in that respect because I have seen 100's of great bands. As a teenage I started going to concerts (gigs) from the age of about 14 years old. Some of the artists I've seen include David Bowie, Nina Simone, The Clash, Joy Division, Prince, and lots of groups you most probably have never heard of. Today I'll write about Massive Attack who I seen here in Chile twice.
Massive Attack are a trip-hop band from Bristol. Trip-hop is a style of electronic hip-hop made in Britain at the end of the 1980's and into the 1990's. After Massive, the most well known artists are Moloko, Portishead and Tricky (all of whom I've seen live over the years).
I saw Massive Attack in Espacio Riesgo - which isn't a great place to see bands but by no means the worst. The band had a really spectacular live show with lots of slides or clips being projected on to the stage behind the band. They also work with various singers on record by use 2 or 3 when performing live. One of the main singers with the band is Horace Andy a Jamacian Singer who is about 65 years old. He has a special way of phrasing that I really enjoy listening to. The band also have some amazing songs like Safe from Harm, Unfinished Sympathy & Protection. Most people here in Chile know them for their 3rd album Mezzanine.
The thing I enjoyed most about the gig was just the fact of finally getting to see the group live, I'd been following them since their first official release in 1990 and every time I'd been in a position to see them live something went wrong and I could go. It was quite strange that I finally got to see them in Chile. I actually meet one of the band at my nephew's house in 2001, 3 years before I saw them live. Here is a video of the band on their 2nd visit to Chile in 2010.




Write about a group or artist you have seen (or would like to see).
Say:
Who they are,
What kind of music they play,
Where you saw them,
What you enjoyed about the concert.
Mention anything else you think is interesting. Write at least 200 words. Leave a comment on my blog and on the blogs of at least 3 classmates.