21st June: Summer Solstice

It's the Summer Solstice already! Here are 10 things you might not know about the summer solstice:

Photo by NASA

1. 
   The word Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (Sun) and sistere (to stand still).
2. The date of the solstice varies. It usually falls on June 20th or 21st. This year, and in 2015, it's on the 21st. In 2016, though, it will be on the 20th. On very rare occasions the solstice will fall on June 22nd. The last time this happened was in 1971 and it won't happen again until 2203.
3. Stone circles, such as Stonehenge, are a focal point for celebrations of solstices and probably have been for thousands of years. There may be special features on these dates, for example, at Stonehenge the Heel or Sun Stone casts a shadow on the Altar stone at the summer solstice. There is a legend that says if you sit in a stone circle all night on midsummer's eve, you will see Fairies, but beware - they might harass you, so carry a sprig of rue or wear your jacket inside out, which confuses them. If all else fails, run away along a ley line.
4. An alternative name for the Summer Solstice festival is Litha, often used by modern pagans. The word Litha means "Light".
5. According to the Celtic Wheel of the Year tradition, today is the day that the Holly King, associated with winter, does battle with the Oak King, who rules the summer. The Holly King will win today, which is why they days start to get shorter now as we head for winter (depressing thought). At the winter solstice, the Oak King returns for a re-match, and he will win, and so the days start getting longer again.
6. Many of the ancient traditions of this day involve lighting fires to give power to the sun. In parts of Ireland, tradition says that if you carry a pebble to the fire, and whisper your wish to it, and then throw the stone into the fire, you'll get your wish.
7. Magic and witchcraft are closely associated with midsummer - Shakespeare was well aware of this as evidenced in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, and The Tempest
8. As with most ancient festivals, there has been a Christian celebration added on top - in the case of Midsummer, it is celebrating the birth of John the Baptist.
9. Another ancient tradition is the sunwheel. A wheel, or a ball of straw, was set alight and rolled down a hill towards a river. If the fire went out before the sunwheel hit the water, it meant the crops would be good that year.
10. Some say that today, rather than New Year, is the best time to make life-changing resolutions, because your energy levels are higher and you're more likely to keep them up until they become habit. Although if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, New Year is presumably about right.

20th June: Loch Ness Day

Today is Loch Ness Day - so 10 facts about the Loch and its monster.

1. The vital statistics of Loch Ness: 36.2 km (22.5 mi) at its longest point; 2.7 km (1.7 mi) at its widest point; Surface area: 56 km2 (21.8 sq mi); 226.96 m (744.6 ft) deep at its deepest point; contains 7.5 km3 (1.8 cu mi) of water.
2. By surface area it is the second largest loch in Scotland (Loch Lomond being the first) and the second deepest (after Loch Morar). In terms of volume, though, it beats them all hands down: in fact, it contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales put together.
3. It has an island - Cherry Island, at the south western end. It is a man made island, or crannog, possibly constructed in the Iron Age. There used to be a second island, Dog Island, but when the Caledonian Canal was built, the water level of the loch was raised and the island submerged.
4. The earliest report of a sighting of the monster was in the 7th century, in an account of the life of St Columba. The Saint was visiting the area when he came across a funeral service near the River Ness. The people told him that the dead man had been killed by a "water beast" while swimming in the river. Columba then did something which surprised them. He told one of his followers, Luigne moccu Min, to swim across the river. When the monster came after him, Columba made the sign of the Cross and commanded: "Go no further. Do not touch the man. Go back at once." The monster stopped in its tracks, as if it had been "pulled back with ropes" and fled in terror. Presumably this miracle resulted in a few conversions among the pagan Picts.
5. Nessie's most active year seems to have been 1933, when there was a rush of sightings, beginning on 2 May when Loch Ness's water bailiff Alex Campbell first used the term "monster" to describe it. On 22 July, a London tourist, George Spicer, and his wife saw a large, narrow-necked creature cross the road in front of their car, carrying "an animal" in its mouth. In August, a student vet called Arthur Grant, who was riding his motorcycle near the loch, almost hit a creature with a long neck, which, on seeing Grant, turned tail and disappeared into the loch. In November, Hugh Gray was walking home from church when he saw a large creature rise up out of the loch. He took photographs, but only one showed any evidence of the monster. The most famous picture of Nessie, was taken by Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynaecologist, in April 1934.
6. You can see Nessie on Apple Maps, according to Andrew Dixon who saw something that could be the monster while browsing.
7. Naturalist Sir Peter Scott may have been a believer. After seeing a bunch of photographs taken by Robert H. Rines in the 70s, Scott announced that the scientific name of the monster would be Nessiteras rhombopteryx (Greek for "The Ness monster with diamond-shaped fin"), so that Nessie could be added to the British register of officially protected wildlife. But then again, it was soon pointed out by Nicholas Fairbairn that the name was an anagram for "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S".
8. Some legends associate the Loch Ness Monster with the mythical creatures, kelpies. These creatures lived in the loch, but could come out onto dry land and turn themselves into horses. Unwary travellers who fancied a ride into town would get on the "horse" which would then gallop into the loch, taking the hapless rider with them. Dumb tourists, apparently, were rather yummy. This is how come the monster is sometimes referred to as a "water horse".
9. People who believe in the monster reckon it is a plesiosaur, which managed to survive in the loch despite going extinct everywhere else. Non-believers have claimed it is an Otter, a Seal, a diving bird, a toy submarine, a boat, a floating log, or even an Elephant raising its trunk out of the water.
10. Brenda Sherratt was the first person to swim along the length of Loch Ness in Scotland. It took her 31 hours and 27 minutes in July 1966, and the monster presumably wasn't very hungry that day.

19th June: Butterfly Day

19th June is Butterfly Day, so here are 10 things you may not know about butterflies:

1. Butterflies are found on every continent on Earth - except for Antarctica.
2. Butterflies can taste with their feet. They do this by drumming the surface they are standing on (usually a leaf or a piece of fruit) with their feet to release the plant's juices. Butterflies have chemo-receptors on the backs of their legs, and can tell whether what they are standing on is good to eat, either for themselves or for their caterpillars.
3. Caterpillars will munch away at leaves, but adult butterflies can only consume liquids. Mostly nectar, but they will sometimes drink from muddy puddles to get salts and minerals. Males will do this more often than females as they need extra nutrients for sperm production.
4. Butterflies remember things that they learned as caterpillars.
5. They cannot fly when it is cold. If the air temperature falls below 55ºF, they are pretty much stuffed unless they can exercise their wings by shivering, or bask in sunlight. They use their wings like little solar panels, angling them to maximise the amount of heat they absorb.
6. Butterflies can only see clearly up to 12 feet. Within that distance, though, they have good eyesight. They can see some of the colours that we can - red, Green and Yellow. They can also see some that we can't, in the ultraviolet range. Since butterflies have ultraviolet markings on their wings, and flowers also have them, this is a great help to the butterfly when looking for food or a mate.
7. Straight out of the chrysalis, a butterfly cannot fly or eat. Its proboscis is in two parts when it emerges, so the butterfly's first task is to assemble its mouth parts and make sure they are in working order. Then it must wait for its wings to dry out and fill with blood before it can fly.
8. The fastest butterflies fly at 12 miles an hour.
9. Monarch butterflies fly great distances - they migrate every year from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 2,000 miles, and back again in the spring.
10. Pacific Grove, California, calls itself "Butterfly Town" and holds a butterfly parade every year. It is against the law to kill a Monarch butterfly there. If you do, there's a $500 fine.

18th June: Waterloo Bridge opened

Waterloo Bridge in London opened on this date in 1817. 10 things you may not know about Waterloo Bridge:

1. It stands between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge, and thanks to its position on a bend of the River Thames, views from this bridge are said to be the best views of London you can get from the ground.
2. Before it was opened, it was called Strand Bridge.
3. The day it opened, 18 June 1817, was the second anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and was given the name Waterloo Bridge in honour of that.
4. The bridge that stands today is the second Waterloo Bridge. The original was badly damaged by flowing water and needed to be replaced with a more robust design. The new Waterloo Bridge was fully opened in 1945.
5. It has been a Grade II listed structure since 1981.
6. It is sometimes referred to as "the ladies bridge," because the work force was largely female.
7. In the 1840s, Waterloo Bridge was a popular place to commit suicide. Thomas Hood's poem, The Bridge of Sighs is about a prostitute who killed herself there. In 1841, there was also an accidental death when an American showman called Samuel Gilbert Scott was performing a stunt which involved hanging from a scaffold on the bridge, and it went horribly wrong.
8. It was the only bridge on the Thames to be damaged by German bombers in World War II.
9. The beams of the new bridge are made from Portland Stone from the South West of England, and the stone cleans itself whenever it rains.
10. When the old bridge was demolished, some of the original stone was shipped off to Commonwealth countries. Two of the stones are now part of a bridge in Canberra, Australia, while still more were used to build a monument to Paddy the Wanderer, a friendly dog which lived around the wharves of Wellington, New Zealand.

17th June: Iceland Republic Day

Iceland gained independence from Denmark 70 years ago on 17 June 1944. Sveinn Björnsson was its first President. Here are 10 things you may not know about Iceland:

Photo by NASA

1. It is the most sparsely populated country in Europe (although some distance from mainland Europe, it is closer to Europe than to the US and so for practical and political purposes is deemed to be part of Europe). The population is 325,671 and the area 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi).
2. It doesn't have an army. Iceland relies on its coastguard for defences. It is the only member of NATO not to have an army. The lack of an army has made Iceland the most peaceful country in the world, along with a low crime rate and a high level of socio-political stability.
3. Settlement of Iceland began in the 870s after Swedish Viking explorer Garðar Svavarsson circumnavigated it and established it to be an island, then stayed over winter. The first permanent residents were one of Svavarsson's men, Náttfari, and two slaves, who decided to stay behind. The island's settlers were Norsemen and their Gaelic slaves.
4. For a long time, Iceland was a very poor country - its population relied on agriculture and existence was harsh because of the poor soil, volcanoes, climate and disease. It began to prosper during World War II and afterwards thanks to the fishing industry and aid from the United States just after the war. Iceland received the most aid per head through the Marshall Plan than any other country in Europe.
5. Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, is the most northern capital city in the world.
6. The island of Iceland is the 18th largest island in the world and the second largest island in Europe (the largest being Great Britain). It has smaller islands off its coast, including Grímsey, which is the only part of Iceland to be partially inside the Arctic Circle, and Surtsey, which is one of the world's youngest islands, having risen out of the sea during a series of volcanic eruptions in the 1960s. You can only visit Surtsey if you are a scientist researching the growth of life on the island.
7. The English word "geyser" comes from Geysir, one of the geysers in Iceland.
8. The only native land mammal before humans arrived was the Arctic fox. Bats and Polar Bears occasionally visit, but do not settle and breed. There are no native reptiles or amphibians and fewer insects (1,300 known species) than in most other countries. Humans brought sheep, cattle, chicken, goats, horses, the Icelandic Sheepdog, mink, mice, Rats, Rabbits and Reindeer.
9. Iceland was the first country in the world to have a political party formed and led entirely by women. The Women's List or Women's Alliance was founded in 1983 to advance the political, economic, and social needs of women. Although it disbanded in 1999, it left a legacy - every major political party in Iceland has a 40% quota for women, and a third of its MPs are women (compared to a worldwide average of 16%). Iceland was the first country to directly elect a female head of state, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1980.
10. Some of Iceland's traditional foods are cured shark, cured ram, singed sheep's heads, black pudding and broiled puffin.

16th June: Enoch Powell's birthday

On this date in 1912  the politician Enoch Powell was born. I realise he may not be the most popular choice of subject matter because he's most famous for being a racist; but I had in my collection a couple of quotes by him which are not about race and which actually made sense. So I wondered if I could find enough such snippets to make it up to 10.  So here are 10 Enoch Powell quotes which may just surprise you.

1. A politician complaining about the media is like a fisherman complaining about the sea.
2. If I cannot understand my friend's silence, I will never get to understand his words.
3. When I repress my emotion my stomach keeps score.
4. If my ship sails from sight, it doesn't mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends.
5. History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen.
6. No battle is worth fighting except the last one.
7. All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
8. I will not surrender responsibility for my life and my actions.
9. The life of nations no less than that of men is lived largely in the imagination.
10. If in the words which the Secretary of State has just used, the use of a nuclear weapon is to be avoided 'at all costs'. what is the point of having one?

15th June: First Ice Cream Factory

On this date in 1851 Jacob Fussell, a Baltimore dairyman, set up the first ice-cream factory. To celebrate that, and the nice weather we're having (here in South West England, anyway) here are 10 things you may not know about ice cream:

1. No-one knows how ice cream originated, but one popular theory is that the Roman Emperor Nero used to send his slaves into the mountains to collect Snow to mix with Honey and fruit pulp. The Chinese and the Persians were also said to have enjoyed a similar treat in ancient times. It was the Arabs who first started making it with Milk.
2. The country that produces and also consumes the most ice cream is the USA where the average person eats 20 litres a year. Second in the table is New Zealand and third Denmark. The UK doesn't even make the top ten. The average Brit only eats 9 litres. People in Scotland and Northern Ireland eat more ice cream than people in Englandand Wales.
3. The most popular flavour by far is vanilla. Chocolate is second, but is way behind vanilla.
4. 80% of the vanilla beans for making vanilla ice cream come from Madagascar.
5. Ice cream cones were invented at the World Fair in St Louis in 1904. An ice cream seller and a waffle seller put their heads together and came up with an easy way to eat ice cream on the go. The largest ice cream cone measured 2.81 m (9 ft 2.63 in) in height and was achieved by Mirco Della Vecchia and Andrea Andrighetti of Italy.
6. Nobody knows why the popular "99", an ice cream cone with a flake chocolate bar stuck in it is so named, but there are a number of theories: the king of Italy had 99 soldiers and the flake was said to represent a soldier; 99 is top of the house in bingo, and also means "top class" in Italian. A less romantic suggestion is that it is called 99 simply because because it was number 99 on the product list. A 99 can only be called a 99 if the flake bar stuck in it was made by Cadbury's.
7. The ice cream sundae came about because in parts of the US it was illegal to sell ice cream flavoured with soda on Sundays. Enterprising ice cream sellers would sell it with syrup instead, which was perfectly legal. Religious leaders got upset about the name "Ice Cream Sunday" so the last letter was changed to "e". The biggest ice cream sundae in history was made in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 1988, and weighed over 24 tons.
8. Ice cream headaches (or brain freeze) are caused by the sudden change of temperature in the mouth making capillaries in the sinuses contract and then expand. The nearby pain receptors detect this and send signals to the brain, which interprets the pain as coming from the forehead. They typically last about 20 seconds - but if you want relief sooner, you can press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, or tilt your head back for a few seconds, or have a warm drink.
9. Surveys have shown that men are more likely to choose ice cream as a dessert than women.
10. Some wacky ice cream flavours are: bacon and egg; black pepper; chilli; black pudding; Beer; horse meat (in Japan); green tea (in Korea); brown bread and oyster.