January 31: Eat Brussels Sprouts Day

It's Eat Brussels Sprouts Day. Here's everything you need to know about Brussels sprouts.

1. Brussels sprouts are originally thought to have come from Iran and Afghanistan, and were grown in ancient Rome, but they got their name because they were grown in Belgium (the capital of which is Brussels) from the 13th century.
2. The Latin name for them is Brassica oleracea, and they belong to the same family as Cabbage, kale and Broccoli.
3. In Continental Europe, the largest producers are the Netherlands, at 82,000 metric tons, and Germany, at 10,000 tons. The area covered by Brussels sprout fields in the UK is equivalent to 3,240 Football pitches, but we don't export them so much since British people are the biggest consumers of sprouts. A third of the sprouts we eat in the UK are consumed around Christmas time; and one in twenty of the sprouts eaten in Britain come from one farm in East Yorkshire where 175 million are produced every year.
4. They're very good for you. An 80g serving of sprouts contains four times more Vitamin C than an Orange; they are also an excellent source of vitamin K, folate, manganese, vitamin B6, fibre, choline, Copper, vitamin B1, Potassium, phosphorus, and omega-3 fatty acids. A cup of cooked Brussels sprouts contains about 60 calories.
5. The ancient Chinese recommended sprouts as a treatment for bowel problems.
6. That said, people taking anticoagulants such as warfarin need to consume with care as vitamin K plays a role in blood clotting. An Ayrshire man on anticoagulant medication was rushed to hospital in 2014 suffering from a Brussels sprout overdose.
7. There are more than 110 different varieties of sprouts, including Albarus, Brodie and Kryptus. Some sprouts are Red in colour, and are sold in a mixed bag with the Green ones at Christmas.
8. There are some Brussels sprout Guinness World Records. Bernard Lavery, of Llanharry in Rhondda Cynon Taff grew a record breaking sprout in 1992 which weighed 8.3kg (18lb/3oz), the heaviest ever. Linus Urbanec from Sweden holds the current world record for the most Brussels sprouts eaten in one minute. He swallowed 31 on November 26, 2008. TV presenter Esther Rantzen once tried to break the world record for eating the most sprouts – but only managed five.
9. Stuart Kettell rolled a Brussels sprout up Mount Snowdon using only his nose, to raise money for charity. Actually, it was 20 different sprouts, and the feat took him four days and 22 hours.
10. Brussels sprouts aren't everyone's cup of tea. Some people hate them, and the reason for this is most probably genetic. Sprouts contain a chemical, similar to phenylthiocarbamide, which tastes bitter to people with a gene known as TAS2R38. The fact that if sprouts are overcooked they give off a smell like rotten eggs doesn't help.

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January 30th: National Croissant Day

It's National croissant day. Whether or not you have one for breakfast today, you can still digest these 10 facts about croissants.

1. They may be associated with France, but croissants actually originated in Austria in the 13th century, where a similar pastry was eaten, known as "kipferl".
2. The characteristic shape is thought to have come about as a celebration of the defeat of the Ottomans, since their flag had a crescent on it. It's possible that Viennese bakers, working at night, were the ones who gave the alarm that the Ottomans were trying to tunnel into the city. Whether or not those legends are true, some Islamic fundamentalists have banned the croissant due to its shape.
3. The word croissant means crescent in French.
4. So how did they come to be associated with France? One theory is that Marie Antoinette brought them with her when she married Louis XIV.
5. Another theory is that an Austrian artillery officer called August Zang, founded a Viennese bakery ("Boulangerie Viennoise") at 92, rue de Richelieu in Paris. The kipferl was one of his specialities and became so popular that French bakers began making them too.
6. Charles Dickens wrote about croissants in his periodical All the Year Round in 1872. He wrote: "the workman's pain de ménage and the soldier's pain de munition, to the dainty croissant on the boudoir table".
7. Croissants were exhibited at the 1889 World’s Fair.
8. They were made the French national product in 1920.
9. As well as National Croissant Day on January 30, in Poland they eat them on November 11, on St Martin's Day. St. Martin's croissants are made specially for the occasion from puff pastry with a filling made of ground white poppy seeds, Almonds, Raisins, and nuts.
10. In 2013, a chef called Dominque Ansel came up with the idea of crossing a croissant with a Doughnut, inventing the "cronut".

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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January 29: Kansas

January 29 1861 was the day Kansas became the 34th state of the Union. Here are some things you might not know about Kansas.

1. Kansas is named for the Kansa people, who lived there about 12,000 years ago. Kansa is from a Sioux word meaning "people of the south wind". The name of the state capital, Topeka, comes from a Native American word for "to dig good Potatoes". Nicknames for Kansas include the Sunflower State, the Jayhawk State, the Midway State (because the geographical centre of the contiguous United States is near Lebanon, Kansas), and the Wheat State.
2. Dodge City is the windiest city in the USA, even more so than the official "Windy City" of Chicago. Dodge City has an average wind speed of 14mph compared to 10mph in Chicago.
3. The Wheat state? It produces more wheat than any other state, with 88% of it being farmland. Nearly one-fifth of all wheat grown in the United States is grown in Kansas, and it’s said that enough is cultivated to bake 36 billion loaves of bread, or feed everyone in the world for about two weeks. The state is also home to the world's biggest grain elevator.
4. It also has a contender for the world's biggest ball of twine - in the mid-1950s, a Cawker City man named Frank Stoeber started making an enormous twine ball. It reached 5,000lbs of string before he died and left it to the town. Residents and visitors have been adding to it ever since. Then there is the world's largest easel, made of steel and measuring 80 feet in height and weighing 40,000lb. It holds a giant replica of Vincent Van Gough's “Sunflower” painting. The tallest waterslide in the world is at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas city - at 168ft it is higher than Niagara Falls and is not surprisingly called 'the Verrückt', the German word for "insane".
5. The state motto of Kansas is “to the stars through difficulties.” The State animal is the American Buffalo. The state flower is the sunflower. The state insect is the Honey Bee. The state bird is the Western meadowlark. The state tree is the cottonwood. The state reptile is the ornate box Turtle. The state song is Home on the Range.
6. The state is known for being flat, and there's a common saying that it is "flatter than a pancake." In 2003, scientists discovered that was actually true. They compared the topographic profile of a pancake with a digital model of the state’s elevation and found Kansas was indeed the flatter of the two. Even so, it's not the flattest state in the US. Six other states, including Florida, Illinois and North Dakota, are even flatter.
7. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novel Little House on the Prairie and Truman Capote’s true crime tale In Cold Blood are two classic works of literature set in Kansas, along with a reasonable chunk of one of the most famous films of all time, Wizard of Oz, which contains the famous line, 'Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more'.
8. Famous people from Kansas include Susan Madora Salter, the first female mayor in the US, elected in 1889; Hattie McDaniel, the first black woman to win an Academy Award; Almon Stowger who invented the dial telephone in 1889; William Purvis and Charles Wilson who invented the Helicopter in 1909; Omar Knedlik of Coffeyville who invented the first frozen carbonated drink machine in 1961; Amelia Earhart, first woman granted a pilot's license by the National Aeronautics Associate and first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; actress Kirstie Alley; and Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother. Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas, but called Abilene, Kansas his home.
9. Kansas officially has the most beautiful vehicle licence Plates in America - the wheat plate design issued in 1981.
10. There is an intersection in Wichita where drivers are required to get out of their cars and fire three shotgun rounds into the air before crossing it. It's illegal in parts of the state to use Mules to hunt ducks, shoot Rabbits from motorboats, sing the alphabet in the streets at night, wear a bee in a hat, hit a vending machine when it steals your Money, or serve Ice cream on cherry pie.

28 January: Henry VII

This date in 1457 saw the birth of Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty in England.

1. Henry was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle, the Battle of Bosworth Field, to be exact, when his forces defeated those of Richard III and Richard was killed. This battle ended the Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York.
2. Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle. His father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, had died three months earlier, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was just thirteen.
3. It was through his mother that Henry had a claim to the throne of England since she was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. It was a tenuous claim, though, since it came through a female line, and Edward and Katherine hadn't been married before having children.
4. When Henry was 14, Edward IV won power for the House of York in the Battle of Tewkesbury. Henry was sent to France with his uncle Jasper. By 1483, Henry was being promoted by his mother as an alternative to Richard III. Henry promised publicly that if he won the throne, he would marry Elizabeth of York (Edward IV's daughter and the sister of the Princes in the Tower) and unite the two houses. Henry's first attempt at invading England failed, but the second, which led to the Battle of Bosworth Field, was successful despite Richard's Yorkists having more troops. Henry was crowned King Henry VII at the top of Crown Hill, near the village of Stoke Golding.
5. Henry kept his promise and married Elizabeth of York on 18 January 1486 at Westminster. This did indeed unite the two families and was symbolised by the Tudor Rose, a combination of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. It may have been a marriage undertaken for political reasons, but there is evidence he really did love her. When their first son, Arthur, died, he was concerned for her, and when Elizabeth died he was inconsolable, shutting himself away for days and refusing to speak to anyone. His attempts to find another wife were somewhat half-hearted and never came to anything. The closest he came was sending ambassadors to Naples to report on the suitability of Joan, the recently widowed Queen of Naples, against a list of desirable qualities he had given them. The list essentially was a description of Elizabeth.
6. He's a suspect in the murder of the Princes in the Tower. Henry had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that declared Edward IV's marriage invalid and his children illegitimate. While this made his wife Elizabeth legitimate, strengthening his claim to the throne, at the same time it made her brothers legitimate and their claim would have been stronger. So he certainly had a motive.
7. Despite winning his throne in battle, King Henry VII was not a military man. He was more of an economist, aiming to build up the wealth of the country, left in a bad state by the Wars of the Roses. Unlike previous kings, he didn't have any experience in managing estates and finances, but he engaged some financial advisors who remained with him throughout his reign. He collected taxes from the nobility using a method known as "Morton's Fork" which maintained that if a noble wasn't spending, it meant he had savings, which could be taxed, and if he was spending, it demonstrated he had enough money to pay the taxes as well. His tax collectors were so unpopular that when Henry VIII took over, he had them executed. Henry VII also got involved in trade, in particular of alum, a substance used in wool production, an important industry in England at the time. There was only one place in Europe producing the stuff, on land belonging to the Pope. It was scarce and expensive. Henry acquired ships to import cheaper alum from the Ottoman Empire, and selling it to the Low Countries and in England, challenging the Pope's monopoly. Despite his careful managing of finances, though, there is evidence that he spent money lavishly on gifts for his wife and children.
8. Henry established the Pound Avoirdupois as a standard of weight.
9. So what did he look like? He was described as being tall and slender with small blue eyes, very fair hair and a long, sallow face; and bad teeth. He was friendly, intelligent and charismatic, but may have had a delicate appearance as his health wasn't good.
10. He died of tuberculosis at Richmond Palace on 21 April 1509. He was buried at Westminster Abbey, next to his wife, Elizabeth, and was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII. His mother outlived him - but only by two months.

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27 January: Buster Edwards

Born on this date in 1931 was Ronald "Buster" Edwards, Great Train Robber. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. He was born in Lambeth, South London.
2. His first crimes took place during his first job. He worked in a sausage factory and stole meat to sell on the black market.
3. The Great Train Robbery wasn't the first major crime he took part in. In 1962, £62,000 was stolen from the headquarters of British Overseas Airways Corporation at Heathrow Airport. While several members of that gang were arrested, Edwards evaded capture.
4. The famous crime took place a year later. Edwards and the gang tampered with signal lights, stopping the train in Buckinghamshire. They made off with £2,600,000 of used banknotes (£50 million in today's money). In the course of the robbery the train driver was hit on the head, which turned out to be a life changing and possibly life limiting injury. In later years, Edwards claimed he was the one who hit the driver. Again, Edwards managed to evade capture, unlike most of the gang, who were arrested and sent to prison.
5. Edwards took his £150,000 share of the money and fled with his family to Mexico. However, after three years of extravagant spending the money dwindled, and his wife and daughter were homesick - so he returned to Britain and gave himself up.
6. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, and served nine.
7. After release, he was well known as a flower seller outside Waterloo Station in London. He admitted to an interviewer that he found selling flowers really boring compared to a life of crime. "Obviously you are a thief because you like money, but the second thing is the excitement of it," he said.
8. There was at least one exciting moment when a man ran by his stall and made off with two bunches of flowers. Edwards didn't want to leave his stall, so he didn't chase the man, but made a note of where he'd gone and called the police. The thief might have got away with it, but for one thing. He was an actor, by the name of Dexter Fletcher, who was in a film called The Rachel Papers, which Edwards had recently been to see - so he could tell police the thief was "That lad out of The Rachel Papers". Fletcher claimed he wanted to give his girlfriend flowers but had lost his cash card. He was given a conditional discharge for twelve months and ordered to pay £30 costs. Fletcher later apologised to Edwards and paid for the flowers.
9. A biopic film about him, Buster, was made in 1988 with Phil Collins in the title role. Buster himself has a cameo role in the film. He is in the scene where Buster and his wife arrive in Mexico. Buster is one of the couple walking out of the airport in front of them. The other half of the couple is Phil Collins' wife, Jill.
10. He died at the age of 63, an apparent suicide. His brother found him hanging from a girder in a lock up garage. The inquest recorded an open verdict. On the one hand, Edwards was thought to have been too drunk on the night he died to have intended to kill himself, but on the other, he was being investigated for fraud at the time and he could have attempted suicide to avoid going back to prison. Two wreaths in the shape of trains accompanied his funeral cortège.

26 January: The Cullinan Diamond

On this date in 1905 The world's largest diamond, "The Cullinan" was discovered in the Premier Mine, Pretoria, South Africa.

Not the Cullinan Diamond, just a random one

1. Most of the sources I looked at said the diamond was found by mine superintendent Frederick Wells during a routine inspection, and that he extracted it using a pocket knife. One source, however, said it was found by a miner called Thomas Evan Powell who brought it to Wells' attention.
2. Either way, it was still the largest uncut diamond ever found up to that point, weighing 3,106.75 carats (621.35 g). It held the record until 1985 when the Golden Jubilee Diamond was found at the same mine. The Golden Jubilee Diamond weighs in at (545.67 carats (109.13 g).
3. It was named after the mine's chairman, Thomas Cullinan.
4. Sir William Crookes performed an analysis of the Cullinan diamond. His observation was that it was remarkably clear although it had a black spot in the middle surrounded by vivid colours. This, he said, was due to internal strain, which isn't uncommon in diamonds. One side of it was perfectly smooth, which suggested it had once been part of an even bigger diamond which was probably over twice the size. The other parts were probably still in the mine somewhere, he said, and "await discovery by some fortunate miner."
5. According to legend, Frederick Wells broke off a 300-400g piece of the diamond before it left the mine.
6. The Transvaal Colony government bought the diamond for £150,000 and insured it for ten times that amount. The Prime Minister of the time, Louis Botha, suggested giving it to King Edward VII as "a token of the loyalty and attachment of the people of the Transvaal to His Majesty's throne and person". Not everyone agreed with him, although a majority voted in favour. The British Prime Minister of the time, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, decided the king himself should decide whether to accept it or not. Winston Churchill, however, persuaded the king he should take it. The king gave Churchill a replica of the diamond which it's said he liked to put on a Silver plate to show to his friends.
7. The diamond was sent to England via parcel post. Registered post, admittedly, but by post nonetheless. Sir Francis Hopwood and Mr Richard Solomon (Agent-General of the Transvaal government in London) then took it to Sandringham by train with just two experienced Scotland Yard policemen. That may not sound very secure - however, there was a decoy. A parcel containing a fake diamond was ceremoniously placed in the safe of a steamboat and guarded by detectives during the journey.
8. The diamond was eventually cut up into nine large stones and some smaller ones. The job of cutting it went to Asscher Brothers of Amsterdam's expert diamond cutter, Joseph Asscher. There's a legend that Joseph was so over-awed at the thought of cutting the largest diamond ever known that he fainted after making the first cut. However, people who knew him disputed that he'd have done any such thing - he was far more likely to have cracked open a bottle of Champagne.
9. The largest of the fragments is Cullinan I, or the Great Star of Africa, which weighs 530.2 carats (106.04 g) and is 5.9-centimetres (2.3 in) long. It is the largest clear cut diamond in the world. It is set at the top of the Sovereign's Sceptre with Cross which had to be redesigned in 1910 to accommodate it. It can be removed from the sceptre and made into a brooch along with the next largest piece, Cullinan II, or the Second Star of Africa, which is set in the front of the Imperial State Crown.
10. Cullinan III and IV are both referred to as the Lesser Star of Africa. Both these stones were set into a crown for Queen Mary, wife and queen consort of George V, to wear for her coronation. They were removed from the crown in 1914 and are now worn by Queen Elizabeth II as a brooch. She revealed in 1958 that the royal family referred to these diamonds as "Granny's Chips". She wore them on a visit to the Asscher Diamond Company, where she allowed Louis Asscher, Joseph's brother, to examine them, fifty years after the diamond was cut.

25th January: National Irish Coffee Day

It's National Irish Coffee Day. Here's what you need to know about Irish coffee.

1. Irish coffee is made by pouring black Coffee into a mug or glass, stirring in Whiskey and at least a level teaspoon of sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Thick cream is then poured on top and the coffee is drunk through the cream.
2. Don't like sugar in coffee? Sorry, but without the sugar the cream won't float on top.
3. The original recipe states that the cream should not be whipped, but versions using whipped cream are also sold as Irish coffee.
4. The origin of Irish coffee is thought to have been in 1942, when a planeload of American passengers were stranded due to bad weather, and airport restaurant chef Joe Sheridan served hot coffee with whiskey in it to warm to passengers up. One passenger asked if it was Brazilian coffee, to which Sheridan remarked, “No, that was Irish Coffee!”
5. It was another ten years before Irish coffee found its way to the USA. The first cafe to serve it there was the Buena Vista cafe in San Francisco, California in 1952.
6. The same cafe held the Guinness Record for the largest Irish coffee, 15 gallons, for some time, but in January 2017 that record was smashed by a Chicago restaurant where a 234 gallon Irish coffee was made. The entire operation was supervised by Tim Herlihy, an Irishman from the town of Termonfeckin in Ireland. The recipe called for five pounds of sugar, 28 gallons of cream, 150 gallons of coffee and 43 gallons of Tullamore Dew whiskey. They needed fourteen burners in four kitchens to boil all the water. The glass was made by an aquarium tank company in Las Vegas and took two hours to fill with the equivalent of 3,500 standard Irish coffees. It was then drunk by a couple of thousand customers who paid a dollar for a standard sized share, in aid of a children's cancer charity.
7. There is an annual Irish coffee festival which takes place in Foynes, a village on the southern bank of the Shannon Estuary. The event includes the World Irish Coffee Making Championship, parades, Fireworks and entertainment.
8. National Irish Coffee Day is on 25 January each year.
9. Not everyone likes it - someone once commented that the problem with Irish coffee is that it ruins three good drinks: coffee, cream, and whiskey.
10. According to Alex Levin, though, only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.

New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

24 January: January

Here's what some well-known writers and poets thought of this month.

1. And what does January hold? Clean account books. Bare diaries. 365 new days, neatly parcelled into weeks, months, seasons. A chunk of time, of life... those first few notes like an orchestra tuning up before the play begins. Phyllis Nicholson
2. January is here, with eyes that keenly glow, A frost-mailed warrior striding a shadowy steed of snow. Edgar Fawcett
3. January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow. Sara Coleridge
4. January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead. Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
5. Pale January lay In its cradle day by day Dead or living, hard to say. Alfred Austin, Primroses
6. January opens The box of the year And brings out days That are bright and clear And brings out days That are cold and grey And shouts, "Come see What I brought today!" Lland B. Jacobs, January
7. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. Wallace Stevens
8. To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June. Jean-Paul Sartre
9. You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. William Shakespeare
10. January, in ermine cloak, With crystal spangles dight, He gave the queen an Ivy crown, And her fair shoulders white. He happ'd with tender ferny Moss From many a cosy nook, Or from the rounded boulders warm Beside the frozen brook. James Rigg

New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

23rd January: 23

Ten things you didn't know about the number 23.

1. Twenty-three is the ninth prime number.
2. It is the atomic number of vanadium, a hard, silvery Grey transition metal which is rarely found in nature.
3. Psalm 23, the one beginning "The Lord is my shepherd" is probably the most often quoted and best known of all the psalms.
4. There is a superstition about the number 23, known as the 23 enigma, which has appeared in various books and films. One of the first references to it comes from William S Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, who told of someone he once met, a Captain Clark, who told Burroughs he'd been sailing for 23 years and never had an accident. That same day, Clark's ship was involved in an accident, killing Clark and all his crew. On the same day, Burroughs heard on the news about a plane crash - flight 23, piloted by another Captain Clark. The superstition stems from the idea that things happen in multiples of five. 23 comes into it because 2 + 3 = 5. It's also a number said to be sacred to the goddess of discord, Eris.
5. Julius Caesar may have had good reason to believe in this. He was stabbed 23 times.
6. The first American "national fad expression" according to some is "23 skidoo". The word skidoo may be derived from the word "skedaddle" and the expression means to leave, fast, while the going is good.
7. If you collect 23 or more random people together, there is a 50% or greater probability that two of them will have the same birthday. This is known as "the birthday paradox".
8. Normal human sex cells have 23 chromosomes. Other cells have twice that number, 46, arranged in pairs.
9. On the cover of The Beatles' album Yellow Submarine, the number 23 is displayed on the chest of one of the Blue Meanies.
10. Chicago Bulls Basketball player Michael Jordan's jersey number is 23.

New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

22 January: Sir Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon, born 22 January 1561, was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author, who has been called the father of scientific method. Here are ten facts about him.

1. He was born in London to a distinguished family. His father was Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for Queen Elizabeth I; his mother, Anne, was the daughter of the noted humanist Anthony Cooke. Her sister was married to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I.
2. Bacon was educated at home, possibly because of ill health, but went to Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of twelve. His personal tutor was Dr John Whitgift, future Archbishop of Canterbury. He also travelled abroad as a teenager with Sir Amias Paulet, the English ambassador at Paris. His travels took him to Blois, Poitiers, Tours, Italy, and Spain. He continued his education, studying language, statecraft, and civil law. He was put to work, as well, delivering diplomatic letters for Walsingham, Burghley, and Leicester, and even Queen Elizabeth I.
3. Bacon returned to England when his father died suddenly in 1579. His father's sudden death meant he'd not got around to buying an estate for Francis, so Francis only received a fraction of his inheritance. He had to get a job in law now to support himself but still got into debt and had to borrow Money. His mother supplemented his income.
4. Financial problems dogged him for many years, as he was often passed over for prestigious court positions such as Attorney General, Solicitor General or Master of the Rolls. His friend Lord Essex, having tried unsuccessfully to get him a well-paid job, gave him a property at Twickenham, which Bacon sold. To make matters worse, the Attourney General position went to Sir Edward Coke, who not only got the job Bacon wanted but the woman he wanted as well. Bacon proposed marriage to a rich widow, Lady Elizabeth Hatton, but she turned him down and married Coke instead. In 1598 Bacon was arrested for debt.
5. The situation improved for a while under James I, but in 1621, Bacon's nemesis, Coke, accused him of corruption and accepting bribes. Bacon tried to argue that he'd only received gifts, and those gifts hadn't influenced his judgement - he cited cases where he had disadvantaged the people who'd given him gifts. Nevertheless, Sir Francis Bacon was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London; fined £40,000; and declared incapable of holding future office or sitting in Parliament. Even though King James I stepped in to reduce the fine and Bacon was only in prison for a few days, it meant his career in public life was over. He retired to his home at Gorhambury in Hertfordshire, where he continued to write.
6. When he was 45, he married a girl of thirteen, Alice Barnham, an Alderman's daughter, who Bacon had described as "a handsome maiden to my liking" when she was only eleven. This was during the time when Bacon was doing well financially and was able to shower Alice with gifts. When Francis Bacon was made temporary Regent of England, a document was drawn up making Lady Bacon first lady in the land, taking precedence over all other Baronesses. It's not clear whether it was ever enacted, but it would have pleased Alice and her ambitious mother. However, when Bacon was forced out of public life and was no longer able to keep Alice in the style to which she had become accustomed, the marriage broke down. By 1625, they had separated. Bacon accused Alice of having an affair with John Underhill, a gentleman-in-waiting at York House, Strand, Bacon's London property. Bacon wrote her out of his will. When he died, she married Underhill.
7. He became a Member of Parliament in 1581 at the age of 20. In the course of his parliamentary career, he held seats in Bossiney, Cornwall, Melcombe in Dorset, Taunton, Liverpool, Middlesex and Cambridge University.
8. Conspiracy theorists have long held the idea that it was Sir Francis Bacon who was the real author of Shakespeare's plays. Proponents of the Baconian hypothesis of Shakespearean authorship maintain that Shakespeare was only a front to conceal the fact that Bacon had written the plays. Writing plays for the public stage was not something someone seeking high office at the time would want to admit to. Baconians allege that there are coded references in Shakespeare's work to the real author. Opponents of the theory say that Shakespeare's plays do not display the knowledge of science Bacon would have had, and also Occam's razor, the principle that in general, the simplest explanation, in this case that Shakespeare did write the plays, is usually the true one.
9. It has also been claimed that Bacon was connected to the Freemasons and also the Rosicrucians, who believed in a secret brotherhood of alchemists and sages who were preparing to transform the arts, sciences, religion, and political and intellectual landscape of Europe. Bacon allegedly held banquets which included both Rosicrucians and Freemasons as guests.
10. Bacon's devotion to empirical scientific method was literally the death of him in the end. On a journey on a snowy spring day in 1626, he was suddenly inspired by the idea that snow could be used to preserve meat. Bacon stopped the coach, got out and bought a fowl from a woman to use for his experiment. He stuffed the bird with Snow. As a result he caught pneumonia and died. Or did he? There's a conspiracy theory regarding his death, too. It alleges that Bacon faked his own death to escape another debt, and that, with the help of the Freemasons and Rosicrucians and their secret networks, he went to Europe and lived many more years, writing under various pseudonyms.

New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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