31 March: The US Virgin Islands

Today is a holiday in the US Virgin Islands, commemorating the date in 1917 when the USA took possession of them after buying the islands from Denmark for $25 million. 10 things you might not know about the US Virgin Islands (USVI)

1. The US Virgin Islands are located 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) south of Miami and 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Puerto Rico. There are 68 islands in total, made from volcanic rock and coral. The main ones are St. Thomas, St. John's, and St. Croix. The land area of the islands is about double the size of Washington DC.
2. The capital is Charlotte Amalie, located on St Thomas. The town was originally called Charlotte Amalia, but a historical administrative error changed the "a" to an "e". It is still pronounced Charlotte “Amalya.”
3. USVI is the only place belonging to the USA where people drive on the left hand side of the road. This dates back to when the islands were under European rule.
4. Famous people from USVI include the impressionist painter Camille Pissarro and the actor Kelsey Grammer, who plays Frasier Crane in Cheers and Frasier.
5. About 75% of the people who live on the islands are descended from African slaves brought over to work the sugar plantations.
6. St Croix has the oldest Baobab tree in the Caribbean, brought from South Africa and planted there in the 18th century. The tree is known locally as “Guinea Almond” or “Guinea Tamarind.”
7. St Thomas has the second oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. It has sand floors and a menorah dating back to the 11th century.
8. St John has an underwater national park, Trunk Bay. There is an underwater trail with signs giving information about the marine life down there.
9. The US Virgin Islands is the only US territory to have coasts on both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
10. A couple of USVI expressions: "limin'" means lying back and enjoying the day, and "What a kallaloo!" means "What a mess!" Kallaloo is a soup made from seaweed and greens.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

March 30: National Badminton Day

Today is National Badminton Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about the game of badminton.

1. The exact origins of the game are obscure, but games of a similar nature were played in Greece, China and India over 2,000 years ago. These players used their hands, or even their Feet, instead of racquets.
2. The modern version of the game was originally called ‘battledore and shuttlecock’. Battledore is an old name for a racquet. The shuttlecock's name derives from the fact that it moves backwards and forwards during the game like the shuttle of a 14th-century loom, and because it was made from feathers and therefore resembled a bird. In fact, an alternative name for it is a "birdie".
3. The name Badminton comes from Badminton, the country estate of the Duke of Beaufort, where the game was played in the mid 19th century. This version of the game could date back to 1860, when a London toy dealer named Isaac Spratt published a booklet entitled Badminton Battledore – A New Game. However, no copies of this book survive.
4. A shuttlecock weighs between 4.74 and 5.50 grams. It is made from 16 feathers, and according to tradition, the best ones are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose. The idea is thought to have originated from the fact that, in the days when people wrote with quills, the quills were stuck into corks when not in use; and bored office clerks invented a game where they batted them around the room.
5. A badminton racquet weighs between 70 and 95 grams (2.5 and 3.4 ounces), not including the strings. Today, they are usually made from carbon fibre or steel. Early ones were made from wood. The strings are most often made from plastic although some players are said even now to prefer strings made from the dried stomach lining of Cows or Cats.
6. Badminton claims to be the world's second most popular participation sport, after Soccer. It has only been an Olympic sport since the Barcelona games of 1992, however. That said, 1.1bn people tuned in to watch the first Olympic badminton tournament.
7. It's the world's fastest racquet sport. Shuttles can travel at 200mph or more during a game with the fastest speed on record being 332kph (206mph) by Fu Haifeng of China in 2005.
8. The winner of a game of badminton is the player who is first to reach 21 points (a point is scored for each rally won) unless the score reaches 20 all in which case a player has to achieve a two point lead to win. If there is still a tie at 29 all the game goes to a golden point and the next player to score a point wins. There are three games in a match.
9. The world's shortest badminton match was just six minutes long, between Ra Kyung-min (South Korea) and Julia Mann (England). Peter Rasmussen (Denmark) and Sun Jun (China) hold the record for the longest match, which lasted 124 minutes.
10. People from Asia seem to be the best badminton players, with over 90% of Olympic medals going to players from Asian countries. The Thomas Cup, the men's world team championships, has been won by only three countries since it began in 1948 - Malaysia, Indonesia and China.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

29 March: 10 quotes which sum up Brexit.

While compiling lists of quotations for my blog over the past few months, I've occasionally come across one that made me think of Brexit. I try not to get political as a rule but could not resist sharing these today. Anyone thinking I should shut up and put up, I refer to #5.

1. It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. John Steinbeck
2. Before this government came to power, we were on the edge of an economic precipice. Since then we have taken a giant step forward.
3. There is no stigma attached to recognising a bad decision in time to install a better one. Laurence J Peter
4. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
5. A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument. Salman Rushdie
6. In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed. Iain Banks
7. Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost. William Wordsworth
8. You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government. Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant
9. A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half remembered glory. John Steinbeck
10. Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. HL Mencken

28 March: Istanbul

On this date in 1930 Constantinople had its name changed to Istanbul by Kemal Atatürk. 10 things you might not know about Istanbul.

1. This name change wasn't the first the city had had. When it was founded in around 660 BCE, it was called Byzantium, probably after its king. When Constantine the Great made it capital of the Roman Empire in 330 CE, it became known as Constantinople, which means "City of Constantine". He wanted to call it "Nova Roma" ("New Rome") but it never caught on. The name Istanbul derives from the Greek for "to the city" as it was the only major city in the area. When the name changed in 1930, the Turkish Post Office refused to deliver mail addressed to Constantinople, to make sure people used the new name.
2. Istanbul is the only city in the world which straddles two continents: Asia and Europe.
3. Like Rome, Istanbul is built on seven hills. It is surrounded by sea, with a river, the Bosphorus cutting right through it.
4. The city's population is over 13 million - as many people live in Istanbul as in the whole of Belgium.
5. Most of the people who live in Istanbul are Muslims, and as it's a huge city (the largest city in Turkey), it's known for its sheer numbers of mosques - over 3,000 of them. Among Istanbul's mosques are some of the best known in the world, the Suleiman Aniye and Sultan Ahmed Mosques. The latter is also known as The Blue Mosque, because the interior has thousands of blue tiles. The Blue Mosque is over 500 years old, and is still an operational mosque. The Hagia Sophia, on the other hand is now a museum, having been built as an Orthodox Christian cathedral in 537 CE, and having served as a mosque during the Ottoman Empire.
6. 17th century Ottoman Sultan Murad VI made drinking Coffee a crime punishable by death. He closed all the coffee houses, but not content with that, he'd stalk the city streets in disguise with his executioner, and if he caught anyone drinking coffee they would have their heads chopped off on the spot.
7. Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen airport is named after the world’s first female fighter pilot. She learned to fly when she was 23 and became a decorated pilot in the Turkish air force.
8. Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express during a stay in Istanbul, at the Pera Palas Hotel. Paul Theroux and Ernest Hemingway also found the city inspiring.
9. During the Ottoman Empire, the city was known for having more than 1,400 public Toilets, while other cities in Europe didn't have any.
10. Although tulips are associated with the Netherlands, the flowers originated in Istanbul - they were originally sent from Istanbul to The Netherlands.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

27 March: Shoelaces

10 things you didn't know about shoelaces.

1. The shoelace was invented, according to a common myth, on 27 March 1790, by a man called by Harvey Kennedy. However, this isn't actually true. We don't know who invented them or when.
2. We do know it must have been before 3500 BC, because shoes dating back that far have been found, and they have laces. Otzi the Iceman, who lived around 3300 BC, wore shoes tied up with laces made from string bark.
3. In ancient Greece and Rome, a person who tied their shoelaces carelessly was deemed to be slovenly and worthy of ridicule.
4. The means of making modern shoelaces by braiding them in a mass production line, has remained largely unchanged for 200 years (I wonder if perhaps it was this that Harvey Kennedy invented rather than the shoelace itself).
5. The first laces were made from rope, string, leather or ribbon. In the Elizabethan era, it was possible to tell which social class people came from by looking at what their shoelaces were made from.
6. Another shoelace fact which may or may not be true is that Gurkha soldiers would feel the shoelaces of any soldier they encountered in the dark, because by doing so they could tell which side that soldier was on. British soldiers used straight or bar lacing, while Japanese troops used a criss-cross pattern. Hence British soldiers were told that it was very important to lace their shoes in the standard British fashion, as it could become a matter of life and death.
7. You may know that the little metal or plastic bit at the end of a shoelace is called an aglet. What you may not know is that the word comes from the French word "aguillette" meaning Needle. If you hear this thing referred to as a flugelbinder, that's actually a term made up by Tom Cruise’s character in the film Cocktail.
8. The duties of Prince Charles's three personal valets includes ironing all his shoelaces.
9. Shoelaces are notorious for coming undone. Scientists have actually done studies into why this is. There is a complex interaction of forces at play, not least the fact that a person's foot hits the ground with a force seven times that of gravity. To put that into perspective, the most powerful roller coaster in the world,the Tower of Terror in Johannesburg, holds the record for highest g-force on a roller coaster at 6.3G. This force, and the force of inertia when the foot is raised ready for the next step, causes the knot to stretch and relax and hence come undone.
10. The way it is tied is also a factor. Chances are the knot most people end up using is a granny knot, which is less stable than many. Incidentally, the word granny knot is nothing to do with anyone's grandmother but came about because it's the knot used to tie grain sacks closed. If you want to know how to tie a secure shoelace knot, you could do worse than visit the website belonging to one Ian Fieggen (aka. "Professor Shoelace"), who details 20 different ways you can tie your shoelaces, including the "Ian knot", his own invention. https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

26 March: National Nougat Day

Today is National Nougat Day. 10 things you might not know about nougat.

1. The word nougat comes from an old French word, “nogat”, meaning “nut cake”.
2. There are three different types: White nougat, Brown nougat and German nougat.
3. White nougat is made from egg whites, sugar, nuts (usually Almonds, Pistachios, or Hazelnuts), and honey. Brown nougat is made without the egg whites and using caramelised sugar, so it is thicker than the white variety. German nougat, also known as “Viennese Nougat”, is made with only sugar, Chocolate, and almonds.
4. Nougat is commonly used in chocolate bars. You'll find it in Mars bars, Snickers, Double Deckers and many more.
5. The nougat you find in such confections is not the same as the traditional recipe. It's made from sucrose and corn syrup rather than sugar, and soya protein or gelatine may replace the egg white. It may also contain vegetable fats and milk powder. This type of nougat is cheap to make, which is why it gets used as a filler in mass produced chocolate bars.
6. In Italy, this confection is known as torrone. This word was combined with chocolate maker Theodore Tobler's name to get the word "Toblerone".
7. In many parts of Europe, nougat is a special treat for Christmas and most sales of it will be around the holiday season. In Romania, however, it is more of an Easter treat and is called alviţă.
8. The earliest recorded recipes for nougat came from the Middle East - in a 10th century book from Baghdad. In this book, it was called "nāṭif", and was said to come from a city called Harran, located between Urfa in Turkey and Aleppo in Syria. It was also mentioned in the writings of Ibn Hawqal, a 10th century traveller, who recorded that he'd eaten it in what is now Syria and Uzbekistan.
9. In Italy, vanilla or citrus may be added to the mix, and in Africa, nougat is made with fruits rather than nuts.
10. A piece of nougat weighing 14g contains 56 calories, 13g carbohydrate, and small amounts of saturated fat, protein, iron and magnesium.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

25 March: Gloria Steinem Quotes

On this date in 1935 Gloria Steinem, feminist and activist, was born. Some quotes from her on marriage, power, truth and more.

1. The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
2. Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.
3. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.
4. Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
5. I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
6. Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.
7. So whatever you want to do, just do it...Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.
8. Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.
9. The art of life is not controlling what happens to us, but using what happens to us.
10. If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two

              

24 March: 83rd Day of the Year

Today is the 83rd day of the year. 10 things you didn't know about the number 83.

1. 83 is the 23rd prime number.
2. It is also the sum of three consecutive prime numbers (23 + 29 + 31).
3. In some Jewish communities, when a person reaches the age of 83, they may celebrate a second bar mitzvah. The logic behind that is because the normal lifespan of a human being is threescore years and ten (70) so a person who lives beyond that age could be deemed to have started on a second lifetime, of which 83 would be their 13th year.
4. 83 is the atomic number of bismuth (Bi).
5. The number 83 is mentioned once in the Bible, in Exodus 7:7, which reads "Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh." (New International Version)
6. Since the eighth letter of the alphabet is H and the third is C, some far right Christian groups have adopted 83 as a greeting, representing "Heil Christ."
7. Yet high tree, hi Grey teeth, her tight eye and hit thee grey are all anagrams of eighty-three.
8. In French, 83 is quatre-vingt-trois, in Italian, ottantatré, in Spanish ochenta y tres and in German dreiundachtzig.
9. In the UK, the A83 road runs from Tarbet, on the western shore of Loch Lomond to Campbeltown at the southern end of the Kintyre peninsula. In the US, Interstate 83 runs between Baltimore, Maryland and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. European route E 83 begins in Polsko Kosovo, and ends in Botevgrad, Bulgaria.
10. According to Angel expert Doreen Virtue, if you keep seeing the number 83 everywhere it means that you have spiritual masters who are accelerating your abundance and guiding your path.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two