SAMUEL COOKE, THE TRAGIC END OF THE KING OF SOUL

Today, The Grandma has started her latest course of the year in Sant Boi de Llobregat. It has been a great pleasure to meet again some Stones, some Watsons and some other old and new friends who want to learnt about branding and social networks.

After meeting her old friends, The Grandma has returned at home to prepare new classes for this new course. Meanwhile she has been working, she has been listening to one of her favourite artists, Sam Cook, the American singer and songwriter who was killed on a day like today in 1964 and wrote incredible songs like A Change is Gonna Come, a hymn for Civil Rights.

Artists are eternal because art lives forever meanwhile people remember it. They are eternal brands.

Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931-December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. 

He was also influential as a composer and producer, and is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocals and significance in popular music.

Cooke was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago with his family at an early age. He began singing as a child and joined the Soul Stirrers before going solo and scoring a string of hit songs including You Send Me, A Change Is Gonna Come, Cupid, Wonderful World, Chain Gang, Twistin' the Night Away, and Bring It On Home to Me.

In 1964, Cooke was shot and killed by the manager of a motel in Los Angeles. After an inquest and investigation, the courts ruled Cooke's death to be a justifiable homicide; his family has since questioned the circumstances of his death.

More information: PAM

Cooke's pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the work of Otis Redding and James Brown. AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was the inventor of soul music, and possessed an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed.

Cooke was born Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1931 (he added the "e" to his last name in 1957 to signify a new start to his life). He was the fifth of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness), and his wife, Annie Mae. One of his younger brothers, L.C. (1932–2017), later became a member of the doo-wop band Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents.

The family moved to Chicago in 1933. Cook attended Doolittle Elementary and Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago, the same school that Nat King Cole had attended a few years earlier.

Sam Cooke began his career with his siblings in a group called the Singing Children when he was six years old. He first became known as lead singer with the Highway Q.C.'s when he was a teenager, having joined the group at the age of 14. During this time, Cooke befriended fellow gospel singer and neighbor Lou Rawls, who sang in a rival gospel group.

In 1950, Cooke replaced gospel tenor R. H. Harris as lead singer of the gospel group the Soul Stirrers, founded by Harris, who had signed with Specialty Records on behalf of the group.

Cooke had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, plus three more posthumously. Major hits like You Send Me, A Change Is Gonna Come, Cupid, Chain Gang, Wonderful World, Another Saturday Night, and Twistin' the Night Away are some of his most popular songs. Twistin' the Night Away was one of his biggest selling albums.

Cooke was also among the first modern black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career. He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the Civil Rights Movement.

More information: Chicago Tribune

Cooke was killed at the age of 33 on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel, in Los Angeles, California. Answering separate reports of a shooting and a kidnapping at the motel, police found Cooke's corpse. He had sustained a gunshot wound to the chest, which was later determined to have pierced his heart. The motel's manager, Bertha Franklin, claimed to have shot him in her defense. Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke's acquaintances, none of whom were present at Cooke's killing.

The first funeral service for Cooke was held on December 18, 1964, at A. R. Leak Funeral Home in Chicago; 200,000 fans lined up for more than four city blocks to view his body.

Afterward, his body was flown back to Los Angeles for a second service, at the Mount Sinai Baptist Church on December 19, which included a much-heralded performance of The Angels Keep Watching Over Me by Ray Charles, who stood in for grief-stricken Bessie Griffin. Cooke was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Two singles and an album were released in the month after his death. One of the singles, Shake, reached the top ten of both the pop and R&B charts. The B-side, A Change Is Gonna Come, is considered a classic protest song from the era of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a top 40 pop hit and a top 10 R&B hit. The album, also titled Shake, reached the number one spot for R&B albums.

More information: WBEZ

 Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me.

Aretha Franklin

THE DUST BOWL, THE BIG DROUGHTS IN NORTH AMERICA

The Dust Bowl, The USA, 1930's

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has corrected the last exams of The Watsons and she has decided to read a little.

She has chosen an amazing theme, the Dust Bowl, the period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s.

On a day like today in 1935, the Dust Bowl heat wave reached its peak, sending temperatures to 43 °C in Chicago and 40 °C in Milwaukee.

This phenomenon explains how important is to know and respect nature and not alterating it. Nowadays, we listen to a lot of stories about climate change but, in fact, is something very old, as old as the direct influence of the human on nature.

The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the Aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon.

The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.

With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.

More information: Smithsonian

The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland, much of which received no more than 250 mm of precipitation per year to cultivated cropland.

During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust -named black blizzards or black rollers -travelled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 1 m or less.

Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the Black Sunday black blizzards of April 14, 1935; Edward Stanley, the Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, coined the term Dust Bowl while rewriting Geiger's news story.

The Dust Bowl, The USA, 1930's

While the term the Dust Bowl was originally a reference to the geographical area affected by the dust, today it usually refers to the event itself, the term Dirty Thirties is also sometimes used.

The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 400,000 km2 that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.

The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families to abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, and losses reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $460,000,000 in 2020). Many of these families, who were often known as Okies because so many of them came from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left.

The Dust Bowl has been the subject of many cultural works, notably the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck, the folk music of Woody Guthrie, and photographs depicting the conditions of migrants by Dorothea Lange.

The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado. Elevation ranges from 760 m in the east to 1,800 m at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than 510 mm of rain annually; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie biome originally present in the area.

More information: History Collection

The region is also prone to extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration. During wet years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output, but crops fail during dry years. The region is also subject to high winds.

During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert.

The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture.

The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers 65 ha plots.

With the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, waves of new migrants and immigrants reached the Great Plains, and they greatly increased the acreage under cultivation.

The Dust Bowl, The USA, 1930's

An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that rain follows the plow, a popular phrase among real estate promoters, and that the climate of the region had changed permanently.

While initial agricultural endeavours were primarily cattle ranching, the adverse effect of harsh winters on the cattle, beginning in 1886, a short drought in 1890, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation.

Recognizing the challenge of cultivating marginal arid land, the United States government expanded on the 65 ha offered under the Homestead Act -granting 260 ha to homesteaders in western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act (1904) and 130 ha elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909.

Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of the 20th century.

A return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed a previously held opinion that the formerly semiarid area could support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological improvements such as mechanized plowing and mechanized harvesting made it possible to operate larger properties without increasing labour costs.

The combined effects of the disruption of the Russian Revolution, which decreased the supply of wheat and other commodity crops, and World War I increased agricultural prices; this demand encouraged farmers to dramatically increase cultivation. For example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and north western Texas, the area of farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, and then tripled again between 1925 and 1930.

More information: The Balance

The agricultural methods favoured by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions.

The widespread conversion of the land by deep plowing and other soil preparation methods to enable agriculture eliminated the native grasses which held the soil in place and helped retain moisture during dry periods. Furthermore, cotton farmers left fields bare during winter months, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and burned the stubble as a means to control weeds prior to planting, thereby depriving the soil of organic nutrients and surface vegetation.

After fairly favourable climatic conditions in the 1920s with good rainfall and relatively moderate winters, which permitted increased settlement and cultivation in the Great Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930. During the next decade, the northern plains suffered four of their seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of its twelve driest, and the entire region south to West Texas lacked any period of above-normal rainfall until record rains hit in 1941.

When severe drought struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, reduced to a powdery consistency in some places.

The Dust Bowl, The USA, 1930's

Without the indigenous grasses in place, the high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period.

The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds.

On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year. 

Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 5500 tonnes of dust. Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. That winter (1934–1935), red snow fell on New England.

On April 14, 1935, known as Black Sunday, 20 of the worst black blizzards occurred across the entire sweep of the Great Plains, from Canada south to Texas. The dust storms caused extensive damage and appeared to turn the day to night; witnesses reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain points.

Denver-based Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, that day. His story about Black Sunday marked the first appearance of the term Dust Bowl; it was coined by Edward Stanley, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, while rewriting Geiger's news story.

More information: The Atlantic

The greatly expanded participation of government in land management and soil conservation was an important outcome from the disaster. Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups such as the Soil Conservation Service generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the land from the sky.

To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups such as the United States Forestry Service's Prairie States Forestry Project planted trees on private lands. Finally, groups like the Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, encouraged small farm owners to resettle on other lands, if they lived in drier parts of the Plains.

During President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first 100 days in office in 1933, his administration quickly initiated programs to conserve soil and restore the ecological balance of the nation. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes established the Soil Erosion Service in August 1933 under Hugh Hammond Bennett.

In 1935, it was transferred and reorganized under the Department of Agriculture and renamed the Soil Conservation Service. It is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

As part of New Deal programs, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act in 1936, requiring landowners to share the allocated government subsidies with the labourers who worked on their farms.

Under the law, benefit payments were continued as measures for production control and income support, but they were now financed by direct Congressional appropriations and justified as soil conservation measures. The Act shifted the parity goal from price equality of agricultural commodities and the articles that farmers buy to income equality of farm and non-farm population.

Thus, the parity goal was to re-create the ratio between the purchasing power of the net income per person on farms from agriculture and that of the income of persons not on farms that prevailed during 1909–1914.

More information: Soap Boxie

As a young girl, I saw commitment in my grandmother,

who helped Grandpa homestead our farm on the Kansas prairie.

Somehow they outlasted the Dust Bowl, the Depression,

and the tornadoes that terrorize the Great Plains.

Sheri L. Dew

THE WATSONS, TALKING ABOUT LABOUR INSERTION (II)

The Watsons' Canvas

Today, The Watsons and The Grandma have finnished their collaboration together. They have been several interesting and amazing weeks working with this wonderful family and The Grandma is going to miss them a lot.

They have been talking about how to create a modern CV using Canva, one of the most popular software to create and design all kind of brochures, CV, posters and other. They have been also talking about the importance of communication skills in an interview.

The Grandma hope her family has good luck in a closer future and she knows they are going to meet together very soon perhaps in another adventure.

Good luck Watsons (Elisabeth, Neus, Mariana, Judit, Maria, Elisabeth, Yolanda, Raquel and Sònia) and thanks for these unforgettable moments! See you very soon!

More information: Comunica't (Catalan Version)

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content.

It is available on web and mobile, and integrates millions of images, fonts, templates and illustrations.

Users can choose from many professional designed templates, and edit the designs and upload their own photos through a drag and drop interface. The platform is free to use, and paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise offer additional functionality. Users can also pay for physical products to be printed and shipped.

As of 2019, Canva last raised at a $3.2 billion valuation and has over 20 million users across 190 countries.

In June 2020, Canva raised $60 million at a valuation of $6 billion almost doubling its last valuation from 2019.

The company was founded on 1 January 2012 in Sydney, Australia by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams. In its first year, Canva had more than 750,000 users. Social-media and technology expert Guy Kawasaki joined the company as chief evangelist in April 2014.

In 2015, Canva for Work was launched which gave businesses a tool for producing marketing materials.

During the 2016-17 financial year, revenue increased from $AU 6.8m to $AU 23.5m, with losses of $3.3m. In 2017, the company reached profitability and had 294,000 paying customers.

In January 2018, Perkins announced that the company had raised $40 million from Sequoia Capital, Blackbird Ventures, and Felicis Ventures, and it was valued at $1 billion.

In May 2019, Canva experienced a security breach in which data of roughly 139 million users was hacked. The exposed data included real names, usernames, addresses and geographical information, and password hashes for some users.

More information: Speak Languages

During May 2019, the company raised another round of funding of $70m from General Catalyst and Bond and its existing investors Blackbird Ventures and Felicis Ventures, valuing Canva at $2.5 billion.

It was reported that Canva, among other Australian businesses, supported employees attending the Global Climate Strikes that took place on September 20 and 27, 2019. The strikes called for the Australian Government to take greater action on climate change and transition to renewable energy.

In October 2019, Canva announced that it raised an additional $85 million at a valuation of $3.2 billion, and launched an enterprise product.

In December 2019, Canva announced Canva for Education, a free product offering for schools and other educational institutions intended to facilitate collaboration between students and teachers.

Canva received praise in January 2020 for releasing a comprehensible privacy policy written in both Legal English and common language, with the intention of abiding by their brand mission of simplicity while making their practices understandable to everyday users.

In June 2020, Canva announced a partnership with FedEx Office. In July it announced a similar partnership with Office Depot. As of the end of June, Canva's valuation had risen to $6 billion.

In 2018, the company acquired presentations startup Zeetings for an undisclosed amount, as part of its expansion into the presentations space.

In May 2019, the company announced acquisitions of Pixabay and Pexels, two free stock photography sites based in Germany. These sites allow individual photographers to share their work for free, and the photos can be used by Canva users in their designs. 

More information: Canva

 Job-interviewing is just a skill.

Like any skill,

some people have more of a predisposition

for it than others.

Dale Dauten

THE WATSONS, TALKING ABOUT LABOUR INSERTION (I)

SWOT

Yesterday, The Watsons and The Grandma were talking about labour insertion.

Unemployment is one of the worst aspects of a community.

Unemployment, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is persons above a specified age not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.

Unemployment can have many sources, such as the following:

-New technologies and inventions

-The status of the economy, which can be influenced by a recession

-Competition caused by globalization and international trade

-Policies of the government

-Regulation and market

The family has been creating personal SWOTs to try to understand themselves better.

More information: Grandma's Reading, Japanese Work Environment

SWOT analysis or SWOT matrix is a strategic planning technique used to help a person or organization identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to business competition or project planning.

This technique, which operates by peeling back layers of the company is designed for use in the preliminary stages of decision-making processes and can be used as a tool for evaluation of the strategic position of a city or organization. It is intended to specify the objectives of the business venture or project and identify the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving those objectives.

Users of a SWOT analysis often ask and answer questions to generate meaningful information for each category to make the tool useful and identify their competitive advantage.

SWOT has been described as the tried-and-true tool of strategic analysis, but has also been criticized for its limitations.

SWOT assumes that strengths and weaknesses are frequently internally-related, while opportunities and threats commonly focus are due to the external environment.

The name is an acronym for the four parameters the technique examines:

-Strengths: characteristics of the business or project that give it an advantage over others.

-Weaknesses: characteristics of the business that place the business or project at a disadvantage relative to others.

-Opportunities: elements in the environment that the business or project could exploit to its advantage.

-Threats: elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project.

More information: Improving to Find New Chances

The degree to which the internal environment of the firm matches with the external environment is expressed by the concept of strategic fit. Identification of SWOTs is important because they can inform later steps in planning to achieve the objective.

First, decision-makers should consider whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs. If the objective is not attainable, they must select a different objective and repeat the process.

Some authors credit SWOT to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at the Stanford Research Institute, now SRI International, in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies. However, Humphrey himself did not claim the creation of SWOT, and the origins remain obscure.

Internal factors are viewed as strengths or weaknesses depending upon their effect on the organization's objectives.

SWOT

What may represent strengths with respect to one objective may be weaknesses (distractions, competition) for another objective. The factors may include personnel, finance, manufacturing capabilities, and all of the marketing mix's 4Ps.

External factors include macroeconomics, technological change, legislation, and sociocultural changes, as well as changes in the marketplace. Results are often presented in the form of a matrix.

SWOT analysis is a method of categorization for which lists are compiled, uncritically and without prioritization, rather than seeking important factors to achieving objectives; weak opportunities may appear to balance strong threats.

The SWOT analysis has been used in community work as a tool to identify positive and negative factors within organizations, communities, and the broader society that promote or inhibit successful implementation of social services and social change efforts.

It is used as a preliminary resource, assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in a community served by a nonprofit or community organization.

Although SWOT analysis is a part of the planning, it will not provide a strategic plan if used by itself, but a SWOT list can becomes a series of recommendations.

More information: Bigg Success (Part I)

Strengths and Weaknesses (internal factors within an organization):

-Human resources-staff, volunteers, board members, target population

-Physical resources-your location, building, equipment

-Financial-grants, funding agencies, other sources of income

-Activities and processes-programs you run, systems you employ

-Past experiences-building blocks for learning and success, your reputation in the community

Opportunities and Threats, external factors stemming from community or societal forces:

-Future trends in your field or the culture

-The economy—local, national, or international

-Funding sources—foundations, donors, legislatures

-Demographics—changes in the age, race, gender, culture of those you serve or in your area

-The physical environment —is your building in a growing part of town? Is the bus company cutting routes?

-Legislation—do new federal requirements make your job harder...or easier?

-Local, national, or international events

Although the SWOT analysis was originally designed as an organizational method for business and industries, it has been replicated in various community work as a tool for identifying external and internal support to combat internal and external opposition.

The SWOT analysis is necessary to provide direction to the next stages of the change process. It has been used by community organizers and community members to further social justice in the context of Social Work practice.

More information: Bigg Success (Part II)

 A SWOT analysis involves asking,

What are our strengths and weaknesses?

What are our opportunities? What are the threats?

Amanda Lang

VALLVIDRERA, LES PLANES & TIBIDABO, WATCHING BCN

The Grandma's old memories in Tibidabo

Today, The Watsons have finished their English for Sales course.

They have been working very hard during some months and now it is time to rest and relax.

The Grandma bought a whole hotel for them to live in. It is located in Vallvidrera, one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods of Barcelona very popular for being one of the highest places with incredible views over this beautiful Mediterranean capital.

Vallvidrera is a neighbourhood of the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district of Barcelona, Catalonia.

It is situated in one of the sides of the Collserola hills, considered to be the lungs of the city due to the abundant forests it has. This wealthy neighbourhood has excellent views of the whole city, from some specific places and in a clear day it is possible to see Mallorca and the Pyrenees on the horizon.

Although being a residential place it has important things such as, the Torre de Collserola, a communications tower designed by the architect Norman Foster, the Tibidabo Amusement Park and the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor.

Vallvidrera used to be a cool summer retreat where wealthy people from Barcelona had their summer houses.

Now the wealthy live in this neighbourhood all year round and have their summer retreats in further places inside Catalonia, such as the Costa Brava for summer vacations or Puigcerda for winter vacations.

Vallvidrera can be reached by the Funicular de Vallvidrera, which connects at its lower station with the Metro del Vallès suburban railway with frequent services to the city center.

The neighbourhood is also served by minibus, which connects to the upper station of the Vallvidrera funicular and the top of the Tibidabo hill. Other than the Funicular and the Bus, the most common type of transportation is the private one.

More information: Parc Natural de Collserola

Les Planes de Vallvidrera is a nucleus of the district of Vallvidrera, the Tibidabo and the Planes of the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, in the city Barcelona.

It includes the differentiated nuclei of Mas Sauró, Mas Guimbau and El Rectoret and is located on the Vallès slope of the Collserola mountain range. For many years it was primarily a summer resort, with hotels, fountains and popular picnic areas.

At the turn of the century the first urbanized nucleus arose and from the second half of the twentieth century it was transformed into a humble neighborhood without any order. It was not until 1980 that an urban action plan was approved.

Tibidabo is a hill overlooking Barcelona in Catalonia. At 512 metres, it is the tallest hill in the Serra de Collserola. Rising sharply to the north-west, it has views over the city and the surrounding coastline.

The summit of the hill is occupied by the Sagrat Cor church and adjacent Tibidabo Amusement Park.

The Torre de Collserola telecommunications tower is a short walk away. All three are prominently visible from most of the city of Barcelona.

Designed by Enric Sagnier, the church took 60 years to construct and is topped by a sculpture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Josep Miret Llopart.

Tibidabo can be reached by road or via the Tibidabo Funicular and by the Tramvia Blau, but both are currently out of service.

More information: Hotel Florida Barcelona 

Geganta que tos brassos abuy cap á les serres estens,

quan hi arribes demá, donchs, ¿què farás?

farás com èura inmensa que, ja abrigant les terres,

puja á cenyir un arbre del bosch ab cada brás.

Giantess who coughs her arms towards the wide mountains,

when you get there tomorrow, then, what will you do?

You will do like an immense ivy that, already sheltering the earth,

goes up to reach a tree of the forest with each arm.

Jacint Verdaguer

MEMORIES FROM CHILDHOOD: CUBELLES & CHARLIE RIVEL

Charlie Rivel & The Grandma in Cubelles

Today, The Watsons and The Grandma have been studying how to prepare an Cambridge Key English Test.

They have been practising with some examples and The Grandma has explained them how to prepare a good speaking.

She has been talking about personal experiences and how important is to be explain them. She has remembered a beautiful personal story about Charlie Rivel, the clown, and his town, Cubelles.

Cubelles is a municipality situated in the comarca of Garraf in Catalonia.

Josep Andreu i Lasserre (April 23, 1896-July 26, 1983), best known as Charlie Rivel, was an internationally known Catalan circus clown.

He was born in Cubelles, El Garraf. His parents Pere Andreu Pausas and Marie-Louise Lasarre were circus artists as well.

He debuted at the age of three and formed the group Los Rivels with his brothers Polo Rivel and René Rivel. He took his artistic first name from Charlie Chaplin whom he encountered first in 1910. Each respected the other. Legend has it that Chaplin later asked him: Is it you who imitate me or I who imitate you?

He later discovered his definitive routine, featuring a chair, a guitar and a long jersey.

In 1971, he appeared in Federico Fellini's film Clowns.

He performed in the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 1973 in Luxembourg.

The Charlie Rivel Hall in Cubelles is a museum dedicated to him.

More information: Garraf Turisme

El riure és l'únic llenguatge en el qual

s'expressen tots els pobles de la terra.

Laughter is the only language in which
all the peoples of the earth are expressed.

THE WATSONS SEARCH THEIR END 'OVER THE RAINBOW'

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Today, The Watsons and The Grandma have continued studying their English for Sales course. They have arrived to their last day of theorical classes and they have chosen There was-There were to finish their formation.

Judit Watson has given a beautiful present to every member of the family, an interesting editon of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.

More information: There was-There were

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is an American children's novel written by author L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow, originally published by the George M. Hill Company in May 1900.

It has since seen several reprints, most often under the title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 live-action film.

The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz, after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone.

The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale. Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.

In January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It sold three million copies by the time it entered the public domain in 1956.

More information: Mental Floss

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, it is the most commercially successful adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Directed primarily by Victor Fleming, who left the production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind, the film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale alongside Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr.

Characterized by its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score, and memorable characters, the film has become an American pop culture icon. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind, also directed by Fleming. It did win in two other categories: Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best Original Score by Herbert Stothart.

While the film was considered a critical success upon release in August 1939, it failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, not including promotional costs, which made it MGM's most expensive production at that time.

The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on the CBS network reintroduced the film to the public; according to the Library of Congress, it is the most seen film in movie history.

In 1989, it was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. It is also one of the few films on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

The Watsons under the rainbow

The film was among the top ten in the 2005 BFI (British Film Institute) list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 14 and is on the BFI's updated list of 50 films to be seen by the age of 15, issued in May 2020.

The Wizard of Oz is the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but others made uncredited contributions. The songs were written by Edgar Yip Harburg and composed by Harold Arlen. The musical score and the incidental music were composed by Stothart.

Over the Rainbow is a ballad composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg.

It was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy Gale.

It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland's signature song.

About five minutes into the film, Dorothy sings the song after failing to get Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands to listen to her story of an unpleasant incident involving her dog, Toto, and the town spinster, Miss Gulch. Aunt Em tells her to find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble. This prompts her to walk off by herself, musing to Toto, Some place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain..., at which point she begins singing.

More information: History

On October 7, 1938, Judy Garland recorded the song on the MGM soundstage with an arrangement by Murray Cutter. In September 1939, a studio recording of the song, not from the film soundtrack, was recorded and released as a single for Decca.

In March 1940, that same recording was included on a Decca 78 four-record studio cast album entitled The Wizard of Oz. Although this isn't the version that appeared in the film, Decca continued to release the cast album into the 1960s after it was reissued on disc, a 33​1⁄3-rpm album.

The film version of Over the Rainbow was unavailable to the public until the soundtrack was released by MGM in 1956 to coincide with the television premiere of The Wizard of Oz. The soundtrack version has been re-released several times over the years, including a deluxe edition by Rhino in 1995.

After The Wizard of Oz appeared in 1939, Over the Rainbow became Garland's signature song. She performed it for thirty years, singing it as she had for the film. She said she wanted to remain true to the character of Dorothy and to the message of being somewhere over the rainbow.

The rainbow flag, also known as the gay pride flag or LGBT pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) pride and LGBTQ social movements. While this use of the rainbow flag originated in San Francisco, it is now used worldwide.

Originally devised by artist Gilbert Baker, the design has undergone several revisions since its debut in 1978, first to remove colors then restore them based on availability of fabrics.

The first flag had eight colors, however the traditional and still most common variant consists of six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. The flag is typically flown horizontally, with the red stripe on top, as it would be in a natural rainbow.

It has been suggested that Baker may have been inspired by Judy Garland's singing Over the Rainbow and the Stonewall riots that happened a few days after Garland's death, she was one of the first gay icons.

More information: Gutenberg

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby, I
Oh, somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
Clouds high over the rainbow, makes all your dreams come true, ooh.

Judy Garland

'LA COLÒNIA GÜELL', WHERE ALL THE DREAMS STARTED

The Watsons visit La Casa del Mestre, Colònia Güell

Today, The Watsons and The Grandma have visited the neighboured Colònia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló.

They have spent the day visiting this incredible site and learning more things about Antoni Gaudí and his influence in this textile colony, and near it, in Sant Boi Mental Hospital, where all indicates, he started his works.

The Watsons have continued their English for Sales courses surrounded by nature in this amazing and unforgettable place, a must for Antoni Gaudí's admirers but also for everyone who likes Architecture and History. They have revised the irregular forms of the Past Simple.

More information: Past Simple-Irregular Forms

The Colònia Güell, one of the most pioneering purpose-built industrial villages of the 19th century is located in the town of Santa Coloma de Cervelló, 23 Km to the south-west of Barcelona.

Gaudí developed the architectural innovations of his later works in the church crypt, which has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The Church of Colònia Güell, in Catalan Cripta de la Colònia Güell, is an unfinished work by Antoni Gaudí. It was built as a place of worship for the people on a hillside in a manufacturing suburb in Santa Coloma de Cervelló, near Barcelona, Catalonia.

More information: Portal Gaudí

Colònia Güell was the brainchild of Count Eusebi Güell; who enlisted the help of architect Antoni Gaudí in 1898. However, work was not started until 1908, 10 years after commission. The plan for the building consisted of constructing two naves, an upper and a lower, two towers, and one forty-meter-high central dome.

In 1914, the Güell family halted construction due to the death of Count Güell. At the time, the lower nave was almost complete so between the years of 1915 and 1917, it was completed and readied for use.

The Watsons visit La Cripta, Colònia Güell

The Church is one of the seven properties Gaudí built near Barcelona that are Unesco World Heritage Sites. Collectively, these sites are known as the Works of Antoni Gaudí, and show his, exceptional creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

At the age of 28, the Church of Colònia Güell was one of several commissions Gaudí received from Count Güell in the suburb of Santa Coloma de Cervelló.

To start the designing process of the church, Gaudí used his very unique process of gravity and rope, known as a funicular system. As seen in the planning of La Sagrada Família, Gaudí hung hemp ropes attached to lead-filled sacks from the ceiling. By doing this, it allowed him to reproduce the curves of the church at a 1:10 scale.

Gaudí also used canvas sheets to imitate the vaults and walls of the structure. By weighing down the ropes with lead-filled sacks, it allowed him to see the loads that would be exerted on the actual structure. To turn this hanging structure into his actual design, Gaudí photographed his model, flipped the image, and traced over it while adding some ornament and design. All that remains of the model for Church of Colònia Güell is an image in a book written by architect Josep Francesc Ráfols i Fontanals.

More information: Catalunya

This method of planning led to the development of a new architectural vocabulary, such as hyberbolic paraboloids and hyperboloids, which are prominent elements in many of Gaudí's designs.

The crypt portion of the church, constructed from 1908 to 1915, was the only segment of the church that was fully completed. It was built partially below ground, due to being on a hillside, and it was designed so that it would feel like it belonged in the surrounding nature. There are pillars on the exterior of the crypt, made of many bricks, while others were made of a solid block of stone. The roof of the structure has a geometric shape that is morphed by the connecting of the various pillars.

The crypt is very dimly lit, due to it being built partially underground since the structure is on a hillside. There are however, 22 lead stained glass windows in the crypt, to let in some colorful lighting.

Although it remains unfinished, the chapel is a very important aspect of the church. The designs of the chapel is similar to that of the Sagrada Família. This is a common theme seen throughout the church, since Gaudí used it in preparation for the building of the Sagrada Família. He tested many of his ideas and theories here, since Güell gave him the liberty of being as creative as possible.

The shape of the worship area was planned in extensive detail, right down to the pews. All of the furniture in the Church was designed by Gaudí himself, and have been preserved. Very few pieces of his furniture have been saved, though some examples are still seen in the Sagrada Família and private homes.

More information: The Culture Trip

Color in certain places has the great value of making

the outlines and structural planes seem more energetic.

Antoni Gaudí