1 September: Conway Twitty

Born on this date in 1933 was Conway Twitty (Harold Lloyd Jenkins), country singer. 10 facts about him:

1. His breakthrough hit was It's Only Make Believe in 1958.

2. Conway Twitty wasn’t his real name. His real name was Harold Lloyd Jenkins, named by his great uncle after his favourite silent movie actor Harold Lloyd. The stage name came from two towns on a map: Conway, Arkansas, and Twitty, Texas.

3. He was performing on Radio at the age of 10, and formed his first band, the Phillips County Ramblers when he was 12. They had their own show on the local radio station KFFA every Saturday morning.

4. As a teenager, he preached at church revivals, a foreshadowing, perhaps, of his following being compared to a religious revival, and comedian Jerry Clower dubbing him "The High Priest of Country Music". This was also the title of his 33^rd studio album.

5. He almost became a Baseball player. He was all set to sign for a Philadelphia Phillies farm team when he was drafted into the army.

6. At the beginning of his career, some believed Conway was Elvis Presley recording under a different name.

7. He built an entertainment complex in Hendersonville, Tennessee at a cost of over $3.5 million and named it Twitty City. It was a popular tourist destination known for its Christmas light displays. Twitty City closed in 1994.

8. Besides his music career, Twitty dabbled in acting and appeared in several films, including A Christmas Dream.

9. His fans were known as “Twitty Birds,” and the record label he founded was called Twitty Bird Records.

10. Twitty topped Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart 40 times in his career, a record which stood for 20 years until it was surpassed by George Strait.

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 August: The Night Stalker

On this date in 1985, Richard Ramirez, the ‘Night Stalker’ killer, was arrested in Los Angeles, California.

1. His full name was Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez. He was dubbed the Night Stalker, the Walk-In Killer, and the Valley Intruder.

2. From April 1984 to August 1985, Ramirez murdered at least fourteen people. He was convicted of thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults and fourteen burglaries.

3. It’s likely the seeds of extreme mental illness were sown during his childhood. His father was abusive and his cousin, Miguel, would show him pictures of women he’d abused. When he was 13, Ramirez was present when Miguel shot his wife in the face.

4. He was a Satanist who would often leave pentagrams at the scenes of his crimes, in Lipstick on a mirror on one occasion and on a victim’s leg on another. Survivors of his attacks told how he would tell them to swear to Satan, not to God. He even had a pentagram tattooed on his hand, which he famously showed off in court during his trial. He was obsessed with a song by AC/DC called Night Prowler, which describes watching someone outside their window and slipping into their house.

5. Another of his foibles was helping himself to snacks from the Fridge after killing the people in the house.

6. A significant clue left behind at one crime scene was a shoe print in a flower bed, which turned out to belong to a very rare make of Shoe, only one of which had ever been sold in that size in Los Angeles. However, the investigation was scuppered when a judge appeared on TV and mentioned the shoe. Needless to say, Ramirez ditched those shoes after that.

7. He narrowly evaded capture several times. Fleeing the scene of a failed kidnapping, he was pulled over for a traffic violation but made a run for it when he heard details of the kidnapping broadcast over the traffic cop’s radio. On another occasion they found a dentist’s business card in a car he’d stolen. Police contacted the dentist and found that someone matching his description had been in for X-rays and would be returning for treatment of an infected tooth. Police set up an alarm staff could press when he came back, but it failed to go off.

8. He was finally caught after getting off a bus, walking past police who were hoping to apprehend him at the Bus station and into a shop where his face was on the front page of a newspaper. People in the shop recognised him, so he ran and tried to steal a car. Local residents pulled him out of the car and one hit him over the head with a fence post. They chased him down and beat him up in the street, resulting in neighbours calling the cops about the disturbance.

9. While he was in prison, women used to send him love letters. He married one of them, a woman named Doreen Lioy, who was convinced he was innocent. She left him, however, when DNA evidence proved he’d murdered a nine year old girl.

10. Despite being handed 19 death sentences, he was never executed. You could say that God took care of the execution Himself as Ramirez died of cancer while on Death Row.

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 August: Anna Karenina

On this date in 1935, a film adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina premièred in the US. 10 things you might not know about Anna Karenina:

1. It was first published as a serial in a publication called The Russian Messenger in 1877. However, fans at the time would have been mightily frustrated since the last instalment didn’t appear in the periodical. This was because Tolstoy expressed criticism of the Turkish-Serbian-Russian war in it. The editor though this was unpatriotic and refused to publish it unless Tolstoy changed it, which he refused to do.

2. The story is about an extramarital affair between Anna and cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, a scandal in the social circles of St Petersburg. Its themes are betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, desire, and the differences between rural and urban life.

3. Trains are a motif throughout the novel with many significant plot points happening on trains or at railway stations.

4. Anna is based on a number of women Tolstoy knew personally, perhaps most significantly Anna Stepanovna Pirogova, the mistress of one of his friends. When she thought her lover was being unfaithful, she ran away and wandered in the countryside for several days, and ultimately threw herself under a train. Tolstoy was present at her autopsy. Another influence was Maria Hartung who charmed Tolstoy when they met at a ball.

5. Tolstoy was also inspired by one of Alexandr Pushkin’s short stories. He was impressed by the way Pushkin launched into the action of the story rather than beginning with detailed descriptions as was the usual style of the time. Tolstoy said, "That's the way for us to write! Anyone else would start by describing the guests, the rooms, but he jumped straight into the action." He started writing Anna Karenina that same day.

6. The character Levin is thought by many to be based on Tolstoy himself, as he shares the same beliefs and struggles. Tolstoy's wife even said to him, "Levin is you, without the talent."

7. The novel begins with the words: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Its epigraph is "Vengeance is mine; I will repay", a quote from The Bible.

8. Tolstoy called Anna Karenina his first true novel, even though it wasn’t the first one he wrote. Even so, his diaries reveal that, like many writers, the writing process didn’t go smoothly and was a source of frustration to him. He wrote: "I loathe what I have written. The galleys of Anna Karenina for the April issue of Russkij Vestnik now lie on my table, and I really don't have the heart to correct them. Everything in them is so rotten, and the whole thing should be rewritten—all that has been printed too—scrapped, and melted down, thrown away, renounced.”

9. In 2007, a poll of contemporary authors placed Anna Karenina at the top of the list of the greatest books of all time.

10. Actresses who have played Anna on stage. Screen and radio include Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Jacqueline Bisset and Keira Knightley.

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 August: Fennel

In the French Revolutionary Calendar today is Fenouil (Day of Fennel). 10 things you didn’t know about fennel:

1. The word fennel comes from an old French word, "fenoil" which in turn came from Latin faeniculum, meaning “hay”.

2. The Latin name for fennel is Foeniculum vulgare, and it’s related to anise, dill and Carrots.

3. The ancient Greeks and Romans used it as medicine, food, and insect repellent. Fennel tea was believed to give courage to warriors before battle.

4. It has a place in Greek myths, too, namely the story of Prometheus, who brought Fire to Earth from Mount Olympus. He stole a seed of fire and hid it inside a stalk of fennel. Seeing as carrying fennel stalks around in Mount Olympus wasn’t seen as suspicious, Prometheus could sneak the fire out easily. To this day, a fennel stalk is still used in the Greek islands for carrying light.

5. The Greek name for fennel is marathon, so the place of the famous battle of Marathon literally means a plain with fennel.

6. It is a great source of fibre, Vitamin C, Potassium, and manganese.

7. In China, it was used to treat Snake bite. It has also been used as medicine for digestive problems. The Emperor Charlemange believed in its medicinal properties to the extent that he made it law that imperial farms and monasteries should all grow it so that the medicine would be available to everyone.

8. The town of Funchal in Madeira is named for the wild fennel that grew there. The Portuguese word for fennel is funcho.

9. Florence fennel is one of the three main herbs used in the preparation of Absinthe.

10. During medieval times, Europeans used to hang it from doorways to keep out evil spirits.

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 August: Enceladus

On this date in 1789 Sir William Herschel discovered Saturn's moon Enceladus. 10 facts about Enceladus:

1. He discovered it the first time he used his 1.2 m (47 in) 40-foot Telescope, then the largest in the world, at Observatory House in Slough, England.

2. At about 500 kilometres (310 miles) in diameter, Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 19th-largest in the Solar System.

3. It is one seventh the diameter of our own Moon.

4. It orbits Saturn every 32.9 hours.

5. It orbits Saturn at 238,000 km (148,000 miles) from the planet's centre and 180,000 km (110,000 miles) from its cloud tops, between the orbits of Mimas and Tethys.

6. Its orbit is within the densest part of Saturn's E ring, the outermost of the major rings. It fact, Saturn’s E Ring has been found to be made up of particles from Enceladus. This was confirmed by the space probe Cassini when it flew past in 2005 and sent back pictures of geyser-like jets of icy particles rising from Enceladus's south polar region.

7. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System.

8. A wobble in its orbit suggests there might be an ocean under the ice which could be about 26 to 31 kilometres (16 to 19 miles) deep. The oceans on Earth, by comparison are about 3.7km deep.

9. Enceladus featured in the 2016 short story The Water Walls of Enceladus by Mercurio D. Rivera.

10. Enceladus is named after the giant Enceladus of Greek mythology.

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 August: Mary Poppins

The film Mary Poppins was released on this date in 1964. 10 things you might not know about Mary Poppins:

1. The film happened because Walt Disney’s daughters were big fans of the Mary Poppins books. Walt promised them in the 1940s that he would make a movie of the books. However, it turned out to be a promise that took a long time to keep as author PL Travers refused to sell Disney the rights. She finally did in 1961 but only because she was desperate for the money. When she saw the film, she hated just about everything about it and vowed never to work with Disney again.

2. Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury and Bette Davis were all considered for the role of Mary. Julie Andrews didn’t jump at the opportunity at first, because she was holding out for the role of Eliza in My Fair Lady. When that went to Audrey Hepburn, she signed up for Mary Poppins.

3. The movie is set in London, but not a single scene was shot there. It was shot, in its entirety, at Disney’s Burbank soundstage in Hollywood. Over one hundred glass and matte paintings were used to re-create the London skyline of 1910.

4. The song A Spoonful of Sugar was inspired by the polio vaccine. The children of one of the Sherman Brothers, who wrote the songs, happened to have had the vaccine while the songs were being written. Asked if the vaccine hurt, one of the kids replied that it hadn’t hurt at all; the medicine was simply placed on a sugar cube and they ate it like candy.

5. The word Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious wasn’t made up for the film. It, or a very similar word, had been around since at least the 1930s when the Sherman brothers heard it at a summer camp. There was even a song called “Supercalafajaistickespeealadojus” which was written in 1949 by Barney Young and Gloria Parker. Needless to say, they tried to sue Disney for copying the word. Since Disney’s lawyers were able to prove the word had been around for decades, they lost. So what, if anything, does Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mean? Nobody knows, although there’s an urban myth suggesting it’s something to do with Irish or Scottish prostitutes.

6. Feed the Birds was Walt Disney’s favourite song ever. He would frequently drop by the Sherman brothers’ office and ask them to sing it to him.

7. The Sherman brothers actually wrote about 30 songs for Mary Poppins, but 20 of them never made the cut. Some got recycled in later films. The Beautiful Briny was later used in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and the melody from Land of Sand was eventually recycled as Trust in Me from Jungle Book.

8. Several of the stars performed more than one role. Both Julie Andrews and David Tomlinson provided voices for animated characters. Julie Andrews was excellent at whistling as well, and so she whistled the song of the animatronic Robin. Look at the end credits and you’ll see that the banker Mr Dawes Sr. was played by an actor called ‘Navckid Keyd’. Which is an anagram of Dick van Dyke, who played him as well as Bert.

9. While the cherry trees on Cherry Tree Lane were real, the blossom was fake. To create the effect of blossom-laden branches, artists hand mounted thousands of twigs and paper blooms.

10. The snow globe used in the Feed the Birds scene was thrown in the bin, but was fished out by a janitor who thought it a shame to throw such a pretty object away. The janitor kept it in his office for years until it was found there by Dave Smith, who founded the Walt Disney Archive in 1970.

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 August: Amaryllis

Today’s Plant of the Day is banded amaryllis. 10 things you might not know about the amaryllis plant:

1. The name comes from a Greek legend about a nymph called Amaryllis, which means to sparkle in Greek, who fell in love with a shepherd who was only interested in flowers. She consulted an oracle, who advised her to go to his cottage every day and pierce her heart with an arrow. After 30 days, where drops of her Blood had fallen, Amaryllis flowers sprouted. They attracted the shepherd’s attention.

2. There are two species of Amaryllis in the genus sometimes known as Hippeastrum which means knight’s star.

3. They’re native to the tropics, but the biggest producer of Amaryllis plants for sale is the Netherlands.

4. They’re often red but come in many other colours too including Pink, Orange, White, Yellow, and Green and combinations of colours in one flower.

5. Flowers can measure up to 9 inches (23 cm) in diameter.

6. In the wild, they bloom in spring, but can be forced to bloom early in order to make nice Christmas presents. Dutch law states that every plant sold must have a flower bud inside so it’s guaranteed to bloom.

7. They can live a long time if well cared for. One lived for 75 years on a family’s windowsill.

8. The plant is toxic if eaten in large quantities, but there are medical benefits too. One of the substances amaryllis produces is being investigated by scientists as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

9. The amaryllis is the international symbol of organisations associated with Huntingdon’s disease, a genetic degenerative disease of the nervous system.

10. In the language of flowers, the amaryllis represents strength and determination because of their height and sturdiness.

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 August: People called Louise

Today is the name day for people called Louise.

Louise is a French and German feminine forms of the given name Louis. 10 famous people called Louise:

Louise Brooks

1. Louise Redknapp: British singer professionally known simply as Louise.

2. Louise Alexandra Marie Irene Mountbatten: Queen of Sweden from 29 October 1950 until her death in 1965 as the wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf.

3. Lady Louise Windsor: granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, daughter of her youngest son Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh.

4. Louise Brown: first human to be born after in vitro fertilisation, in the UK

5. Louise Brooks: one of the main characters in the BBC sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

6. Louise Maigret: wife of Inspector Jules Maigret, a fictional detective in novels by Georges Simenon.

7. Louise Hay: American motivational author, professional speaker and AIDS advocate. She authored several New Thought self-help books, including the 1984 book You Can Heal Your Life, and founded Hay House publishing.

8. Louise Brooks: American film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as an icon of the flapper culture, in part due to the bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.

9. Louise Harman:, British rapper better known as Lady Sovereign.

10. Louise Blanchard Bethune: the first American woman known to have worked as a professional architect.

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 August: Volcanic eruptions

The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place on this date in 79AD. 10 things you might not know about volcanic eruptions:

1. The word volcano derives from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan. The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology.

2. There are two main types – composite volcanoes, cone-shaped with steep slopes, and shield volcanoes, wide with gentle slopes. There are also classifications relating to the amount of activity. “Active” means regular activity, “dormant” means there’s been recent activity but the volcano is currently quiet, and “extinct” means it’s been so long since the last eruption that it’s unlikely to ever erupt again.

3. The danger area around a volcano covers about a 20-mile radius. Approximately 350 million people live within the danger area of an active volcano. That means about one in 20 people live in an area at risk of volcanic activity.

4. There are more than 500 active volcanoes in the world. 75% of them are part of the "Ring of Fire," a region that encircles the Pacific Ocean. Indonesia is the most volcanically active country on the Ring of Fire.

5. Paricutin is a cinder cone volcano which suddenly appeared in a cornfield in Mexico in 1943. The owner of the field was one Dionisio Pulido. One likes to think that what he lost in corn production was compensated for by the fact he was now the owner of a scientific curiosity and later a tourist attraction. Paricutin was active for nine years in which it was extensively studied. Today. It’s dormant and tourists flock to climb it.

6. While still inside the volcano, the liquid rock is called magma. Once the volcano erupts the same stuff is called lava. Lava from a volcano can reach 1,250°C. Sometimes volcanoes spew out mud as well. Mud flows from volcanoes are called lahars. They can sweep away buildings and kill people just as much as lava can.

7. The largest active volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa in Hawaii at 4,169m tall, which last erupted in 2022. There are larger volcanoes elsewhere in the solar system, the largest known being Olympus Mons on Mars.

8. The loudest sound in recorded history was made by a volcano. When Krakatoa in Southeast Asia erupted in 1883 it released 200 megatrons of energy – the equivalent of 15,000 nuclear bombs.

9. Sometimes there’s lightning inside the clouds of volcanic ash created by an eruption. These clouds generate static electricity just like thunderclouds do.

10. Okay, so volcanoes kill people and do an awful lot of damage, but without them there would probably be no life on Earth. More than 80% of the earth's surface is volcanic in origin. Gaseous emissions from volcanoes formed the earth's atmosphere, and they also released the hydrogen and Oxygen inside the rocks, creating water. Then, over time, lava and ash break down to produce nutrient-rich soil, which explains why those 350 million people chose to live near volcanoes – it’s the best place for growing crops. Some birds, like the Maleo bird, find them useful too. They bury their eggs near volcanoes to keep them warm. When the chicks hatch they claw their way up to the surface.

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 August: Singin' in the Rain

Singing in the Rain Day is celebrated annually on Gene Kelly’s birthday. Here are 10 things you might not know about Singin’ in the Rain:

1. The song Singin’ in the Rain was written by Arthur Freed with music by Nacio Herb Brown.

2. Only one of the songs featured in the film was written especially for it, and it wasn’t the title number! None of the songs they had already was suitable as a solo number for Donald O’Connor, so Freed and Brown came up with Make ‘Em Laugh.

3. Singin’ in the Rain had been used in six previous films including its film debut in The Ship from Shanghai in 1930 – performed by a nightclub band and sung in a Chinese dialect; a 1930 film short The Dogville Melody and Buster Keaton’s 1932 comedy Speak Easily.

4. Debbie Reynolds had no dance experience before she made the movie. The 19 year old had been a gymnast, but was completely new to dancing. Gene Kelley, however, said he’d teach her but it was hard work. Kelley was a perfectionist and reduced Debbie to tears so she ran away and hid under a Piano. Fred Astaire found her there and let her watch him rehearse, something he rarely allowed, so she could see the dance routines didn’t come easy to anyone.

5. As well as the tensions caused by Debbie’s lack of dancing experience, her relationship with Kelley wasn’t helped by the fact she liked to chew gum, and once left a piece on a Ladder Kelley had to lean against. When he moved away, his toupee didn’t.

6. Even Donald O’Connor was afraid of making a mistake and having Gene Kelley yell at him. Kelly asked O’Connor to bring back a signature move from his younger days: Running up to a wall and doing a somersault. O’Connor wasn’t as fit then as he once was, but he did it. However, it resulted in him needing a week’s bed rest to get over the exertion. Unfortunately, an accident ruined all of the initial footage, so after a brief rest O'Connor agreed to do the difficult number all over again.

7. When Kelly danced scenes with Cyd Charisse they are generally leaning towards each other. This is because Kelly didn’t want the audience to see that she was taller than him.

8. Singin’ in the Rain required a greater number of elaborate, ornately detailed costumes than Gone With the Wind did. Accuracy in the design was more important, too, because there would be people in the audience who remembered the late 1920s.

9. The Singin’ in the Rain scene wasn’t shot in one day. On the first take, they discovered that people using their garden sprinklers in the neighbourhood on a hot day affected the water pressure so they couldn’t muster a heavy enough shower. Also Gene Kelly had a fever at the time, but refused to go home and rest.

10. Kelly was not the first choice to play Don Lockwood, actor-singer Howard Keel was.

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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