1 August: York

 Today is Yorkshire Day, so here are 10 facts about its main town, York.

1. York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD. They called it Eboracum. The name meant "Place of the Yew Trees". That name lives on as the Archbishop of York uses Ebor as his surname in his signature. When the Vikings arrived in 866, they called the place Jórvík.
2. The city's most famous landmark is York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. Building began in 1220 and it wasn't consecrated until 1472. One reason it took 250 years to build may have been attention to detail. The stained glass windows were incredibly detailed with the faces even having eyelashes, despite the fact most of the detail can't be seen from 100 feet below. York Minster is the tallest building in York and the Leaning Tower of Pisa could fit inside its central tower.
3. York is the only place outside of Japan where you can see a bullet train. There's one on display in the National Railway Museum, the largest railway museum in Britain by floor space. It's not the biggest in the world – that is La Cite Du Train in France; but the NRM gets more visitors.
4. York has the best preserved city walls in England, dating back 2,000 years.
5. The Shambles is believed to be the oldest shopping street in Europe and was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. In those days most of the shops were butchers, and there are still meat hooks hanging outside every building. There's also a shrine here to Saint Margaret Clitherow, who was married to a butcher who owned a shop on the Shambles.
6. According to the international Ghost Research Foundation, York is the most haunted city in Europe. There's the ghost of a crying girl in College Street and even a ghost dog, called Seamus, which haunts the Minster. The Treasurers House in York is in the Guinness Book of Records for being home to ‘ghosts with the greatest longevity’, and York is also home to Britain's most haunted pub, the Golden Fleece.
7. There is a law in York which makes it perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow any day except Sunday.
8. There has been horse racing in York since 208 AD when the Romans started it. Racing grew in popularity in the eighteenth century.
9. York is home to the shortest street in England, Whip-ma-Whop-ma-Gate, which is an example of a ginnel, a small medieval alleyway.
10. A past Archbishop of York was Lancelot Blackburne, from 1724 to 1726. He's particularly interesting because he started his career as a pirate, and had possibly been a pirate captain, and a spy. In 1681 he was paid £20 pounds (£3,000 in today's money) by Charles II for “secret services”. Then, at some point, he decided to enter the Church and worked his way to the top.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

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31 July: 212

On the 212th day of the year, 10 things you might not know about the number 212:

1. The year 212 AD was a leap year starting on Wednesday, known as the Year of the Consulship of Asper and Camilius. In this year, construction began on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.
2. 212 degrees is the temperature in Fahrenheit at which water boils at sea level.
3. +212 is the code for international direct-dial phone calls to Morocco, and 212 is also the area code for Manhattan in New York.
4. American rapper Azealia Banks grew up in Manhattan which is why she recorded a track called 212 (Two One Two) in 2011.
5. 212 is a fragrance by Carolina Herrera, a Venezuelan-American fashion designer favoured by numerous First Ladies including Jacqueline Onassis, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump. The description on the company website reads: "A vibrant opening of Champagne Rosé, complemented by the light of Peach blossom and a joyfully feminine base of radiant Amber and Queenwood notes."
6. 212 Medea is a large main-belt asteroid discovered by Johann Palisa in 1880, named after Medea, a figure in Greek mythology.
7. Trading 212 is a London company which produces free and easy to use apps making trading on the financial markets more accessible to the public.
8. The A212 is a road in South London, linking Lewisham to Croydon.
9. The Roman numeral for 212 is CCXII and in Binary it's 11010100.
10. In numerology the energy of this number resonates with companionship, co-operation and team work; someone who likes to explore new ways of doing things and new experiences. A person who values friendships and the opinions of other people but is also independent and liable to go off and follow a new interest on a whim.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

30 July: Henry Ford

Born on this date in 1863 was car manufacturer Henry Ford. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:

1. In his early teens, he supplemented his pocket money by repairing watches. He taught himself how to do it, and made his own tools out of old nails and corset bones.
2. His father was a farmer and expected him to take over the farm one day, but Henry had no interest in farming. Instead, he went to work for the Thomas Edison Illumination Company in Detroit and at 20, was promoted to Chief Engineer, which meant he was responsible for keeping the city's lights working. He worked there for six years before Edison himself encouraged him to leave and work on his idea of creating an affordable automobile.
3. The car designs weren't the only thing that was innovative at his factories. He was first to use a moving assembly line in 1913. He was more willing than most manufacturers at the time to employ people with disabilities. By 1919, 20% of his workforce had a disability of some kind. He was also a pioneer of the concept of a minimum wage. He paid his workers well so that the best engineers would want to work there, forcing his competitors to raise their rates of pay, too. People who had worked at the company for six months or more were also offered a share of the profits. Not everything he did would be seen as good practice today, however. Shares of the profits were only offered to workers of good character who didn't drink or gamble and took good care of their children – and Ford actually employed investigators to spy on them. He was also against unions.
4. There was a brief foray into politics when President Woodrow Wilson suggested he should run for US Senate in 1918. Ford did so, but spent no money at all on his campaign, believing that people should vote for him if they wanted to. He didn't win, but only lost by 4,500 votes.
5. He famously said that people could have any colour car they wanted, as long as it was Black. Before the assembly lines, it was possible to get a Model T in Red, but in due course efficiency dictated that they should all be painted black because black paint dried more quickly.
6. He was ahead of his time in more things than running a factory. He wrote a book called The Case Against the Little White Slaver, about the dangers of cigarette smoking in 1914, long before smoking was proved detrimental to health. If not for the second world war, we might have been driving cars made from soybeans, thanks to Henry Ford. He was working on a lightweight car made from biodegradable plastic made from soybeans in 1941, but the project was sidelined by the war.
7. Over his lifetime, Ford amassed more than 160 patents. They weren't all related to cars. He invented the charcoal briquettes we use on Barbecues, making them out of the wood scraps left over from the oak parts of the Model T. During the first world war, he started building aircraft. His most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor, often called the "Tin Goose" because it was made from corrugated metal. 199 of them were made before the Ford Airplane Division was forced to close down in the Great Depression. A Ford Tri-Motor appears in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
8. Thomas Edison was Ford's idol and so much so that when Edison was dying, Ford persuaded Edison's son to catch his last breath in a test tube and seal it with a cork. The tube is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
9. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, years are numbered as Annum Fordum, or "Year of Our Ford." Huxley's characters also use Henry's name as "Our Ford" instead of "Our Lord." Ford himself, however, believed there was some kind of higher power. As a young man, he'd walk four miles to church every Sunday. He once said in an interview: “Somewhere is a Master Mind sending brain wave messages to us. There is a Great Spirit. I never did anything by my own volition. I was pushed by invisible forces within and without me.”
10. Another thing Henry Ford would be condemned for today was his anti-Semitic views. Although his was one of the few major corporations at the time actively hiring African American workers, disabled workers and women, Jews were a different matter. He sponsored a strongly anti-Semite newspaper, and his reason for funding square-dancing in American schools was because he thought Jazz, a type of music he disliked, had been invented by Jews. It's possible, however, that his anti-Semitism killed him in the end. In one biography, it was suggested that when Ford was shown footage from Nazi concentration camps in 1947 at the age of 83, and forced to confront the brutality caused by the prejudice he'd stoked the flames of, it caused his final, fatal stroke.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

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29 July: Black Dahlia

This date in 1924 was the birth date of Elizabeth Short, better known as Black Dahlia, victim of a gruesome murder which remains unsolved. 10 things you might not know:

1. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the third of five daughters born to Cleo and Phoebe Short. She had lung surgery at the age of 15 because she had severe asthma and bronchitis. After the stock market crash in 1929 her father faked his death and fled to California. He later wrote to the family explaining this. Elizabeth, although she'd not seen her father for ten years, moved to California to join him.
2. Possibly her move had less to do with her father than her wanting to be a film star. According to a former room mate, she paid particular attention to how she looked in the hope that she might be discovered. Sadly, it wasn't to be; when she died she had no acting credits to her name.
3. In September 1943 she was arrested for underage drinking. The mug shots she had taken then were the ones circulated at the time of her murder. This also meant the police had her fingerprints on file, which helped them identify her body.
4. The court ordered her to go home to Boston, but she ignored the order and went to Florida instead. There, she met and became engaged to Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., to whom she became engaged. In August 1945, Major Gordon died in a plane crash, weeks before the end of the war.
5. Why was she called Black Dahlia? It's thought it was a name her friends gave her, because she liked to wear Black and also had jet black Hair. Or it might have been the customers of the drugstore where she worked who gave her the name. It was no doubt a corruption of the title of a film which came out about a year before the murder – The Blue Dahlia, a film noir written by Raymond Chandler, starring Veronica Lake.
6. Her body was discovered on 15 January 1947 by a mother on her way to the shops with her three year old daughter. Betty Bersinger thought at first that someone had dumped a mannequin in the grass. Once she realised it was way more grisly than that, she whisked her daughter away to a nearby house and asked to use the phone to call the police.
7. Short's body had been slashed in half and her mouth had been slashed from ear-to-ear. Her intestines had been removed and a tattoo of a rose sliced off her thigh. Her face and pubic area had been badly cut and she'd been left lying in what some described as a seductive pose. However, there was no blood at the scene, and her body had been washed. Police concluded she'd been killed elsewhere and then dumped.
8. There was a lot of press interest, and reporters didn't always behave ethically. In an attempt to find out more about Elizabeth's background, they called her mother, who hadn't been informed yet that her daughter was dead. The reporters lied and said they wanted to know about Elizabeth because she'd won a beauty contest.
9. The case was never solved, and was linked with other unsolved crimes. There had been a series of murders in Cleveland between 1934 and 1938, known as the Cleveland Torso Murders, where 12 women had been killed and dismembered. That killer was never caught, either. Could he have moved to California? It didn't help that the press coverage resulted in between 60 and 500 men turning themselves in and claiming to have killed her. This carried on for years until eventually they could rule some of these people out because they weren't even born when the murder took place.
10. Not long after, the killer started writing to the local paper and sending in many of Short's personal documents and effects. There were no identifiable fingerprints on the letters. The prints they did find weren't on file. Police figured whoever did it must have been skilled in dissecting bodies and some students at the University of Southern California Medical School were under suspicion for a while. Two significant suspects were George Hodel, a physician who ran a venereal disease clinic in Los Angeles, and Leslie Dillon, a bellhop, writer, and mortician’s assistant. They were both questioned and Hodel's home was bugged, but neither was convicted. Hodel's son Steve wrote a book in which he claimed his father was guilty, and another book about the case by Piu Eatwell claimed that Dillon did it, but a bent copper let him go.

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 -  Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle 

There's some more information about the book and about Tabitha in my review on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23502802-death-and-faxes?ac=1

Themes
Crime; murder; serial killer; life after death; spirit communication; near death experiences; romance; domestic violence; family relationships; being different; trusting intuition.

Reasons not to read it

• Psychics? Talking to dead people? Helping the police solve crimes? Do me a favour.
• The main psychic isn't even a circus act or a gypsy. She's a normal woman living in 21st century London, with a normal office job who happens to have this weird talent.
• Not to mention her oh so normal family who don't understand who or what she is.
• She's psychic. Surely this means she knows everything and always does the right thing, but she doesn't!
• She doesn't even make the right decisions about her love life!
• People die in it. There are horrible murders.
• The protagonist has decided she doesn't want to have children.
• 
  

28 July: 209

Today is the 209th day of the year. 10 things you might not know about the number 209:

1. In Roman numerals, it's written CCIX and in Binary, 11010001.
2. In London the 209 Bus runs between Mortlake Bus Station and Lonsdale Road.
3. 209 Dido is a large main-belt Asteroid. It was discovered by C. H. F. Peters in 1879, and was named after the mythical Carthaginian queen Dido.
4. 209 is a California area telephone code which covers the towns of Stockton, Modesto, Tracy, Merced, and Turlock.
5. Also in California is a company called No. 209 Gin, so named because its founder, William Scheffler, having bought the patent for a new design of still, registered the distillery with the Federal Government and was given distillery license number 209. The distillery is located on Pier 50 in San Francisco and is the only distillery in the world which is built over water.
6. The A209 is a road in London which is 2 miles (3.2 km) long and connects Plumstead in the north with Welling in the south. It forms the boundary between Greenwich and Bexley for a short distance.
7. The 209 series is an electric multiple unit commuter train type operated by East Japan Railway Company in the Tokyo area since 1993.
8. 209 Women was a photo exhibition in the Houses of Parliament in 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote and the first female MP being elected. It features photos of all 209 female MPs.
9. The year 209 was a common year starting on Sunday and known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Commodus and Lollianus. It was the year St Alban died.
10. In numerology the number 209 has a kind, inclusive and diplomatic energy. People affected by the number like to feel they are useful and co-operative members of a team. They'll be romantic and idealistic.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

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27 July: Tobacco

It was on this date in 1586 that Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first tobacco to England from Virginia. 10 things you might not know about tobacco:

1. The tobacco plant belongs to the nightshade family, Solanacees. Other plants in this family include Potatoes and Tomatoes. There are about 70 species of tobacco plant. The chief commercial crop is N. tabacum.
2. Humans have been growing the stuff since about 6,000 B.C. in the Americas.
3. Native Americans have used tobacco since about 1 B.C. for religious and medicinal purposes. They used it as a wound dressing and as a painkiller, and as a cure for the common cold. They used to smoke it, too, both socially and as part of ceremonies to seal peace treaties or trade agreements. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he was offered tobacco leaves as a gift.
4. Tobacco is the most grown plant in the world which is not used for food.
5. The tobacco plant has teeny, tiny seeds. One flower will contain about 3,000 of them.
6. The seeds are planted in seedbeds first and nurtured until they are big enough to transplant into the field. There, the plants grow fast and can reach 8 or 9 feet in height, but the stems are weak, so the plants need to be supported. Buds may be removed to increase the number of leaves produced.
7. The fact that the plants grow quickly means they are useful in botanical research. Tobacco was the first GM crop to be tested in field trials in the United States and France in the 1980s. Tobacco was the GM crop to be approved for commercial planting in China in 1993.
8. Thomas Harriot, a 16th century astronomer believed that tobacco "openeth all the pores and passages of the body", and was the reason why the indigenous people of the Americas were "notably preserved in health."
9. Today, of course, we know differently, that smoking tobacco is incredibly bad for you. Some of the chemicals found in tobacco smoke include nicotine, cyanide, ammonia, formaldehyde, tar and carbon monoxide.
10. Nicotine was first isolated in 1560 by a Portuguese ambassador named Jean Nicot, who was trying to demonstrate the medicinal properties of tobacco to the king of France. Nicotine is a colourless alkaloid chemical which acts as a stimulant. When inhaled, it travels to the brain quickly and interacts with dopamine to produce a feeling of energy and relaxation. It is said to be as addictive as heroin or cocaine, which is why giving up smoking is so difficult. Nicotine extracts are used in pharmacology and perfumery. Nicotine was also used to fatten Pigs.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

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26 July: Anubis

In Pharaoh Egyptian astrology (one of two known systems), this time of year comes under the sign of Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian God associated with death, the afterlife and the mummification process. 10 things you might not know about this Egyptian deity:

1. His name in ancient Egypt was “Anpu” or “Inpu” rather than Anubis. The name meant "to decay", signifying his association with death. When the Greeks arrived in Egypt he evolved into a composite of Anpu and Hermes, known as “Hermanubis”. The Greek god Hermes had a similar role of guiding souls to the afterlife. Hence the name Anubis is Greek rather than Egyptian.
2. He is usually depicted as having the head of a god, or jackal. This may have come about as a result of his role of guarding graves. Jackals were scavengers which sometimes dug up newly buried bodies and ate them, so historians concluded a jackal form was used to scare them off. However, more recent studies suggest that these animals were a type of wolf rather than jackals.
3. At one point Anubis was the chief god of the underworld, but eventually Osiris took on that role and Anubis ended up being a sort of gatekeeper. His job was to weigh the Heart of each deceased person against Maat’s “feather of truth”. If a person's heart was lighter than the feather, they were in. If the heart was heavier, though, the demoness Ammut would eat it and that would be the end of that person's afterlife.
4. Anubis is usually pictured either tending to a dead king, presiding over a funeral or holding golden scales, in the process of weighing a person's heart. He is usually Black, because black is a symbol of death, and also of the Nile’s fertile soil.
5. Accounts differ as to who his parents were. Some say his parents were Nephthys and Osiris. Nephthys was a goddess of darkness, so that made sense. If Osiris was his father that would explain why the two were allies. Other accounts say that Set, god of darkness, storms and destruction was his father. Others say his parents were the sun god Ra and either Hesat the cow goddess or Bastet the cat goddess was his mother. The stories agree that Anubis married Anput, goddess of funerals and mummification, and that their daughter was the serpent goddess Kebechet, a goddess of purification.
6. There aren't many stories about Anubis. He plays a part in the story of Osiris as the one who helps restore him to his body. This is probably why he is known as the god of embalming. Other than that, he doesn't feature much at all, except sometimes as a looming figure at the end, rather like the personification of Death in more modern stories.
7. In spite of that, Anubis was one of the most popular gods in the Egyptian pantheon. He was often depicted in art and had a cult following of worshippers. It may be that Egyptians thought it important to butter Anubis up while they were alive so they'd be sure of a fair judgement when they died.
8. Priests performing the embalming of corpses wore jackal masks to imitate Anubis.
9. Probably the most famous depiction of Anubis is a life sized wooden statue of him which was placed at the entrance to Tutenkhamen's tomb. It showed him as completely in jackal form, crouching protectively. It's painted black and has a collar and a scarf. The fact that he was placed there to protect the tomb of the boy king against mortals who might desecrate it led to the belief that the tomb was cursed. When the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered, several people who entered the tomb died. Anubis, it was said, had the power to curse people who violated tombs.
10. When Anubis appears in modern stories (such as Stargate SG1 or American Gods) he's usually depicted as much more malicious and Satanic than the Egyptians believed him to be.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

25 July: 206

Today is the 206th day of the year. Here are 10 things you might not know about the number 206:

1. 206 is the lowest positive number which, when written in words (two hundred and six), uses all the vowels once only.
2. A typical adult human has 206 bones.
3. This fact is reflected in the title of the twelfth novel by Kathy Reichs starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
4. The Roman numeral for 206 is CCVI and the Binary representation is 11001110.
5. The year 206 was a common year starting on Wednesday. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Umbrius and Gavius.
6. The Peugeot 206 is a supermini car produced by the French car manufacturer Peugeot since 1998.
7. The 206 slang terminology for the urban part of the greater Seattle area, based on its area code.
8. The Cessna 206 is an aircraft with fixed landing gear, used in commercial air service as well as for personal use.
9. 206 Hersilia is a fairly large Main belt Asteroid discovered by C. H. F. Peters in 1879, and named after Hersilia, Roman wife of Romulus.
10. In numerology 206 is associated with business and the work/life balance needed for efficiency. A person affected by the number probably likes organising things like events and companies. They also value their home as a place to relax. Companionship, diplomacy and infinite potential are also associated with this number.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

24 July: Detroit

On this date in 1701, French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac landed at the present site of Detroit and founded Fort Detroit. 10 facts about Detroit:

1. The name is of French origin. It literally means "The Straight" because it was named for ‘le Detroit de lac Erie’ or the strait of Lake Erie. It's also known as the Paris of the Midwest, City of Champions because of its success in sports, and The 313, after the telephone code.
2. Talking of sport, Detroit has made seven unsuccessful bids for the summer Olympic Games —the most by any city in the world never to have hosted the event.
3. It's the only major city in the USA which is further north than parts of Canada.
4. The city's proximity to Canada made it a popular place during prohibition for smuggling in booze, both by road and via the waterways. 75% of the booze smuggled into America at that time passed through Detroit.
5. It's known by the nickname Motor City because it was a centre for the car manufacturing industry. During the second world war, however, the car factories switched to making military vehicles, including Sherman tanks and B-24 bombers. Stalin is said to have commented, “Detroit is winning the war.” As well as the car industry, Detroit was home to the first mile of concrete highway, and the first traffic tunnel to link two nations. A bonus car related fact: The city of Detroit spends more money issuing parking fines than it collects from them.
6. It's also known for Music, thanks to the Motown record label founded in the city by Berry Gordy Jr. Detroit is also considered the home of techno music, a genre which started in the 1980s.
7. Underneath the city are 1,400 acres of Salt mines with 100 miles of road serving them. It used to be possible to go on guided tours of them, but I expect the plague has put paid to that. If you're wondering where all the salt goes, at least some of it must end up on potato chips (aka crisps on the other side of the pond). Another nickname Detroit has is the Potato Chip Capital. People here consume 7 pounds of chips a year, compared to about 4 pounds in the rest of the US.
8. Detroit Zoo was the first zoo in America to feature cageless, open exhibits. The zoo originated when a circus came to town, and while it was there, went bankrupt.
9. Other things found in the city include the only floating post office in the US, which has its own zip code; the largest Satanic temple in America; and the tallest hotel in North America the Marriott at the Renaissance Center, which has 72 floors and was, when it was first built, the tallest hotel in the world.
10. In 1980, Detroit gave Saddam Hussein a key to the city in recognition of donations he made to local churches.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

23 July: Raymond Chandler Quotes

On this date in 1888 Raymond Chandler, US author of crime stories, was born. 10 quotes from him:

1. There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.
2. The more you reason the less you create.
3. If you're not tough it's hard to survive in this world; and if you're not kind then you don't deserve to survive.
4. If you believe in an idea, you don't own you, it owns you.
5. To say goodbye is to die a little.
6. There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art.
7. The best way to find out if you have any friends is to go broke. The ones that hang on longest are your friends. I don't mean the ones that hang on forever. There aren't any of those.
8. The tragedy of life is not that the beautiful die young, but that they grow old and mean.
9. I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.
10. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

22 July: Kingston, Jamaica

Kingston, Jamaica founded in 1692. Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the south east coast of the island.

1. The city of Kingston was founded after an Earthquake hit the town of Port Royal in June 1692 and destroyed most of it. The survivors moved to new homes which in due course became Kingston.
2. Port Royal was once known as the world's wickedest city, because it was a regular port of call for pirates seeking refuge from the law and provisioning their vessels.
3. There was another earthquake in 1907 which measured 6.5 and caused a massive fire, adding to the destruction and loss of life of the earthquake itself. Kingston Parish Church was built in 1911 on the foundations of the original church, which was destroyed by the earthquake.
4. Kingston’s built-up urban and rural area is 190 square miles (480 square kilometres). In 2019, the estimated population was 1.2 million.
5. Kingston has the seventh largest natural harbour in the world, two miles long and 10 miles wide. It is sheltered by the Palisadoes spit, which is now the location of the Norman Manley International Airport.
6. The first commercial flight into Kingston was a Pan Am seaplane, which landed in the harbour in December 1930.
7. Three Miss Worlds hailed from Kingston: Carole Crawford, who won the title in 1973, Cindy Breakspeare, who won in 1976 and Lisa Hanna, who won in 1993.
8. It was also the home of many Reggae musicians including Ken Boothe, Desmond Dekker, Shaggy and of course, Bob Marley.
9. In 1966 Kingston hosted the Commonwealth Games.
10. Kingston is twinned with several other cities including Guadalajara (Mexico); Coventry; Shenzen (China); Miami, Florida; and Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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21 July: Damo, daughter of Pythagoras

In ancient Greece, today was the Feast of Damo, a female philosopher and daughter of Pythagoras. Not much is known about her life but here are 10 things I was able to glean:

1. She was born in Crotona, Italy.
2. Pythagoras was her father; her mother was Theano of Crotona, another philosopher. Damo had two sisters, Arignote and Myia, and two brothers, Telauges and Mnesarchus.
3. The entire family belonged to the Pythagorean school, which believed that our life on Earth is simply a means to purify the soul. It stressed moderation and the study of mathematics, because the order of the world was derived from numbers.
4. No writing attributed to Damo survives, but she may well have contributed to some of the work attributed to Pythagoras. We can't know for sure, because it was the custom of the Pythagorean school to attribute all their work to their master in testimony to his greatness.
5. Damo was a student, and later a teacher, at this school.
6. At some point the Pythagorean school in Crotona closed, and Damo emigrated to Athens, where she belonged to the class of people known as "Athenian Strangers".
7. In Athens, she was an associate of two more philosophers from her home town. Thymaridas, a Pythagorean known for his work on prime numbers, and Philolaus, who was one of the first to put forward the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
8. Pythagoras trusted her integrity enough that he willed his written works to her and she became the custodian of them after he died. It may be that it's only because she did such a good job of looking after them that we know anything about his work today.
9. After her father died, Damo would have been extremely poor. One thing she would never do, however, is sell her father's writings. He had forbidden that she do so, and she would have believed that his work was more precious than Gold.
10. In due course, she passed the writings on to her own daughter, Bitale. Damo married Meno the Crotonian. According to Iamblichus, Bitale's husband was Telauges, the son of Pythagoras – suggesting that Damo and Meno married their daughter off to her uncle.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.