The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories 16 страница

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong played jazz, sang jazz and wrote jazz. He recorded hit songs for fifty years and his music is still heard today on television, radio and in movies.

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana on August 4^th, 1901. His father was a factory worker and left the family soon after Louis's birth. Young Louis was desperately poor. He lived with his sister, mother and grandmother in the poorest area of New Orleans known as ‘the Battlefield’ because of the fighting and shooting that often happened there.

When Louis was eleven years old, he was arrested for firing a gun into the air on New Year's Eve. He was sent to a reform school, where he learned to play the trumpet in the school's band. Eighteen months later Louis was back home and already dreaming of the life of a musician. He sold newspapers, unloaded boats and sold coal. However, in the evenings Louis played the trumpet with local groups or went to clubs to listen to jazz bands. He soon became friends with one of the greatest musicians of the time, Joe Oliver, who became young Louis's teacher. As Louis's skills developed, he began to perform professionally.

He was soon able to stop working on manual labour jobs and began concentrating full-time on music, playing at parties, dances, and at local cafés. He joined Joe Oliver's band and moved to Chicago. Later, Louis organised his own band and began to record one of the greatest series of songs in the history of jazz. Louis developed a unique style of singing: he could make his voice sound like a musical instrument and he could make an instrument sound like a singer's voice. Louis enjoyed singing improvised melodies and rhythms. Armstrong was an easy-going and communicative person. His fellow musicians called him ‘Satchelmouth’ because of his wide smile. Later, it was shortened to ‘Satchmo’.

Armstrong's biggest hits came later in his life. In 1964, his version of the song ‘Hello Dolly’ was a top hit around the world. It even replaced a top-selling hit by the hugely popular British group, the Beatles. Three years later, he appeared in the film version of ‘Hello Dolly’ with the singer Barbra Streisand. The song ‘What a Wonderful World’, recorded in 1968, was his final big hit.

Louis Armstrong never finished the fifth grade in school, yet he wrote two books about his life and many stories for magazines. He appeared in more than thirty movies. He composed many jazz pieces. He won several gold records and many other awards. Armstrong performed about three hundred concerts each year, travelling all over the world. He became known as the legend and symbol of jazz.

The Art of Campfire Cooking

Pat Mac and Mike Faverman first met when they were comedians going on tour and organising shows around the country. Later, their love of food became a new hobby they had in common and a new project.

Before they met in 2005, Mac had grown up cooking in his father’s restaurant in Idaho, and Faverman had worked as a chef in restaurants across the US. They decided to combine their two hobbies – making people laugh and cooking good food – into a travelling road show called Ultimate Outdoor Cooking. The idea of the show was to prove that cooking by campfire out in the woods is exciting but not always simple.

Mac had had a lot of camping experience before he met Faverman and it had taught him that food was extremely important for people on vacation. Interestingly, better food brought more people to the campground. When it was their turn to cook, the new campers started to give up eating hot dogs and hamburgers and started to create new recipes.

Mac and Faverman have tried different types of camping together, each time experimenting with the most suitable recipes. Their favourite dish for car camping, for example, is steak in lemon juice mixed with salt and pepper. To keep the meat fresh, they keep it cool in a car while travelling. Afterwards, when they get to the campsite, the steak is barbecued with red potatoes.

For travelling on foot with a rucksack they suggest either red potatoes with grilled and salted fish or sausages with different vegetables like zucchini, cabbage, carrots and onions. The only secret to keeping the vegetables nice and fresh while walking is to pack them properly and leave them until ready to cook in a pan over the fire at the campsite.

As they do a lot of cooking, the most useful instruments for Mac and Faverman are plastic bags, knives, a wooden rack to cut the food on and also matches and a lighter. Besides the latter, they use electric things, which can be a little risky at times. For example, a couple of years ago Mac was using an oven to slow-cook meat on a little grill. Suddenly one of the legs of the oven broke; the grill itself and the pot fell to the ground and the meat fell straight onto the dirt. Luckily, Mac used the “five-second rule”: just wash the meat off and put it back on the grill. He said later that it tasted a bit sandy, but the campers didn’t notice.

Unlike Mac, at the beginning of the project Faverman was usually unsuccessful at making a fire and putting up a tent because he didn’t have enough experience. Later, he became quite a skillful camper who could give a useful tip or two to beginners. The best piece of advice from the pair for cooking in the woods is to design the menu ahead of time and to know exactly what you are going to cook on the first and second days. A good camper should try to make the first meal easy because setting up camp takes a lot of time and effort.

Eton

Within a ten minute walk of Windsor Castle, across a bridge over the River Thames, there’s an old Gothic building. It is the legendary Eton College. It is one of England’s largest independent schools and one of the highest in prestige. Members of the British royal family are traditionally educated here. It was one of the best schools when first founded and remains so now; it is still commonly known as one of the greatest schools among all the schools in the world.

Following the old tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means all students live and study at the school with their fellow students throughout the school year. Eton is also one of the four remaining boys’ schools, so there’s no opportunity for a girl to study there. Eton students traditionally come from England’s wealthiest and most prestigious families, many of them aristocratic. Boys enter Eton at about 13 and continue there until they are ready to enter university.

The school was founded by Henry VI in the fifteenth century to provide free education for poor pupils who would then go on to get a higher education at King’s College in Cambridge. That connection no longer exists today.

All students have a uniform of a black tailcoat and a waistcoat, a white collar and dark trousers. All students wear a white tie. This uniform is not for special occasions, it is worn at all times for all classes. If you visit Eton during term time, you will see students walking along the streets with books under their arms dressed in their uniforms.

At Eton, there are dozens of organisations known as ‘societies’, in many of which students come together to discuss a particular topic. The societies are traditionally governed by the boys themselves. Societies range from astronomy to Scottish dancing and stamp-collecting. Some of them are dedicated to music, some to arts, some to languages, and so on. Meetings are usually held after supper and often include a guest speaker. Among past guest speakers were composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, writer J. K. Rowling, designer Vivienne Westwood, and actor Ralph Fiennes.

One of the oldest and most influential Eton societies is called the Pop. Its members are like school head-boys or prefects who are given limited authority over other students. They are called Poppers and take an active part in many official events of the school year, including parents’ evenings. While all students wear black waistcoats, members of the Pop are allowed to wear any waistcoat they please. Prince William, when he was a Popper, wore a waistcoat designed like the British national flag. The style immediately became popular.

Irrespective of this, the official colour of the college is the so-called ‘Eton blue’. It’s a light blue-green colour which has been used since the early 19^th century. The main purpose was to identify Eton sportsmen in rowing races and on the cricket field.