30th April: Bugs Bunny

Today is the 77th anniversary of the first time Bugs Bunny appeared in a film. 10 things you didn't know about the cartoon rabbit.

1. Bugs Bunny made his début in the film, Porky's Hare Hunt, released on April 30 1938; although in this film, he was white rather than Grey and looked rather like a duck dressed up as a Rabbit. The plot line was very similar to the 1937 film, Porky's Duck Hunt, in which Daffy Duck first appeared.
2. One of the directors of Porky's Hare Hunt was Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. Charlie Thorson, lead animator on the film, was given a model sheet by Hardaway, and he wrote on top of it, "Bugs' Bunny". The name stuck.
3. Hare-um Scare-um (1939) was the film in which Bugs Bunny was first coloured grey and it was also the first film to feature him singing.
4. Although the rabbit in Porky's Hare Hunt is generally accepted as being Bugs, the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon was A Wild Hare in 1940. This is also the first time Bugs utters the immortal words, "What's up, Doc?"
5. Another of Bugs' catchphrases is "Of course you realise this means war!" This line was ripped off from two Marx Brothers films in which the line is used: Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera.
6. Bugs' characteristic Carrot-eating pose was ripped off from the 1934 film It Happened One Night, in which Clark Gable's character Peter Warne leans against a fence, eating carrots rapidly and talks with his mouth full to Claudette Colbert's character. Viewers at the time would have been familiar with this and would recognise it as satire.
7. Bugs Bunny is an honorary Marine Master Sergeant in the US Marines. At the end of Super-Rabbit (1943), Bugs appears wearing a United States Marine Corps dress blue uniform. He was very popular during World War II, partly because of his free and easy attitude, and possibly also because antagonists Bugs outwitted during this time included Hermann Göring, Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler. There is even a film from this era called Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips in which he takes on a group of Japanese soldiers - but you won't ever see it as it has been banned for being racist.
8. According to Guinness World Records, Bugs has appeared in more films (both short and feature-length) than any other cartoon character. He is the ninth most-portrayed film personality in the world.
9. In 1997, Bugs Bunny was the first cartoon character to appear on a US Postage stamp, beating even Mickey Mouse.
10. An oft quoted fact about Bugs Bunny is that Mel Blanc, who provided the voice, was allergic to carrots. This probably isn't true. Blanc's autobiography doesn't mention it, and he went so far as to emphatically deny it in a 1984 interview. The story may have originated because chewing carrots interfered with dialogue. A certain amount of carrot biting and chewing needed to be on the sound track, though, and no other food sounded quite right - so Blanc had to munch a little bit and then spit the carrots out. Someone somewhere assumed he was doing this so he wouldn't get an allergic reaction and the story spread.

April 29: World Dance Day

As today is World Dance Day, 10 quotes about dancing:

1. The dance is a poem of which every movement is a word. Mata Hari
2. O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance? William Butler Yeats
3. If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution. Emma Goldman
4. Ten minutes before you go to a party is no time to be learning how to dance. Anonymous
5. For the wealthy there is therapy; for the rest of us, there's just dancing. Anonymous
6. It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer. Anonymous
7. Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances. Maya Angelou
8. We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. Friedrich Nietzsche
9. Dance is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. George Bernard Shaw
10. Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, and she did it backwards and in high heels. Faith Whittlesey

April 28th: Mutiny on the Bounty

The infamous Mutiny on the Bounty took place on this date in 1789. Here are 10 facts about it:

1. The Bounty was built in 1784 in Yorkshire and originally went under the name of Bethia. The Royal Navy bought it for £1,950 on 23 May 1787, refurbished it and renamed it Bounty.
2. Bounty's mission was to go to Tahiti and acquire breadfruit plants, which would be taken to the West Indies where it was hoped they would become a cheap and plentiful food for slaves.
3. Bounty weighed 215 tons, was 24 feet 3 inches long and 9 feet 10 inches wide. The figurehead was a woman in a riding habit.
4. The crew complement was listed as 45, although one of these didn't actually exist. It was common practice in those days for a fictitious sailor to be included in the manifest, known as a "widow's man". The fictitious person's salary would be put towards supporting the widows of sailors lost at sea.
5. As well as the crew, there was a botanist on board, David Nelson, and his assistant. Nelson had been a gardener at Kew Gardens before accepting the Bounty job. During the mutiny, he sided with the captain and was cast adrift with him and several others in a small boat, surviving the arduous 3800 mile journey to Timor. Sadly, when he got there, he almost immediately took himself off on a botany expedition to the mountains, and as a result, died of a cold.
6. The crew of the Bounty spent several months on Tahiti before the mutiny happened. They lived ashore and learned to cultivate the plants they were to transport. Many of them "went native" during that time, getting tattoos like the locals and fraternising with the local women. It was during this time that Fletcher Christian married the Tahitan woman, Maimiti.
7. Of the 42 men on board, 22 joined Christian in mutiny, 18 remained loyal to Bligh. Two abstained.
8. The Royal Navy didn't take it lying down. They sent another ship, HMS Pandora, to round up the mutineers and bring them back to justice in England. Fourteen of them were captured and referred to their prison as "Pandora's Box". Pandora was wrecked off the Great Barrier Reef with the loss of 35 lives, including four of the mutineers.
9. Some of the mutineers set off in the Bounty with 18 Tahitians (including 11 women and a baby) and tried to settle on Pitcairn Island. When they got there, they burned the Bounty so the Royal Navy wouldn't find it, and to stop people escaping. The remains of the ship were discovered in 1957 by Luis Marden, who braved very dangerous waters to dive to the wreck and retrieve things like a rudder pin, nails, a ships boat oarlock, fittings and an anchor. Marden wore cuff links made of nails from Bounty. Marden also dived on the wreck of HMS Pandora and left a Bounty nail with Pandora.
10. In 1962, a replica Bounty was built in Nova Scotia for a film. After the film, the replica was owned by a not for profit organisation sailing the world with a volunteer crew and paying passengers. This ship was wrecked during hurricane Sandy. Crew members who died in the disaster were the captain, Robin Walbridge, and Claudene Christian, the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Fletcher Christian.

April 27: Sierra Leone Independence Day

Sierra Leone Independence from the UK on this date in 1961. 10 things you didn't know about Sierra Leone:

1. Sierra Leone was one of the first countries in West Africa to have contact with Europeans: in 1462, Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra mapped the hills surrounding what is now Freetown Harbour, and named them Serra da Leoa or "Serra Leoa" (Portuguese for Lioness Mountains). A series of Spanish translations and spelling mistakes evolved into the name for the country today.
2. The currency is the leone.
3. Freetown is the capital and largest city. Freetown was founded in 1792 as a home for former African American slaves.
4. Sierra Leone’s natural resources include diamonds, titanium, bauxite, Iron, and Gold. Sierra Leone is among the Top 10 diamond producing nations in the world, and in 1972, the third-largest gem-quality diamond in the world, "Star of Sierra Leone", was discovered here. Despite this, Sierra Leone is among one of the poorest countries in the world.
5. The Sierra Leone Police is one of the oldest police forces in West Africa. It was established by the British in 1894.
6. The largest natural harbour in Africa is in Sierra Leone, the Queen Elizabeth II Quay in Freetown.
7. The highest point is Mount Bintumani (also known as Loma Mansa), which is 1,948 meters (6,391 ft) in height.
8. Polygamy is common, although illegal. A 2008 survey found that 37% of married women were in a polygamous marriage.
9. A popular drink in Sierra Leone is Poyo, a kind of wine made from the sap of a palm tree.
10. Footballer Ryan Giggs, athlete Denise Lewis, Saturdays singer Rochelle Wiseman and Holby City actress Amanda Mealing are of Sierra Leonean descent. Eunice Barber, one of the top female athletes in the world, was born in Sierra Leone.

26 April: Tanzania

Today is the anniversary of the date in 1964 when the nation of Tanzania was established. 10 things you might not know about Tanzania:

1. The nation of Tanzania began on 26 April 1964 when the mainland Tanganyika merged with the Zanzibar Archipelago. The name of the country is a reflection of this union, the "Tan" coming from Tanganyika and the "Zan" from Zanzibar.
2. There are several famous national parks in the country. The Serengeti is Africa's largest national park, and the word means "the place where the land runs on forever". Over a million species of animal live here. Gombe Stream National Park is where Jane Goodall carried out her studies of chimpanzees in the 1960s. Ruaha National Park is known for having the largest population of Elephants in Africa.
3. Tanzania has a huge concentration of animals per square kilometre, with more than 4 million wild animals and representatives of 430 species and subspecies. These include the coconut crab, the largest crab in the world, which is found on Chumbe Island, Zanzibar.
4. The Capital is Dodoma and the largest city is Dar es Salaam.
5. The country is the site of Africa's highest and lowest points: Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level, and the floor of Lake Tanganyika, at 352 metres (1,155 ft) below sea level.
6. It is also where you will find Ngorongoro, the world’s largest volcanic crater, which has a diameter of 19 km and is 600 m deep.
7. The world’s earliest human skull was found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
8. Most of the population of roughly 47.4 million live on the northern border or eastern coast. Population density varies considerably from just 12 people per square kilometre in the Katavi Region to 3,133 per square kilometre in the Dar es Salaam Region.
9. Around 120 different languages are spoken by the people there. The language used in parliament, courts and in primary schools is Swahili; higher courts, universities and secondary schools use English although eventually the government plans to discontinue the use of English in schools. Some of the ethnic languages have so few speakers that they are in danger of becoming extinct.
10. The Maasai people live in Tanzania - they are the people who wear neck rings to make their necks longer.

April 25th: Oliver Cromwell

Today is the birth date of Oliver Cromwell, born in 1559. Hero or terrorist? You decide.

1. It's often said that Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas in 1647. Not exactly, apparently. It was fine for people to fast and pray, since it was a commemoration of events mentioned in the Bible - what was banned was any kind of secular celebration - feasting and drinking and the like. So the people could celebrate Christmas, they just weren't allowed to enjoy it.
2. Controversy still rages about whether Cromwell was a hero or a villain. Arguments for him being a bad guy include that he had King Charles II executed, his part in the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford in Ireland, which he justified as "righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches". If someone said that today, they'd be branded a terrorist. Although he didn't actually order the massacre of Wexford, he condoned it by not punishing those who took part.
3. Cromwell was only one of 59 people to sign the death warrant of Charles II, so he wasn't solely responsible for that; but he was in favour of it.
4. One good thing that came out of his time was the constitutional safeguard which meant no monarch could ever rule alone - Parliament would have a moderating influence; although Cromwell himself left no written constitution or instructions for how to run a country.
5. One of his closest comrades once commented: "Cromwell will weep, howl and repent even while he doth smite you under the fifth rib," suggesting that while he had no compunction about killing people if he thought it necessary, at least he didn't enjoy it.
6. Cromwell became the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628–1629, as a client of the Montagu family of Hinchingbrooke House. He made just one speech (against the Arminian Bishop Richard Neile), which was poorly received.
7. Cromwell had no formal training in military tactics. He relied upon common practice and a natural talent for leadership. He took great care to train his troops well, equip them fully and impose tight discipline.
8. He died from malaria and a kidney infection. His last words were "My design is to make what haste I can to be gone."
9. Cromwell's enemies weren't satisfied that he should have died of natural causes, so three years after his death they dug up his body, hung it at Tyburn and mutilated it. In some accounts, the severed head was mounted on a pole and blew off one windy night and landed at a soldier's feet. Later still, people raised questions about whether vengeful royalists had got the right body, and all these indignities could have been suffered by an innocent corpse.
10. Cromwell once said, "No-one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going."

24th April: The Gambia

The Gambia became a republic on this date in 1970. Here are 10 things you may not know about it:

1. The Gambia is a very small and narrow country, the smallest on the African mainland. Its area is slightly less than that of the island of Jamaica, or roughly the same size as Yorkshire, or slightly less than twice the size of the US state of Delaware. The Gambia is less than 48.2 km (30.0 mi) wide at its widest point.
2. Its borders mirror the meandering Gambia River, and it is bordered on three sides by Senegal. The fourth side is 80km (50 miles) of Atlantic coastline.
3. The boundaries were defined in 1889 after the French gave the British control of 320 kilometres (200 miles) of the Gambia River. It took nearly fifteen years after this to determine the final borders of the Gambia, which gave the British control of approximately 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) north and south of the Gambia River.
4. At the time of writing, the president of the Gambia is Yahya Jammeh, a US-trained former army officer who took power in a bloodless coup in 1994. His full name is Alhaji Sheikh Professor Doctor Yahaya Abdul Aziz Jamus Junkung Jammeh. He claims to have come up with a cure for AIDS consisting of boiled herbs. Hundreds of Gambians have tried it and at least 68 of them are said to have been cured. Health workers remain sceptical, though, especially as Jammeh's treatment requires giving up conventional treatments for up to a year, and they say there is no proof that Jammeh's method works.
5. The slave trade is an important part of The Gambia's history. Banjul, the capital city, was founded by the British as Bathurst in 1816 as a base for suppressing the slave trade.
6. Kunte Kinte, the character in Alex Haley's Roots was from The Gambia. The Jufureh village, where the first part of the book is set, has become a pilgrimage site for many descendants of slaves.
7. Weekends in the Gambia begin on Thursdays and are three days long. President Jammeh introduced three day weekends for schools and the public sector to give the Muslim population more time to pray, socialise and tend to their fields.
8. The national Football team of The Gambia is nicknamed The Scorpions.
9. The Gambian national sport is a form of wrestling known as ‘Borreh’.
10. People cast their votes in elections in The Gambia by dropping stones in holes.

My books:

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle

I have plenty more stories to tell, but I don't know yet which will win the race to the end of the pipeline. If you'd like to know:

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23rd April: National Day of England

Today is Saint George's day, National Day of England. So here are 10 things you might not know about England:

1. "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles", a Germanic tribe that settled there in the Middle Ages. They came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The first known use of "England" to refer to the southern part of the island of Great Britain occurred in 897. An alternative name for the country is Albion, which may come from the Latin, albus, meaning white, possibly referring to the White Cliffs of Dover. Yet another name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr.
2. Although England is where the English language came from, the country's official language was French between 1066 and 1362. England’s national motto is in French: “Dieu et mon droit,” meaning “God and my right.”
3. Although England is 59 times smaller than Australia, its population is three times bigger than that of Australia.
4. England also has a lot of cities considering its small size - there are 50 of them. City status is not necessarily based on population, however, but whether or not there is a diocesan cathedral, so some of England's cities, such as Wells, Ely, Ripon, Truro and Chichester, are quite small.
5. England is home to the world's largest stone circle, Avebury, which covers 28 acres, and was built between 5300 and 4600 years ago.
6. The Queen owns all the sturgeons, Whales and Dolphins in the waters within 3 miles from the UK, and all the mute Swans in open water.
7. The first modern Olympic Games was held in England, not in Athens as many think. The first modern Olympic Games were in Much Wenlock in Shropshire, in 1850. The Olympic Games in Athens were not held until 1896.
8. London is home to the world's busiest airport in terms of numbers of international passengers (Heathrow), and the biggest Ferris wheel in Europe (The London Eye). It also has the world's oldest underground railway system and the world's oldest public Zoo. If London were a country, it would be the 8th largest in Europe.
9. It is illegal to wear a suit of armour in the Houses of Parliament or to die there. One of the few things the Queen is not allowed to do is enter the Houses of Parliament.
10. Buckingham Palace was built on the site of a once infamous brothel.

April 22nd: Discovery Day, Brazil

The land now called Brazil was claimed for the Portuguese Empire on 22 April 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral. Some things you might not know about Brazil:

1. In terms of area (3,287,597 square miles) and population (201 million), Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world. In terms of length, north to south, it is the longest (2800 miles). It is the largest Portuguese speaking country in the world and the largest country in South America, taking up 47.3% of the continent. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
2. The word "Brazil" comes from brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. The name of the tree means "red like an ember" because the wood produces a deep red dye which was highly valued by European clothmakers. The official Portuguese name was originally the "Land of the Holy Cross" (Terra da Santa Cruz), but European sailors called it simply the "Land of Brazil" (Terra do Brasil) on account of the brazilwood trade, and the popular name displaced the official one. It could have ended up being called "Land of Parrots" (Terra di Papaga), as that was another name given to it by sailors.
3. Brazil has more airports (4,000) than any country other than the US.
4. It also has more species of monkey than any other country. Not to mention over 1,000 different species of bird and 3,000 different types of fish and many mammals and reptiles.
5. There are thought to be at least 70 tribes living in the Amazon which have never been contacted by the rest of the world.
6. Brazil has won the football World Cup more times than any other nation.
7. The capital city, Brasilia, took 41 months to build and was completed in 1960, when it supplanted Rio de Janeiro as capital.
8. Rio de Janeiro is famous for its annual carnival which attracts 2 million visitors a day, and is also home to the 38m high statue of Christ the Redeemer. The statue weighs 635 tonnes and was named one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World” in 2007. The mountain it stands on is the Corcovado.
9. Brazil’s highest mountain is the Pico da Neblina (Mist Peak), on the border with Venezuela, at 2,994 metres (9,823 feet) above sea level. It is almost permanently shrouded in cloud, so it was not discovered until the 1950s, and wasn't climbed until 1965, 12 years after Everest.
10. The stars in the blue circle on the Brazilian flag represent the sky over Rio de Janeiro on the morning of November 15 1889, when Brazil declared itself a republic.

21st April: Day of the Oak Tree

Today is the Day of the oak tree in the French Revolutionary Calendar. Here are 10 things you may not know about oak trees:

1. Oaks belong to the genus quercus, and there are 600 different species.
2. Oak wood is very strong and hard, and due to its high tannin content, very resistant to fungal attack and infestation by insects. Hence its use in the construction of ships, dating back to Viking times, and also for buildings and furniture.
3. This in turn has led to the oak being a symbol of strength and endurance, and being chosen as the national tree for a number of countries including England, Germany, France, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the USA, Wales and Bulgaria.
4. Varieties of oak have also been adopted as state tree by the US states of Iowa, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia and Maryland.
5. Scientists have found that oak trees are more likely to be struck by Lightning than other trees of the same height. This is no doubt why they are sacred to the thunder gods in some mythologies - including Thor, the Norse thunder god.
6. Celtic words for the oak include derwo, doire and dru, which perhaps not surprisingly could also mean strong and firm. This gave rise to the word "Druid", the Celtic priests to whom the oak was sacred, and also the city of Derry in Northern Ireland.
7. Oak leaves and acorns are toxic to most farm animals. Cattle, sheep, Goats and Horses should be prevented from eating them as large amounts can cause kidney damage. Pigs, however, can scoff them to their hearts' content with no ill effects, and some domesticated pigs are fed exclusively on acorns.
8. You can make flour and coffee out of acorns, so presumably they aren't harmful to us, either.
9. Barrels in which Wine, sherry, and spirits such as brandy, Irish Whiskey, Scotch whisky and Bourbon whiskey are aged are made from European and American oak. Oak barrels are sometimes charred before use, and contribute to the colour, taste, and aroma of whatever is kept in them, imparting a desirable oaky vanillin flavour.
10. Individual oak trees have become important cultural symbols in some places, too. England has the Royal Oak, in which King Charles II hid from the Roundheads, and the US has the Charter Oak in which Connecticut's Royal Charter of 1662 was hidden to stop it being confiscated by the English governor-general. The oak therefore became a symbol of American independence.

20th April: Cuckoo Day

It's Cuckoo Day so here are 10 things you didn't know about cuckoos:

1. Cuckoos belong to the Family Cuculidae. The roadrunner bird which appears in the cartoons is a type of cuckoo.
2. Cuckoos are famous for laying their eggs in the nests of other birds, but not all species of cuckoo do this. of the 127 species of cuckoo that exist, about 60 are brood parasites.
3. The cuckoos that do this have evolved so that their eggs closely resemble those of their host. Non-parasitic cuckoos lay white eggs. Meanwhile, host species, such as the reed warbler, evolve to be able to tell the difference and eject the cuckoo egg before it hatches. Cuckoo chicks are much larger than their hosts and will push the other chicks out of the nest so it gets all the food.
4. The cuckoo's favourite food is caterpillars, including the big hairy ones other birds dislike.
5. The word cuckoo comes from the call of the male bird. The first reference to a cuckoo in England dates to about 1240 in the poem Sumer Is Icumen In - "Summer has come in / Loudly sing, Cuckoo!"
6. The cuckoo's call is usually in the key of C.
7. The maximum recorded lifespan of a common cuckoo in the United Kingdom is 6 years, 11 months and 2 days.
8. One of the most important distinguishing features of the cuckoo family are the feet, which are zygodactyl, meaning that the two inner toes point forward and the two outer point backward.
9. Throughout the family there is wide variation in size (6 inches to 25 inches) and plumage. Non-parasitic cuckoos have much brighter plumage. Parasitic cuckoos often mimic birds of prey so that they can scare the host birds away for long enough to lay their eggs.
10. In Greek mythology, Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce Hera.

19 April: Garlic Day

Today is Garlic Day, and also today's plant of the day is Ursine garlic, Allium ursinum, dedicated to St Leo IX.

1. Garlic belongs to the genus allium, making it a close relative of Onions, Leeks and chives.
2. Garlic is grown all over the world, including in every US state. Gilroy, California calls itself the "garlic capital of the world", but it isn't - China is the largest producer accounting for 81% of the world supply. The biggest consumers are thought to be the Koreans who get through 10 kilos (22 pounds) per person per year.
3. It is well known that garlic is supposed to repel Vampires. This is thought to have originated with the idea that garlic has healing properties and can ward off disease, as well as being a folk remedy for repelling Mosquitoes, another Blood-sucking pest. This extended to warding off evil of all kinds - demons, witches and Werewolves as well. St Andrew is said to have given the gift of garlic to mankind for this purpose. Wearing it, hanging it in the window or rubbing it on the chimney were thought to be effective. Stuffing garlic in the nose and mouth of a recently deceased person was supposed to prevent them from becoming a vampire; and doing the same to the head of a decapitated vampire would prevent it from returning. Another more modern take on the reason is that vampires have a highly sensitised sense of smell and it's the pong they can't stand.
4. Garlic breath is caused by allyl methyl sulfide (AMS), a volatile liquid which is absorbed into the blood during the metabolism of garlic-derived sulfur compounds; from the blood it travels to the lungs and from there to the mouth, causing bad breath; and to the skin, where it is exuded through the pores. Taking a swig of Milk while the garlic is still in your mouth has been found to reduce the odour significantly. Drinking milk after your meal or eating Mushrooms and Basil or drinking Water has also been found to help a little. An old English law forbids people from going to the cinema, the theatre or using public transport if they have eaten garlic less than four hours previously.
5. The prophet Muhammed disliked garlic, and Muslims are not allowed to pray in a mosque when they have been eating it because the smell could put other people off their prayers. In some Buddhist traditions, garlic is thought to stimulate sexual and aggressive drives and is forbidden, especially to monks and nuns, for that reason. In England, there is an old law which forbids priests and vicars from eating garlic before a sermon.
6. The medicinal properties of garlic have been known since time immemorial, quite possibly since before The Pyramids were built. Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny the Elder, and Dioscorides all mention the use of garlic for parasites, respiratory problems, poor digestion, and low energy. Smallpox, dropsy TB and plague have also been treated with it. Garlic was used as an antiseptic to prevent gangrene during both World Wars. In the 12th century, it was seen as a palliative for the heat of the Sun and so was consumed by farm labourers, soldiers and sailors.
7. Most parts of the garlic plant can be eaten, not just the bulbs, including the leaves and flowers. Even the skin, which we in the west usually discard, is sometimes left on in Korea. Only the roots are not palatable.
8. The juice of garlic cloves is sticky and can be used as an adhesive to mend glass and porcelain.
9. According to a Korean legend, a Tiger and a bear prayed to the deity Hwanung that they may become human. Hearing their prayers, Hwanung gave them 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, ordering them to eat only this sacred food and remain out of the sun for 100 days. The tiger gave up after about twenty days and left the cave. However, the bear remained and was transformed into a woman.
10. The ancient Greeks would leave garlic at crossroads as food for Hecate, and in ancient Egypt, people would swear on garlic or onions when taking oaths.

18 April: Zimbabwe Independence Day

On 18 April 1980 Zimbabwe became an independent state. 10 things you didn't know about Zimbabwe:

1. Zimbabwe has 16 official languages. English, Shona and Ndebele are the most common. The Constitution states that more official languages could be added by acts of parliament.
2. The country is named after Great Zimbabwe, an ancient ruined city built in medieval times. It was once the country's capital and is now a protected site. The name is thought to mean "Great Houses of Stone." The capital and largest city now is Harare.
3. Before independence, the country was known as Rhodesia, after South African businessman Cecil John Rhodes who obtained mining rights from Lobengula, king of the Ndebele in 1888. Rhodes' company, the British South Africa Company, got a royal charter from Britain to administer the territory from the Limpopo to Lake Tanganyika. Rhodes used brute force to suppress revolts against settlers. The UK annexed Southern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Company in 1923. Independence was achieved on 18 April 1980 whereupon the name of the country changed to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe remained a member of the British Commonwealth until 2003.
4. The Highest point is Inyangani at 2,592 m, and the lowest point is the junction of the Runde and Save rivers at 162 m.
5. The Longest river is the Zambezi at 2,650 km and the largest lake is Lake Kariba at 7,770 km2. Zimbabwe is also home to Victoria Falls, the world's largest waterfall. The local name for the Victoria Falls is 'Mosi-oa-Tunya' (the smoke that thunders).
6. According to legend, the River God Nyaminyami lives in this lake. He takes the form of a serpent three metres wide, and nobody dares guess at his length. When he swims by the water turns red. However, the god is said to have been in hiding since the white settlers arrived.
7. Zimbabwe is where the scouting movement started. During the Second Matabele War, Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, and Frederick Russell Burnham, the American born Chief of Scouts for the British Army, first met. It was here that Burnham began teaching Baden-Powell woodcraft, and the two men came up with the idea of a training programme for young men that would include woodcraft, exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance. It was also during this time that Baden-Powell first started to wear his signature campaign hat like the one worn by Burnham.
8. One of the national symbols is the stone-carved Zimbabwe Bird - it appears on both the flag and the coat of arms, and also on coins and banknotes. Eight soapstone carvings of the bird were found by excavators in Great Zimbabwe. It probably represents the Bateleur eagle or the African fish eagle.
9. The Zimbabwe flag consists of seven horizontal bands in the five national colours;  Black, Yellow, Red, Green and White. A white triangle on the left hand side contains the country’s national emblem, a Zimbabwe Bird, in yellow, on a red five-point star.
10. A famous feature of the landscape is balancing stones. They appear as huge blocks of granite piled on top of each other. They were created by weathering, where softer stone was eroded away, leaving the granite blocks behind. Matapos and Epworth are the two best known locations for viewing these stones.

My books:

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle

I have plenty more stories to tell, but I don't know yet which will win the race to the end of the pipeline. If you'd like to know:

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17th April: Isak Dinesen

The author of Out of Africa, Karen Blixen, also known as Isak Dinesen, was born this date in 1885. 10 quotes:

1. The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
2. God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
3. All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
4. Who tells a finer tale than any of us. Silence does.
5. You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.
6. When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.
7. Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.
8. We must leave our mark on life while we have it in our power.
9. I start with a tingle, a kind of feeling of the story I will write. Then come the characters, and they take over, they make the story.
10. Perhaps to them the first condition for anything having real charm was this: that it must not really exist.

16th April: Spike Milligan

Born in 1918, Spike Milligan would have been 97 today. Here are 10 of his jokes.

1. A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree.
2. Money can't buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
3. I can speak Esperanto like a native.
4. All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
5. I thought I'd begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.
6. Are you going to come quietly, or do I have to use earplugs?
7. Money couldn't buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.
8. How long was I in the army? Five foot eleven.
9. I have the body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge.
10. We don't have a plan so nothing can go wrong.

15th April: Henry James

Henry James was born on this date in 1843. Some Henry James quotes:

1. There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
2. Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.
3. Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
4. Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.
5. It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
6. I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.
7. Life is a predicament which precedes death.
8. Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
9. It's time to start living the life you've imagined.
10. The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

14th April: Corn flakes

On this date in 1896 a patent was issued for corn flakes. Here are 10 things you may not know about corn flakes.

1. Corn flakes were discovered by accident. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg ran a sanatorium. One day he and his brother Will Keith Kellogg left some cooked wheat while dealing with other matters, forgot about it and by the time they remembered, it was stale. Being on a strict budget, they decided to use it anyway. When they tried rolling it out, it turned into flakes, which were very popular with their patients when toasted.
2. The diet of Dr Kellogg's patients was intended to be very bland. They weren't allowed meat, alcohol or caffeine, and nothing sweet or spicy because that increased sexual passions. Cornflakes were originally thought to be a great food for preventing masturbation.
3. John Harvey Kellogg was so anti-sex in fact that he never even had sex with his wife. All their children were adopted.
4. The flakes of grain were originally called granose.
5. It was Will Keith Kellogg who decided to sell cornflakes to a wider market. So that they would sell better, he added sugar, much to his brother's disgust. The brothers fell out over this change in the recipe.
6. The Kellogg's corn flakes mascot is called Cornelius (Corny) Rooster.
7. The rooster was adopted as a mascot after a Welsh friend told them that the Welsh word for cockerel is ceiliog (pronounced Kellogg).
8. For 22 years, from 1909, Kellogg's offered a free moving pictures booklet to anyone who bought two boxes of corn flakes.
9. Kellogg’s is an official supplier of breakfast cereals to HM Queen Elizabeth II.
10. 28g of corn flakes contains 100 calories, no fat, 24g carbs and 2g of protein.