1 June: National Nail Polish Day

Today is National nail Polish day. Here are 10 things you might not know about nail varnish:

1. Nail polish first appeared in ancient China and Egypt. It was often a mixture of egg whites, gelatin, beeswax, and vegetable dyes, such as henna.

2. It was a way of indicating social class. Only the nobility were allowed to wear Red. Lower classes could only wear nude or pale colours.

3. Nail polish as we know it today was inspired by the enamel used on cars. In the 1920s, makeup artist Michelle Menard adapted the enamel used for cars to create a polish for nails.

4. There is archaeological that the Ancient Babylonians painted their nails with solid Gold before they went into battle.

5. In the Victorian era, it was generally considered improper for women to wear nail polish, or, indeed, make up.

6. In the 1950s, women were often required to remove their nail polish on Sundays before going to church, because of the association with promiscuity that existed then.

7. Rita Hayworth is thought to have popularised red nails when she wore nail polish in early coloured films.

8. Opened bottles of nail polish only last about two years. Nail varnish remover, however, never expires and lasts forever.

9. The most expensive nail polish costs $250,000. The shade Black Diamond King is made with 267 carats worth of black Diamonds.

10. Some nail polishes include ingredients best known as food. Kale allegedly smooths and brightens nails; Garlic strengthens and hardens them and Cucumber prevents splitting.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

31 May: Angela Name Day

In Hungary, today is the name day for people called Angela.

Angela is a female given name. It is derived from the Greek word ángelos. meaning Angel. 10 famous Angelas:

Angela Lansbury

1. Saint Angela of Foligno: Italian Franciscan tertiary who became known as a mystic from her extensive writings about her mystical revelations.
2. Angela Bassett: American actress who portrayed Tina Turner in the biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. Her other films include Malcolm X, Waiting to Exhale, Vampire in Brooklyn, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Music of the Heart, Green Lantern and Black Panther.
3. Angela (Angie) Bowie: model, actress, and journalist. Alongside her ex-husband David Bowie, she influenced the glam rock culture and fashion of the 1970s.
4. Dame Angela Eagle: British Labour Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallasey since 1992.
5. Angela Griffin: English actress and television presenter best known for portraying Fiona Middleton in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.
6. Dame Angela Lansbury: was a British and American actress and singer. In a career spanning 80 years, she played various roles across film, stage, and television. Her work includes the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks and the sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote.
7. Angela Merkel: German politician and chemist who served as chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021.
8. Angela Rayner: British politician serving as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party since 2020.
9. Angela Rippon: English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter.
10. Angela Kinsey: American actress who played Angela Martin in the sitcom The Office (2005–2013).

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

30 May: Mel Blanc

Today was the birthday of Mel Blanc, US voice actor. He was born in 1908. Here are 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in San Francisco. His surname was actually Blank, but he changed it to Blanc at 16 after a teacher told him he would amount to nothing and be like his name, a "blank".
2. He was known as “The Man of a Thousand Voices”, which included Bugs Bunny, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd. He was the first voice actor to receive on-screen credit.
3. He holds the record for the longest characterisation of an animated character by one voice actor, having voiced Daffy Duck from 1937 to 1989, a period of 52 years.
4. Voices weren’t his only talent. He was also an accomplished violinist, playing with various symphony orchestras. He was a conductor, too, becoming the youngest conductor in the country at the age of 19.
5. His normal speaking voice was closest to Sylvester the Cat, without the lisp. Blanc said that Yosemite Sam was the hardest voice to do, because of his loudness and raspiness.
6. He once had a serious car accident and was in a coma for a while. Doctors got no response when they talked to him, until one doctor tried "Bugs? Bugs Bunny? Are you there?" to which Mel responded weakly in Bug’s voice. That was the turning point, and he recovered.
7. His car had a sneakily rude licence plate. It read “KMIT”. He was asked if it stood for a radio station, which would have amounted to illegal advertising. Mel responded that an old Jewish expression, 'know me in truth'; however, it actually stood for the Yiddish phrase "kish mir im tuchis" which translates as "Kiss my ass".
8. A doctor who examined Blanc's throat found that he possessed unusually thick, powerful vocal cords which gave him an exceptional range, not unlike those of opera singer Enrico Caruso.
9. He collected antique Watches and had over 300 of them, including one dating back to 1510. It only had one hand and chimed every hour.
10. Blanc was a heavy smoker for much of his life, smoking at least pack a day from the age of nine until 1985 when a diagnosis of emphysema prompted him to stop. The habit contributed to his death at the age of 81. The epitaph on headstone at his burial site in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, California reads "That's all, folks!".

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

29 May: GK Chesterton Quotes

Today, ten quotes from G K Chesterton, who was born on this date in 1874.

1. Do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.
2. Whenever you remove any fence, always pause long enough to ask why it was put there in the first place.
3. Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
4. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
5. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
6. The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.
7. There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.
8. How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
9. Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.
10. Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

28 May: William Pitt the Younger

William Pitt the Younger was born on this date in 1759. 10 facts about him:

1. William Pitt the Younger was Britain's youngest ever Prime Minister, entering office at the age of 24.

2. He is known as "Pitt the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, another prime minister who is referred to as "William Pitt the Elder".

3. Pitt the Younger was believed by many to be a placeholder leader until someone more suitable (presumably older) could be found. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Pitt would serve as Prime Minster for a total of 18 years, 343 days, making him the second-longest serving Prime Minister in history after Robert Walpole.

4. He was also the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as we know it today, following the Acts of Union in 1800 and the last Prime Minister of Great Britain as it was before.

5. He was home schooled by the Reverend Edward Wilson due to ill health in childhood. He wasn’t yet 14 years old when he was admitted to Cambridge University where he studied political philosophy, classics, mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry and history.

6. He once fought a duel against an MP called George Tierney. The duel took place on 27 May 1798 on Putney Heath, and according to a letter Pitt wrote to his mother afterwards, “The business concluded without anything unpleasant to either Party.”

7. He stood for Parliament representing the Cambridge University constituency in 1780 but didn’t win the seat. He entered Parliament a year later as MP for the parliamentary borough of Appleby, a constituency considered to be a ‘rotten borough’. Rotten boroughs had small populations meaning their MPs had more influence in Parliament than the number of people they represented would warrant. Plus in those days it was easy to influence the way people voted in those constituencies. Pitt would later decry the use of rotten boroughs to gain power in government.

8. Like his father before him, he tried to end the American War of Independence, pushing for peace with the colonies. When the war ended, Pitt is known for reducing the resulting national debt using a new income tax and cracking down on smuggling. He reduced the debt from £243 million to £170 million.

9. He had a liking for port wine and as a result was known as a "three-bottle man".

10. He was only 46 when he died, probably of peptic ulceration of his stomach or duodenum.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

27 May: Cilla Black

Cilla Black was born on this date in 1943. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. Her real name was Priscilla Maria Veronica White. She became known as Cilla Black after an article in the first edition of the local music newspaper Mersey Beat mistakenly referred to her as Cilla Black. She decided she liked the name and decided to keep it.

2. She left school at 14 having being told her best career match was office work. She did a typing course and qualified as a Dictaphone typist, but that wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life.

3. She did work as a typist but had two other jobs. During her lunch hour, she was a hat girl at the Cavern Club, and in the evening served coffee at The Zodiac coffee lounge. At the Cavern Club, she met The Beatles, who were impressed by her impromptu performances, and at the Zodiac, she met her future husband and manager, Bobby Willis.

4. The Beatles persuaded Brian Epstein to audition her, but it didn’t go well. Cilla was nervous, and the Beatles, acting as her backing group, neglected to re-pitch the songs to suit her voice. However, she was spotted singing at the Blue Angel Club and the rest is history.

5. Cilla Black was the first British female artist to have two consecutive number-one hits. Her first number 1 was Anyone Who Had A Heart, in 1964, quickly followed by You’re My World.

6. She turned down the chance to represent Britain in the 1968 Eurovision song contest on the grounds that Sandie Shaw had won the year before and Cilla didn’t think another UK female singer had any chance of winning.

7. A brief foray into film acting wasn’t a huge success. She appeared in the "beat" film Ferry 'Cross the Mersey (1965) and the psychedelic comedy Work Is a Four-Letter Word (1968). In 1969 she almost got the role of Michael Caine's girlfriend in The Italian Job, but negotiations fell through.

8. Cilla was also known for television work, in particular Surprise Surprise and Blind Date. On the latter, she once outed live on air an undercover journalist who’d become a contestant to get an inside scoop on the show. Nicola Gill got a severe lecture from Cilla, who said, "You don't work as a temporary secretary. I know for a fact that you're actually an undercover journalist and you've robbed somebody of coming on a proper blind date."

9. One of her biggest regrets was that she never cracked the US music scene, although Elvis Presley had a copy of You're My World on his Graceland jukebox.

10. In 2017, a statue of Black commissioned by her sons was unveiled outside the Cavern Club's original entrance for the venue’s 60^th anniversary. The sculpture shows a young Cilla performing one of her early songs.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

26 May: Dracula

The novel Dracula was published on this date in 1897. 10 things you might not know about Dracula:

1. Dracula means ‘devil’ in the Wallachian language, in Romanian, Dracul means ‘Dragon’ and Dracula means "son of a Dragon".

2. The idea for the story may have come from a nightmare Bram Stoker had after eating dodgy seafood. After a "helping of dressed crab at supper” he dreamed of “a vampire king rising from the tomb” and was compelled to write it down.

3. Other possible influences in the development of the character include Jack the Ripper, Vlad the Impaler, Elizabeth Bathory, the Sidhe (blood-sucking fairies from Irish folklore), and even Stoker’s boss, a chap called Henry Irving, a renowned Shakespearean actor and owner of the Lyceum Theatre in London where Stoker worked as his assistant.

4. Slains Castle in Scotland is thought to have been the inspiration for Dracula’s home.

5. Bram Stoker never actually visited Transylvania, but he did read travel books and train timetables and included details about hotels and Transylvanian food.

6. The working title of the novel was The Dead Undead, later shortened to The Undead. The title was only changed to Dracula just before publication.

7. Dracula’s supernatural powers include hypnosis, telepathy, shape-shifting, creating mists and controlling animals such as Bats and Wolves.

8. Count Dracula is of Hungarian descent and led his troops against the Turks in the 15th Century.

9. While the book wasn’t an instant best seller, and didn’t make Stoker much money (in fact he was so poor he had to ask for a compassionate grant from the Royal Literary Fund) It has never been out of print. Films featuring the character have kept the sales going, although Stoker’s widow almost put a stop to it. A German company made a film called Nosferatu, which was essentially the same story with the names of the characters changed. Stoker’s widow sued and a German court ordered that every copy of the film be destroyed. One copy survived, however, and found its way to America where it developed a cult following. Since then, the Dracula character has appeared in over 200 movies, 11 of which featured Christopher Lee as the Count.

10. The plot is as follows: A young solicitor called Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania to sell a house in England to Dracula. Dracula traps Harker in his castle with three Vampire women and goes to England, by hiding on a ship and killing the crew. In England, he bites a young woman called Lucy Westenra and turns her into a vampire. Lucy is killed by a doctor called Abraham van Helsing. Dracula also bites Jonathan's wife Mina. The other characters try to defeat Dracula, by chasing him back to Transylvania and killing him.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

25 May: Wessex Day

Today is Wessex Day, so here are 10 things you might not know about Wessex:

1. In its heyday, Wessex, or the Kingdom of the West Saxons covered an area of 4,440 sq. miles (11,500 km2). It included Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, Wiltshire, the west Berkshire and east Somerset.

2. Its capital was Winchester.

3. According to legend, the kingdom was founded by Cerdic and Cynric in around 519 after Cerdic killed a king called Natanleod. Cerdic was the first king of Wessex.

4. The last king of Wessex was Athelstan, who was on the throne when England was unified in 927.

5. Probably the most famous king of Wessex was Alfred the Great, who was known for fighting Vikings and burning cakes. He was also a champion of education and the legal system, promoting the use of English, rather than Latin in schools.

6. A version of Wessex was the setting for many of Thomas Hardy’s novels. Hardy's Wessex excluded Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but the city of Oxford, which he called "Christminster", was included. Berkshire is known in the novels as "North Wessex".

7. Prince Edward was given the title "Earl of Wessex" when he married Sophie who became Countess of Wessex. The title had not been used since the last earl, King Harold Godwinson, was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

8. The symbol of Wessex is a wyvern or Dragon. This creature features on the Wessex flag designed by William Crampton in the 1970s. The 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, and post war regional 43 (Wessex) Brigade adopted a symbol consisting of a gold wyvern on a black/dark blue background. The aforementioned Sophie, Countess of Wessex, has a blue wyvern on her coat of arms.

9. The region figures prominently in legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

10. The ITV television series Broadchurch takes place in Wessex. Its characters attend South Wessex Secondary School.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

24 May: The Ashmolean Museum

On this date in 1683 the oldest public museum, the Ashmolean, was opened by Elias Ashmole in Oxford. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. It originated from a “cabinet of curiosities”, a collection of geological specimens, antique coins, books and zoological specimens collected by the gardener John Tradescant the Elder and his son, John Tradescant the Younger. The collection was inherited by one Elias Ashmole, who donated it to Oxford University.

2. One of the items in the collection was a stuffed Dodo, the last ever dodo seen in Europe. However, by 1755 the stuffed dodo was so moth-eaten that it was destroyed, except for its head and one claw.

3. In the early days, people who wished to view the collection were charged according to the amount of time they spent in the museum, rather than a flat rate.

4. The naturalist Robert Plot was the first keeper.

5. The first Museum was opened on Broad Street in Oxford in a building sometimes attributed to Sir Christopher Wren or Thomas Wood. It moved to its current location in Beaumont Street in 1894. The present Ashmolean Museum building was designed in the Neoclassical style by C.R. Cockerel. The old building is now the History of Science Museum.

6. In 2000, the Chinese Picture Gallery, designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects, opened at the entrance. It is the only museum gallery in Britain devoted to Chinese paintings.

7. Other famous paintings you will find here include: The Hunt in the Forest, painted around 1470, by Italian artist Paolo Uccello. The subject matter is unusual for this period because religious paintings were the usual order of the day. The painting shows early use of perspective; The High Street, Oxford, painted by JMW Turner in 1810, Turner's only full-size townscape in oils; John Constable’s Willy Lott's House from the Stour (The Valley Farm), which is the building in his more famous painting The Hay Wain from a different angle. There are also drawings by Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci and paintings by Pablo Picasso, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Paul Rubens, Paul Cézanne and Titian.

8. Other items include: a Viking hoard that was discovered near Watlington in South Oxfordshire in 2015; a collection of 61 historic English embroideries which span the whole of the seventeenth century; The Messiah Stradivarius, a Violin made by Antonio Stradivari; Arab ceremonial dress owned by Lawrence of Arabia; the death mask of Oliver Cromwell and the lantern that Gunpowder Plot conspirator Guy Fawkes carried in 1605.

9. The museum featured in episodes of Inspector Morse and Lewis. the painting The Hunt in the Forest (see fact 7) is a key plot element in the episode Point of Vanishing where the characters are instructed on the painting’s features by an art expert before solving the case.

10. There’s a real life unsolved art theft mystery associated with the museum as well. The theft took place on 31 December 1999, during the Fireworks that accompanied the celebration of the millennium. Thieves used scaffolding on an adjoining building to climb onto the roof of the museum and stole Cézanne’s landscape painting View of Auvers-sur-Oise, valued at £3 million. As they just took the one painting and it has never been offered for sale it is speculated that this was a case of an artwork stolen to order. To this day, the painting’s whereabouts are unknown.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

23 May: Whipsnade Zoo

On this date in 1931 Whipsnade Zoo opened in Bedfordshire. 10 things you might not know about Whipsnade Zoo:

1. It is owned by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which also owns London Zoo. The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 by Sir Stamford Raffles with the aim of promoting the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats.

2. Whipsnade was the brainchild of Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell who visited the Bronx Zoo in New York and was inspired to create something similar in the UK.

3. It’s the largest zoo in Europe at 600 acres (2.4 km2). Over 3,600 animals live there, representing more than 200 different species.

4. It has helped return species to the wild which have become extinct in their original habitat, including Przewalski's horse, the last remaining wild horse which lived in grasslands of Mongolia, Russia and China. Whipsnade was one of several zoos which worked together to breed a new population and reintroduce them to China.

5. It was the first zoo to introduce a drive through safari park.

6. During the Second World War, animals from London Zoo were evacuated here to escape the Blitz. An air raid lookout post was established where the Viewpoint Kitchen and Deli stands today (allegedly you can see four counties on a clear day, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire). The famous chalk lion was covered up so it couldn’t be a marker for enemy bombers. Unfortunately the zoo didn’t escape the bombs completely. 41 bombs fell on the Zoo, thought to have been intended for the nearby industrial towns of Luton or Dunstable, killing a spur-winged goose and a baby Giraffe. The craters made by the bombs are still there: they were left to fill with water and become lakes and ponds for the animals.

7. David Attenborough, Steve Buchanan and Harry Hill have all filmed at the Zoo. However, the red pandas became stars when the BBC spent time filming them to help create Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon in His Dark Materials when he took on a Red Panda form.

8. In the middle of the central lawn stands a huge fig tree which is over 200 years old.

9. The first animals arrived at the park in 1928, including two Lady Amherst's Pheasants, a golden pheasant, and five red junglefowl.

10. In 1932 a defunct travelling menagerie sold its animals to the zoo and considerably boosted the collection. Some of the larger animals walked to the zoo from Dunstable station.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

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22 May: Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

 On his birthday, here are ten Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes:

1. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

2. Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

3. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

4. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius.

5. Skill is fine, and genius is splendid, but the right contacts are more valuable than either.

6. There are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world without them.

7. The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.

8. To a great mind, nothing is little.

9. I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.

10. Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

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21 May: The Manchester Ship Canal

On this date in 1894, Queen Victoria opened the Manchester Ship Canal. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. First of all, what is it? The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36 mile (58 km) inland waterway in the North West of England which runs from Eastham on the Mersey estuary to Salford in Greater Manchester. It uses the routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell.

2. It is the longest river navigation canal and the world's eighth-longest ship canal, only slightly shorter than the Panama Canal in Central America.

3. It was built to reduce the time and cost of transporting goods from the port at Liverpool to Manchester. It allowed ocean going ships to sail directly to the centre of Manchester. Hence Manchester became Britain’s third busiest port despite being 40 miles (64km) from the sea.

4. Construction began in 1887; it took six years and cost £15 million (equivalent to £1,774,553,339 in 2021). Construction was overseen by contracting engineer Thomas Walker. He divided the 36 mile (58km) route into 8 sections, putting an engineer in charge of work on each.

5. Up to 17,000 labourers (also known as navvies) worked on digging the canal. Many of them had come from Ireland. It was hard work and very dangerous. Navvies were paid the equivalent of around £19 for a 10-hour working day. It’s estimated that as many as 1,100 navvies lost their lives, a common cause of death was being buried by a landslide. It was considered more dangerous to be a navvy than to serve in the British Army. However, accommodation and hospitals were provided. In 2022 it was announced that a memorial to the workers would be created, including a forest of 600 trees native to Britain and Ireland planted close to the canal.

6. The ship canal was flooded in November 1893, and opened for traffic from 1st January 1894. During the opening ceremony the following May, Queen Victoria knighted two people: the Mayor of Salford, William Henry Bailey, and the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Anthony Marshall.

7. The canal is sometimes nicknamed The "Big Ditch".

8. At its peak in 1958, the amount of freight carried by the canal was almost 20,000,000 tons.

9. It has an aqueduct, seven swing road bridges, five high level railway viaducts, four high level road bridges and five sets of locks.

10. In the 1990s there was a rumour that the canal was so polluted the council had to warn people not to smoke next to it, in case they ignited poisonous gases coming from the water.

New!!!

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle