1 May: Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square opened to the public on this date in 1844. 10 things you might not know about Trafalgar Square.

1. It’s named after the Battle of Trafalgar, one of Britain’s most famous military victories. However, when the idea of putting a square there was first suggested, it didn’t have a name at all. Later, it was going to be named after William IV. However, it was the king himself who issued a court circular in 1832 saying that he wanted to name it after the battle instead. The name "Trafalgar" is a Spanish word of Arabic origin, which means either “cape of the cave/laurel” or “extremity of the west”.
2. Hippopotamus and Elephants once roamed where the square is now. Building work in the 1950s on the south side of Trafalgar Square uncovered deposits left over from the last interglacial period. Among the findings were the remains of cave lions, Rhinoceros, straight-tusked elephants and hippopotamus.
3. The square was once the location of the royal stables and was the place where the king kept his hawks. In fact, it still belongs to the monarch today, although the task of maintenance was handed over to the Mayor of London. Part of the original reason for turning it into a square was to keep the poor people away from the rich people.
4. The fountains weren’t part of the original design, and were added about a year later to make it harder for the plebs to organise protests there. Originally the fountains were fed by a couple of wells underneath Trafalgar Square, but they were replaced by modern pumps. A more recent upgrade can send a jet of water 24 metres into the sky. The ones that are there now are not the originals. They were given to Canada and now reside in Ottawa and Regin.
5. In the centre of the square is Nelson’s Column, which is 169 ft 3 Inches tall. I’m not going to say too much about that here as Nelson’s column has a page on this blog of its own, HERE. At the base of the column are four bronze Lions designed by Sir Edwin Landseer who used a dead lion donated by London Zoo as a model. It’s said that the paws are less graceful than the rest of the lions as by the time they got to the paws, the model had started to decompose. There’s also a legend which state that the lions will come to life if Big Ben chimes 13 times.
6. The square is home to London’s smallest police box, which dates back to 1926. It’s essentially a hollowed out lamp post with a round black lamp above it. It was put there so the police could have an unobtrusive presence during protests, and once had a telephone in it which was connected to the local police station. Today, it has been decommissioned as a police box and is used to store cleaning materials.
7. Seventeen Bus Routes pass through Trafalgar Square.
8. There are four plinths for statues. One has a statue of George IV, by Sir Francis Chantrey, which was originally intended to be placed on top of Marble Arch; another is General Sir Charles James Napier and a third Major-General Sir Henry Havelock. They never quite got around to deciding who should grace the fourth plinth, and today it is used to display a series of different art installations. Which have in the past included a boy on a rocking horse, a model of the HMS Victory (Nelson’s Ship), a pregnant woman, and a sculpture of a cockerel, intended to symbolise “regeneration, awakening and strength”. There have been other statues in the square which were moved. One of these was a statue of the vaccine scientist, Edward Jenner, which now resides in Kensington Gardens. The statue was moved in 1862, and the British Medical Journal commented on the decision, noting that the military statues to Jenner, and noted that they remained in Trafalgar Square “because they killed their fellow-creatures whereas he only saved them”.
9. Around 200 years ago, Sir Frederick William Trench, an MP and soldier, put forward a plan to erect a giant pyramid in the square which would have been taller than St Paul's Cathedral with a base of around 360 feet along each side. It would have been to commemorate the defeat of the French, not only at the Battle of Trafalgar, but in the whole war. Trench thought the Battle of the Nile was the turning point, which was why he suggested a pyramid.
10. The square was the target of two suffragette bombings in 1913 and 1914, but it narrowly escaped being bombed in WWII. The roads around it were badly hit. The Square was used on several occasions to show off Allied weapons to the public and to raise funds for the war effort, and was one of the major sites for the VE Day celebrations.

Character birthdays

Auriga, a Roman soldier who was brought to the future as part of a time travel experiment. He was offered a place with the Constellations, and, seeing his chance to carry on serving as a warrior, accepted.

Captain Jersey, aka Roger Courdelion, a solo hero based in the Channel Islands. He volunteered to crew lifeboats and on one occasion the floundering vessel he was called to assist turned out to be an alien spacecraft. The aliens were grateful for the help and granted Courdelion superpowers as a thank you gift.

30 April: 120

Today is the 120th day of the year. 10 things you might not know about the number 120:

1. In Germanic languages, the number 120 was once known as "one hundred". This is now obsolete, but 120 is described as the long hundred or great hundred in some historical contexts.
2. It’s the atomic number of Unbinilium, a hypothetical chemical element.
3. The Israeli national legislature, the Knesset, has 120 seats.
4. It’s the height (in inches) of a regulation hoop in the National Basketball Association.
5. Moses died at the age of 120.
6. In Astrology, when two planets in a person's chart are 120 degrees apart, it’s called a trine. This is supposed to bring good luck to the person's life.
7. It’s the number to call for medical assistance in China, and to report a car breakdown on the highway in Austria.
8. The A120 road in England connects Puckeridge and Harwich.
9. In London the 120 bus runs between Hounslow Bus Station and Northolt Station.
10. 120 is a 2008 Turkish war film based on the true story of 120 children who died in 1915 carrying ammunition for the Battle of Sarikamish against the Russians during World War I.

Character birthday

Sandstorm, aka Kyle Saunders. Being pulled through a wormhole from Infinitus to Earth gave him a life altering power in that he became an animated, intelligent pile of sand. With practice, he learned to maintain a human shape, except when there is an advantage to doing otherwise (such as flowing through a small gap).

29 April: Jerry Seinfeld Quotes

American comedian Jerry Seinfeld was born on this date in 1954. 10 quotes from him:

1. It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
2. There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.
3. Sometimes the road less travelled is less travelled for a reason.
4. I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything – which as you know, always leads to something – cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.
5. Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.
6. Keep your head up in failure and your head down in success.
7. Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?
8. If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?
9. When you are driving, you're outside and inside, moving and completely still, all at the same time.
10. What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night?

Character birthday

Kane, martial artist and member of Combat Team Epsilon. It could be argued the fifth team was actually his idea. Wanting to use his considerable talent at martial arts, Kane applied to audition as a combat team fighter in the martial arts category. He made it through to the final, only to be beaten at the last minute in a three way tiebreaker. Auditions in the sharp-shooter category were being held the same day, and Kane was able to watch some of this contest. Here, he befriended Gyro, the runner up in the sharp-shooter contest. Kane joked about being in "Combat Team Nothing" which led to the two men coming up with the idea for Combat Team Epsilon.

28 April: National Superhero Day

Today is National Superhero Day. 10 things you might not know about superheroes:

1. You might think superheroes are a modern phenomenon, but in fact, the word dates back to 1899, and the idea of characters with supernatural powers fighting evil goes back way further than that. Think of Greek myths and characters like Hercules, or Gilgamesh in ancient Mesopotamian mythology. Then Robin Hood, wearing a Green costume and taking from the rich to give to the poor. And the Scarlet Pimpernel, a character in a 1903 play, which popularised the idea of a superhero with a secret identity.
2. This didn’t stop the “Big Comic” companies, DC and Marvel, from slapping a trademark on the word and any variation of it in the 1960s, even though there’s dispute over whether "Super Hero" meets the legal standard for trademark protection in the United States. That said, at time of writing, no dispute involving the trademark "Super Hero" has ever been to trial except for a failed trademark removal action brought in 2016 against DC Comics' and Marvel Comics' United Kingdom registration. (Which is why the characters in my books are referred to as “Ultraheroes”. To be on the safe side.)
3. The first superhero as we know them today was The Phantom, a kid called Kit Walker who dons a mask to become a walking ghost. He dates back to a newspaper comic strip which began in 1936.
4. Female superheroes came along a bit later, in the 1940s. The first was Fantomah, an ancient Egyptian woman who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil.
5. Many of today’s superhero characters were based on characters from mythology. Thor is a pretty obvious one. Other examples are The Flash, initially based on the Roman god Mercury; Aquaman and Namor are based on the Atlantis civilization as described by the Greek philosopher Plato. Wonder Woman was inspired by the Greek legend of the Amazon warriors. Others are based on real people. Iron Man was based on the US billionaire Howard Hughes; Professor X, the leader of The X-Men, was inspired by the activist and preacher Martin Luther King Jr in terms of personality and mission and actor Yul Brynner in terms of what he looks like. Nick Fury, the founder of the Avengers and director of the S.H.I.E.L.D. was based on the actor Samuel L. Jackson, who went on to play him in the films. Villains can be based on real people, too. Darkseid, one of the most powerful villains in the DC stories, is based on Adolph Hitler.
6. You can even study superheroes at university or on online courses. Since 2015, the Smithsonian Institution has offered an online course on superheroes called “The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture” which covers the history of the superhero genre from 1938 to the present day. The University of Oregon has a course entitled “Comic Studies.” It focuses on the technical aspects of comics, such as the drawings and storytelling. The University of Minnesota has a course on “the physics of superheroes”, meaning the scientific facts writers use to explain their characters’ powers.
7. Life can imitate art, too. There are a number of self-styled superheroes around the world, ordinary people who don costumes and become forces for good. Examples include Superbarrio Gómez in Mexico City, who wore Red tights and a red and Yellow wrestler's mask. He organised labour rallies, protest, and helped prevent families from being evicted. The Black Rat of Sydney carries a utility belt and backpack containing a fire blanket, fire extinguisher, first aid kit and drinking water. He has campaigned for better lighting in the streets. In China there is Redbug Woman, who wears Black tights and a Blue mask, and hands out food and warm clothing to the homeless in Beijing. In the UK, there is Angle-Grinder Man, the "wheel-clamp superhero" who claims to use an angle grinder to illegally cut wheel clamps off vehicles which have been clamped in by police and parking officials. A vigilante known as the Bromley Batman has been seen by several witnesses to have saved people from knife-wielding gangs and muggers in South London. Needless to say, the police aren’t generally enamoured with these people. An article from The Globe and Mail reports that the police "fear for the safety of these 'superheroes' and argue that sometimes they can get in the way of police work and become a liability".
8. Even North Korea has superheroes. In Korea, there’s an ancient hero named Hong Gildong, basically a Korean version of Robin Hood. In 1986, North Korea released a film about the character set in feudal Korea. Blizzard in the Jungle is a comic book character from 2001, a doctor named Kim Yeong-hwan who uses the wisdom of his leader Kim, and the power conferred by a plant grown in Korea to help the survivors of a plane crash. In 2014 images were leaked of a new North Korean superhero wearing a military uniform, riding a winged horse, and using a torch as a weapon. The “bad guys” this one fights are the Americans and capitalism. He throws their gold into the sea.
9. In the early days, superheroes were pretty much exclusively white, male, heterosexual and physically fit, but over time heroes who are female, from ethnic minorities, gay and with disabilities have appeared. A recent addition is Sign Gene, the first group of deaf superheroes whose superpowers emerge through the use of sign language.
10. Knowing the potential to superhero characters have to influence people, governments have used them to motivate the population to take action and fight for their country. Captain America is a case in point. Created during World War II, he’s an American super soldier dressed in the American flag who can fight Nazis with his bare hands. Incidentally, Captain America’s creator Joe Simon initially named his hero Super American, but decided to change it, because the world of superheroes had too many 'supers.”

Character birthday

Power Blaster, a super-powered hero from the Infinitus dimension. He is an archetypical hero who has a secret identity, can fly, is very strong and has a secret identity. He is based in the Innovian capital city, Sprawling, where he fights crime and assists with incidents and disasters, flying away before reporters can get an identifying photo of him. On learning that government scientist Desi Troyes intended to use a nuclear test to set off a chain reaction of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis to bring the world to its knees and stage a coup, Power Blaster travels to the test site and diverts the bomb into the upper atmosphere. This averts the tragedy, but results in a wormhole leading to Earth, through which anyone in the immediate area is pulled through. Power Blaster becomes the leader of one group of these people, the Raiders, whose mission is twofold; to find Desi Troyes and bring him to justice, and to find a way to get home. His story is told in The Raiders Trilogy.

Raiders Trilogy

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.

Available from Amazon or Amazon Kindle

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

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 that there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know that she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

27 April: Fur Elise

It's believed that Beethoven completed Für Elise on April 27, 1810. 10 things you might not know about this piece of music:

1. The piece’s official name is “Bagatelle Number 25 in A minor.” A bagatelle is a piece of Music that is short and sweet, from the French word for a “trifle”.
2. It has also been known as an "Albumblatt," which means "album leaf", that is, a short and sweet solo piano piece that people would share with their friends by pasting them into each others’ music albums.
3. Occasionally, Für Elise is labelled as a "Klavierstücke" which is German for "Piano piece."
4. Beethoven was 39 years old when he wrote it.
5. It wasn’t published during his lifetime, but 40 years after he died. He wrote it, put it in a drawer, and 12 years later, got it out, made a few small changes and put it back in the drawer where it stayed until a German music scholar called Ludwig Nohl found it and had it published in 1867.
6. It’s thought that Beethoven was starting to lose his hearing at this time, and that he was best able to hear notes in the higher register, which might be why Für Elise uses the higher notes.
7. The original manuscript is lost, but we know that Beethoven had written on it, "Für Elise am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn" ("For Elise on April 27 in memory by L. v. Bthvn").
8. The words “Für Elise” mean “for Elise” in German. Needless to say, there has been speculation as to who “Elise” was and why Beethoven was writing music dedicated to her. Various musicologists have put forward three candidates. One is Therese Malfatti von Rohrenbach zu Dezza, (and the dedication on the front of the manuscript was misread) a woman Beethoven proposed to in 1810 but she turned him down and married the Austrian nobleman and state official Wilhelm von Droßdik in 1816. Did he write it in an effort to win her heart or was it his way of dealing with his broken heart because she said no? Might explain why it ended up gathering dust in a drawer… The second possibility is German soprano singer Elisabeth Röckel, the younger sister of Joseph August Röckel, who played a leading role in one of Beethoven's operas. Her parish priest referred to her as Elise, and it’s thought Beethoven had a thing for her, too. The third suggestion is Elise Barensfeld, a child music prodigy. Therese Malfatti was her piano teacher, so it might be that the tune was written for the young student as a favour to Therese.
9. The tune is a very well known and recognisable one, and has been interpreted in many different ways including blues and ragtime, and for other instruments such as the classical Guitar. It has even been used on a rap track. American rapper Nas built his 2002 song I Can around samples of this piece. It’s a simple melody which is easy for piano students to learn. The challenge for concert pianists and performers is how to put their own take on a tune that has been performed so many times before.
10. One unusual time and place you might hear it is in Taiwan on bin day. The bin lorries there play this tune, rather like an ice cream van, to tell people it’s time to put their bins out.

Character birthday

Dragonfly. A member of the Freedom League when Vixen and Ms Liberty decided to break away to form Female Force, an entirely female crime fighting team. Dragonfly was one of the reasons behind their decision. Dragonfly had been emotionally abused and physically threatened by her father and was somewhat phobic of men. She ran away from home and lived for some months in an abandoned house, until the bulldozers arrived to demolish it. The Freedom League were called in to deal with the house's strange squatter. Although the Freedom League offered her a safe haven, the males on the team terrified her and she shied away from conflict. She gratefully agreed to go with Vixen and Ms Liberty when they left, and has blossomed in the even safer environment they offered her.

26 April: Marcus Aurelius Quotes

Born on this date in 121 was Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman Emperor. He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. here are 10 things he said:

1. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
2. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
3. The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
4. Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.
5. Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.
6. Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
7. If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.
8. The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
9. How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
10. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Character birthday

R. Vendetta, a member of the Vendetta gangster family based in New York. His father, inspired by the song "A Boy Named Sue" gave him the name Regina. He is generally known simply by the initial R. While the Vendettas, Pozzis and Fortellis are traditionally bitter enemies, R. Vendetta is working to form an alliance with the other families.

25 April: 115

Today is the 115th day of the year. 10 fun facts about the number 115:

1. The Roman numeral for 115 is CXV.
2. In Binary it’s 1110011.
3. In London, the 115 bus runs between East Ham Central Park and Aldgate Station.
4. It’s the homeless emergency telephone number in France.
5. The Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies soundtrack features a track called 115. It is featured on the map “Kino Der Toten” (Theater of the dead).
6. It’s the atomic number of moscovium, a synthetic element so rare it can only be created one atom at a time in a particle accelerator, and decays into other elements after just a fraction of a second. It’s named after Moscow, where it was first created in 2016. However, a man called Robert ("Bob") Scott Lazar, who claimed he once worked in Area 51, reverse engineering UFOs, alleged in 1989 that he’d worked with this element as aliens used it for fuel for their spacecraft.
7. The A115 used to be a road in England which ran between Hackney Wick to Stratford, but was reclassified in 2010 and is mostly part of the A12.
8. 115 km is a rural locality in Osinogrivskoye Rural Settlement of Topkinsky District, Russia. The population was 38 as of 2010.
9. There are 115 images on the golden record sent into space with Voyager I.
10. In numerology, 115 represents introspection, wisdom, and independence. 115 energy is comfortable being alone and comfortable interacting with others. The energy is attracted to both scientific puzzles and spiritual mysteries, and is very good at solving them.

Character birthday

Corky Fortelli. Corky is a member of the Fortelli family, which, along with the Vendetta and Pozzi families are the three major gangster families in New York. At times the three families co-operate against the law, at others they are at loggerheads. His physique and strength attracted the attention of the head of the Vendetta family, R. Vendetta, who employs him as a bodyguard.

24 April: The Sky at Night

This date in 1957 saw the first broadcast of astronomy programme The Sky at Night. 10 things you might not know about this show:

1. It was Patrick Moore’s idea. The evidence for this is in a series of letters between him and Paul Johnstone, a TV producer. Moore had made a documentary for the BBC about whether flying saucers exist. While waiting to find out if this programme had been a success, he wrote to Johnstone with some suggestions, including having a radar expert on TV to show that other things can cause unexplained radar blips, making the point it would be good visually. In the same letter, Moore said he was sure it was only a matter of time before someone produced a “Stars of the Month programme” which he also thought would be good television, and was already popular on Radio. In fact, he was pretty much pitching the idea and said that if the BBC weren’t interested, he would approach the other channel. Johnstone replied to say he’d put it to the planners and Moore would definitely be in the running to present such a show, but it depended “firstly on your performance in the flying Saucers programme and secondly, on your not deciding to go to ITA in the meantime.”
2. The original working title was "Star Map".
3. Patrick Moore presented the programme from the first episode until his death in December 2012 – making him the longest running host of the same TV programme ever.
4. He’s not the only long standing feature of the show to make the record books. It’s also the show holding the record for having the same theme tune for the longest time. That theme music is At the Castle Gate, from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.
5. Guests on the show have included Harlow Shapley (the first to measure the size of the Milky Way galaxy), Fred Hoyle, Carl Sagan, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Arthur C Clarke, Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, Michael Bentine, Wernher von Braun, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Brian May, the Queen guitarist and astrophysicist.
6. The show has an Asteroid named after it. On the show’s 50^th anniversary The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid 57424 Caelumnoctu, the number referring to the first broadcast date and the name being Latin for "The Sky at Night".
7. The 50th Anniversary edition of the show was a special "time travel" edition which included the appearance of Jon Culshaw as Moore's younger self. It was filmed at Teddington Studios as Lime Grove Studios, where the first show was made, had been demolished in 1992.
8. In 2013 the show was moved from BBC1 to BBC Four. The BBC had announced that the programme's future was under review; fans feared it was gong to be axed and started a petition to save it. While the move might be seen by some as a downgrade, on the up side, after the move it was 10 minutes longer, the broadcast time increasing from 20 minutes to 30.
9. When Patrick Moore died, two new presenters took over: Dr Lucie Green, the show’s first ever female presenter, a Royal Society University Research Fellow whose day job is studying immense magnetic structures in the sun’s atmosphere; and Professor Chris Lintott, initially recruited as a researcher, then as a reporter and co-presenter. Chris’s day job is at the University of Oxford, where he recruits people to work on tasks like discovering supernovae or classifying galaxies. This team would be joined, after a few months, by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who has worked on the Gemini telescope in Chile and the James Webb Space telescope, and has presented children’s astronomy programmes. She wanted to be an astronaut as a child, and is still hopeful that her dream of travelling to outer space will come true. She said, “I want to retire to Mars. Some people choose gardening, I choose Mars!” The fourth member of the team is Pete Lawrence, who has an honours degree in Physics with Astrophysics, whose day job is computer software development, and is an expert on using digital cameras for astrophotography. He once said, “One of the problems that I have when I'm looking at Uranus is that there's something much more tempting very close by.”
10. Why has this show been so popular for so long? Patrick Moore once explained it thus: "Astronomy's a fascinating subject. You look up... you can't help getting interested and it's there. We've tried to bring it to the people.. it's not me, it's the appeal of the subject."

See also: Night sky

Character birthday

Silverstreak. He was a petty thief, mostly to fund his drug habit. He was offered a large fee to break into a high security installation to steal a prototype suit of power armour with a rocket pack. He jumped at the chance. Those paying him instructed him to use the armour to escape, knowing it would have little fuel in it, and Ronnie would fall to his death before getting very far, whereupon they would retrieve it. Ronnie, however, overheard them discussing the plan and knew to also steal some fuel and top up the tank before escaping. He found flying to be the ultimate high and was able to give up drugs. He was pursued relentlessly by the gang for some time, but eventually, he killed them all in self defence – but by the time they were all gone, he'd developed a taste for violent crime. Soon after this, he joined Combat Team Omega.

23 April: King Charles II

On this date in 1661, the English King Charles II was crowned. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Charles II was born at St James's Palace on 29 May 1630, His parents were Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Henrietta Maria of France. He wasn’t their first child – they’d had another, which they’d also called Charles, but that baby died within a day of being born.
2. His father made him commander of English forces in the West Country at the age of 14. The rest of the family had been sent to safety in France.
3. After Charles I's execution at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, the Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II king. England, however, did not, and instead became a de facto republic led by Oliver Cromwell. Charles faced Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, but lost, and it was then that he fled to Europe and spent nine years in exile.
4. When Cromwell died and left his son, Richard, in charge. Richard wasn’t such a strong ruler, and the British people had grown tired of Oliver Cromwell’s draconian rules. They welcomed Charles II back to London on his 30^th birthday with open arms. Legal documents requiring the year his reign began would state 1649, the year of his father’s execution.
5. Charles II was a popular king and was known as the Merry Monarch. He re-instated Christmas as a holiday and liked to play cards and enjoy sports such as horse racing. He also enjoyed the theatre and particularly liked bawdy comedies. The Puritan era was at an end and "Restoration comedy" became a recognisable genre. It was he who brought to an end the custom of female parts in plays being played by boys. Theatre licences granted by Charles required that female parts be played by "their natural performers".
6. He also had a pet spaniel he was especially fond of and used to play with during council meetings. The breed was later named the King Charles Spaniel because of this.
7. He was very interested in science, despite the tutors he had as a young child believing that the study of science was not appropriate for a future king. However, as Charles grew older, the surgeon William Harvey was appointed his tutor, and as a result, Charles grew interested in the subject and while he was in exile, he studied physics, chemistry and mathematics. He was fascinated by the scientific developments of the time and had a particular interest in clock mechanisms. He kept seven Clocks in his bedroom. He also had a laboratory set up at his home where he could carry out experiments and observe others doing so.
8. He married a princess from Portugal, Catherine of Braganza. She was unable to provide him with a legitimate heir, suffering at least four miscarriages. Which is why, when he died, his brother, James, would succeed him. That said, he was known for having a string of mistresses, the best known being Nell Gwynn, and had many illegitimate offspring, several of whom were given titles or married titles. Diana, Princess of Wales, was descended from two of them, so when her son William takes the throne, he will be the first monarch in some time to be a direct descendant of Charles II.
9. When the Great fire of London broke out, Charles II took an active part in fighting it, risking his own life.
10. He died from a stroke on 6 February 1685, aged just 54. His illness and death was quite sudden and so some of his doctors suspected he’d been poisoned, although a more modern medical analysis suggests he had kidney failure. While he’d lived his life as a Protestant as he didn’t believe the people would accept a Catholic king, on his deathbed he converted to Catholicism. He also asked his brother James to look after his mistresses: "be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve".

Character birthday

Jennifer Butterworth, Olympic athlete who went to school with Fiona Kingston-Parker (Ivory) and was one of her friendship group. It was through Jennifer that Fiona first heard of Richard Miller, another athlete that Jennifer had a crush on. She was therefore curious, when she learned Richard was at the same university as she was, to meet him. Jennifer appears in Eternal Flame.

Eternal Flame

The Freedom League's numbers have dwindled to three - but leader Unicorn knows his team isn't finished yet. The turning point comes with Russell, a boy with bright red hair and a genetic variant ability to start fires. He's the first of an influx of new members who will take the League into the future. 

Judith and Wil are child prodigies - Judith in physics and electronics, and Wil in medicine. They have another thing in common - they are both genetic variants. And another thing - they both have fiery red hair. They are drawn to one another as their destinies intertwine, but the course of true love doesn't always run smoothly!

Richard is not a variant. He's an Olympic athlete who has picked up useful knowledge from his unusual friends to add to his own natural abilities. A chance encounter with a dying alien throws him into a Freedom League mission in which his skills are put to the ultimate test, along with theirs.

The Freedom League's arch-enemy, the super-villain Obsidian, wants his family fortune all to himself. One person stands in his way - his niece, Fiona. Fiona, devastated by a family tragedy and her failure to get in to her first choice university, is miserable and has few friends. When she realises her brother's death was no accident, and his killer is also after her, she fears it may be too late to gather allies around her and learn how to use her own genetic variant powers.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

22 April: April Showers Day

Today is April Showers Day. Here are 10 facts about 10 facts about rain:

1. What is the difference between rain and drizzle? The size of the droplets. To be classed as drizzle, droplets must be less than 0.5mm in diameter; that’s larger than the droplets in the clouds, but smaller than regular raindrops.
2. The Oxford English Dictionary contains 462 words for which the definition contains the word “rain”, including to drouk (drench with heavy rain) and mizzle (light rain with small drops).
3. Ask someone to draw a raindrop and they’ll probably produce a teardrop shape. However, raindrops are not that shape at all. They start out spherical, but as they fall, air resistance causes the bottom of the drop to flatten so that they are more like the shape of a jelly bean or hamburger bun.
4. How long does it take a raindrop to fall? It’s hard to say as it depends on the height of the clouds and the size of the raindrops, but the average speed of a falling raindrop is 14mph, so assuming a cloud base height of around 2,500 feet, a raindrop would take just over 2 minutes to reach the ground. Drizzle or mizzle, however, might take 7 minutes to hit the ground.
5. Or it might not ever hit the ground at all. In some hot, dry places they get what’s known as “phantom rain” where drops start to fall from a cloud but evaporate before they hit the ground.
6. Botswana is a hot, dry place. In fact, rain is so precious there that their currency is the pula, which is the word for rain in the local language.
7. The wettest place in the world isn’t in England. The wettest place in the world is Mawsynram in the Maghalaya State of India. It gets an average of 11,971 mm rainfall each year. The UK's average annual rainfall, in comparison, is 1154 mm. The place which gets the least precipitation is Antarctica, where they get just 165mm of rain and Snow in a year.
8. The wettest day recorded in Britain was 5 December 2015 when Honister Pass in Cumbria recorded 341.4 mm of rain in a single day, during Storm Desmond.
9. That aroma you get after a shower of rain is called Petrichor. It’s not the smell of the rain itself, as Water has no smell, but rather the oil that bubbles up from the earth when it gets wet after a dry spell.
10. On Venus, it rains sulphuric acid or methane. There’s even a planet 5,000 light years away where it rains liquid Iron.

Character birthday

Bagatelle, aka Wanda Frost, a member of Combat Team Omega. Her power is probability altering. She is thought to be a former nurse, but is known to have worked in the sex industry.