23 January: Knights of Malta

Today is the feast day of St John the Almsgiver, Patron of the Knights of Malta. 10 things you might not know about the Knights of Malta.

1. They weren’t always based in Malta. The order was founded in the 11^th century in Jerusalem when merchants from the ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi obtained permission from the Caliph of Egypt to build a church, convent, and hospital there, to care for pilgrims. At that time, they were known as The Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

2. In 1113, Pope Paschal II issued a Papal Bull which allowed the order to elect its own leaders without interference from other secular or religious authorities.

3. During the Crusades, the hospital took on a more military role, that of defending pilgrims and the sick and the faith in general, alongside its hospitaller mission.

4. In 1291, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell after the Siege of Acre, so the Knights had to leave. First of all, they settled in Cyprus, but in 1310, led by Grand Master Fra' Foulques de Villaret, they relocated to Rhodes. There, they became a formidable naval force, building a fleet and fighting battles in the eastern Mediterranean, Syria and Egypt. On 21 May 1651 the order acquired the islands of Saint Barthélemy, Saint Christopher, Saint Croix and Saint Martin, and ruled them until 1665.

5. In due course, the Ottoman Empire kicked the knights out of Rhodes and that is where Malta comes in. In 1530 Charles I of Spain granted them Malta in a perpetual lease. Their rent, or tribute, was one falcon from Malta each year. This is where The Maltese Falcon, the novel by Dashiell Hammett and the film adaptation of it starring Humphrey Bogart comes from.

6. The knights weren’t that keen on Malta to start with. They thought it was barren, undeveloped and lacking in resources. However, they decided to make the best of it and develop the island.

7. One of the best known Knights of Malta was Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette, who led the order through the Great Siege of 1565. De Valette started building a fortified city in Malta. He died before it was finished, but to this day it bears his name and it is the capital of Malta, Valetta.

8. They were eventually kicked out of Malta, too, by Napoleon in 1798. The locals in Malta weren’t that sorry to see them go. Despite being a religious order, they lived quite lavish lifestyles, which turned the Maltese people against them.

9. Carnival is a tradition they started, initially consisting of pageants and tournaments before Lent. Carnival was known for getting a bit out of hand and degenerating into drunken brawls. The Grand Master of the time had to give the knights a strict telling off.

10. The order still exists today although it has no permanent territory. It is now known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and produces its own currency and Postage stamps. Today, it is a charitable organisation concentrating on healthcare and disaster relief. Its motto is Tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum ("Defence of the faith and assistance to the poor"). The order venerates The Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of Philermos.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

22 January: Francis Bacon

This date in 1561 saw the birth of Francis Bacon. Here are 10 facts about him:

1. He was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, keeper of the great seal for Elizabeth I

2. Bacon studied at Cambridge University and at Gray's Inn.

3. He became a member of parliament when he was elected MP for Bossiney, Cornwall, in a by-election in 1581. After that he was MP for several different constituencies: Melcombe in Dorset, Taunton, Liverpool, Middlesex, Ipswich and Cambridge University.

4. However, his political career didn’t really take off until 1603 on the accession of James I. He was knighted by James and was appointed to a succession of posts culminating with keeper of the great seal, like his father before him.

5. He was especially interested in science. At the time, the Greek philosopher Aristotle was the biggest influence in scientific thought. Bacon would have been taught that scientific truth could be found through authoritative argument, that is, if sufficiently clever men discussed a subject long enough, the truth would be discovered. Bacon challenged this, arguing that truth required evidence from the real world. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.

6. He was also very religious, a devout Anglican. The purpose of scientific investigation, to Bacon, had the sole purpose of proving the existence of God.

7. When he was 36, Bacon courted Elizabeth Hatton, a young widow of 20, but she jilted him for Sir Edward Coke, who had more money. Bacon didn’t marry until he was 45. His bride, Alice Barnham, was 13. Bacon’s letters had started talking about her: “an Alderman's daughter, an handsome maiden to my liking” when she was just 11. Accounts differ as to whether the marriage was successful or not. Bacon’s secretary said it was, but others referred to friction between the couple as Alice wanted fame and fortune and wasn’t happy when household finances dwindled. It is rumoured she had an affair with a man called John Underhill. Bacon and Alice had no children.

8. Bacon was a patron of Libraries and developed a system for cataloguing books, and after retiring from Parliament, one of his pastimes was writing. There is a theory that it was Bacon who wrote all the plays attributed to William Shakespeare. This was first suggested in the 19^th century.

9. In 1618 he was appointed lord chancellor, the most powerful position in England, and in 1621 he was created viscount St Albans.

10. His scientific methods proved to be the death of him. He died in London on 9 April 1626 of pneumonia, which it is said he contracted after stuffing a Chicken with Snow as part of an experiment into food preservation.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

21 January: Telly Savalas

Actor Telly Savalas was born on this date in 1922. Probably best known for his portrayal of Kojak, here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Telly was short for Aristotelis. He was born to Greek-American parents Christina Kapsalis and Nick Savalas. His mother was an artist and his father owned a Greek restaurant. He was very proud of his heritage and used to say “Everybody should have a little Greek in them”.

2. One of his trademarks was sucking on Lollipops as Kojak. There was a reason for that – he was trying to give up smoking.

3. He was a good swimmer and worked as a lifeguard after he graduated from high school, but was haunted for the rest of his life by an incident one day in which he failed to save a man from drowning in front of his children. He spent the rest of his life promoting water safety, and made all six of his children take Swimming lessons.

4. He was starting to show signs of growing bald when he got the part of Pontius Pilate in The Greatest Story Ever Told. He shaved his head to play this role and decided to keep the look.

5. He wasn't the first choice to audition for Kojak. Marlon Brando had been offered the role. He was chosen ahead of Paul Newman for Cool Hand Luke, however. Paul Newman got the role because Savales was afraid of flying and would only travel from Europe by boat, and the producers were unwilling to wait for him to make the trip. Despite his fear of flying, he played a pilot in Capricorn One.

6. He was a world-class poker player who finished 21st at the main event in the 1992 World Series of Poker.

7. He received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Columbia's School of General Studies in 1946 and started working on a master's degree with the intention of going to medical school.

8. He was Jennifer Aniston’s godfather.

9. Savalas had some chart success, too. His spoken word version of Bread's If was #1 in Europe for 10 weeks in 1975.

10. He lived at the Sheraton in Universal City for 20 years, becoming such a fixture at the hotel bar that it was renamed Telly's.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

20 January: Desert Island Discs

This date in 1914 was the birth date of Desert Island Discs presenter Roy Plomley. 10 things you might not know about Desert Island Discs:

1. Plomley didn’t just present the show – he invented it. The idea came to him one night in 1941 when he was sitting at home in his Pyjamas. He immediately wrote a letter pitching it to the BBC.

2. The first episode was recorded on 27 January 1942 at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studio. It aired in the Forces Programme at 8pm two days later. The first guest was Viennese comedian, actor and musician, Vic Oliver, who was also Winston Churchill’s son-in-law. The first piece of Music he chose was Chopin’s Étude No.12 in C minor played by pianist Alfred Cortot. Actress Pat Kirkwood was the first female castaway.

3. Oliver did not choose a book or a luxury, though. At that time, the castaways only got “eight gramophone records” and an “inexhaustible supply of needles”. The luxury was introduced in September 1951 and the first person to choose one was actress Sally Ann Howes, who chose Garlic. The book was introduced in October that same year, and the first to be chosen was Who’s Who in the Theatre, the choice of actor and director Henry Kendall.

4. There are strict rules about what can be chosen as a luxury. It can’t be anything that could help you get off the island or communicate with the outside world, and it must be an inanimate object. Roy Plomley only bent the rules once by allowing Princess Michael of Kent to chose her pet Cat. Some guests got around the rules creatively. John Cleese was allowed to take Michael Palin with him, on the condition that he was dead and stuffed, and Dame Edna defended her choice of Madge Allsop on the grounds that “I can assure you, Madge is an inanimate object.” A Piano is one of the top requested items. Other requested items have included a blow-up sex doll (Oliver Reed), a stick of top quality marijuana (Norman Mailer), and a full-size replica of the Oval cricket ground, and a bowling machine (John Major). Morecambe and Wise were on the show together. When Eric asked for a deckchair, Ernie responded by asking for a deckchair ticket machine. Another famous response was Brigitte Bardot’s “a peeness” before she elaborated: “what the whole world needs most – ‘appiness.'”

5. The most requested piece of music is Ode to Joy, the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. In fact, the top ten are all classical pieces. The most requested popular song, depending on which source you use, is either Frank Sinatra's My Way or Edith Piaf’s Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. The most popular band is The Beatles and the most popular song by them is Yesterday. The most-picked Gilbert and Sullivan operetta is The Mikado. There have been some off the wall choices, too, including the sounds of fog horns on the Mersey, and 4’33” by John Cage, which is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. In 1958 soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf chose seven of her own recordings, and in 1979 all eight of British pianist Dame Moura Lympany’s choices were her own recordings.

6. All castaways get a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare and a Bible, which, according to Plomley, would have been placed there by the Gideon Society. However, since not all castaways are going to be Christians, other religious texts more appropriate to individual’s beliefs can be substituted instead. The novelist most chosen by castaways is Charles Dickens. The most popular poet is Dylan Thomas.

7. The theme tune is By the Sleepy Lagoon by Eric Coates (who was himself a castaway on the show in 1951). Plomley originally wanted the sounds of "surf breaking on a shore and the cries of sea birds", but Leslie Prowne, the head of popular record programmes at the BBC thought that would lack definition and insisted there should be music as well. The tune has been used since the first transmission in 1942, along with seagull sounds. Some pedantic listeners pointed out that herring gulls would not have been on a tropical island. For a brief period in 1964, tropical bird calls were used instead.

8. Roy Plomley presented the programme until his death in May 1985, except for an episode in 1942 when he was on as a castaway himself and was interviewed by Leslie Perowne. He was replaced by Michael Parkinson, Sue Lawley, Kirsty Young and the presenter at time of writing, Lauren Laverne, who has been in the chair since 2018.

9. Celia Johnson, Arthur Askey, Trevor Nunn, John Schlesinger, Kenneth Williams, Terry Wogan, Brian Rix, David Attenborough, John Mortimer, Adele Leigh, Delia Smith and Stephen Fry are among the castaways who have been on the show more than once. It’s unusual for people to turn it down but there have been a few including Sir Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, Prince Charles, Ted Hughes and Mick Jagger. George Bernard Shaw declined on the grounds that he was “too busy with more important things”. Buzz Aldrin had Sue Lawley travel all the way to his house in California to do the recording there, but he left the room unexpectedly and refused to come back.

10. In 1989 a 74-year-old retired vicar admitted beating his wife to death with a radio because she wouldn’t let him listen to the show.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

19 January: James Watt

Scottish inventor James Watt was born on this date in 1736. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Watt’s father was the treasurer and magistrate of Greenock, and ran a successful shipbuilding business. As a boy, Watt spent time in his father’s workshop and had his own set of tools, a bench, and a forge and used them to make models of things like cranes and barrel organs.

2. By the age of 17 he’d decided he wanted to be a mathematical-instrument maker. He trained in Glasgow  and later London.

3. He opened a shop in 1757 at Glasgow university and made mathematical instruments such as quadrants, compasses and scales.

4. In 1764 he married his cousin Margaret Miller and had six children with her, but she died nine years later. Watt married his second wife, Ann MacGregor, in 1776, and had two more children with her.

5. In about 1764, Watt was given the task of repairing a type of steam engine called a Newcomen engine. These were used to pump water out of mines. As he worked on it, he realised it wasn’t very efficient and he started working on ways to improve it, which included designing a separate condensing chamber so less steam was lost. His first patent in 1769 covered this device and other improvements on Newcomen's engine.

6. He might have applied for the patent sooner, except in 1766 he became a land surveyor and his time was taken up with marking out routes for canals in Scotland.

7. Watt’s partner and backer was the inventor John Roebuck, and later Matthew Boulton, who took over Roebuck’s firm. Boulton & Watt became the most important engineering firm in the country. In 1785, Watt and Boulton were elected fellows of the Royal Society.

8. Royalties on Watt’s patents made him a wealthy man, and he had time to spend on other interests. He was a member of the Lunar Society in Birmingham, a group of writers and scientists who wished to advance the sciences and the arts. Watt bought an estate at Doldowlod, Radnorshire, and from 1795 onward gradually withdrew from business.

9. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, was Watt’s doctor.

10. A unit of measurement of electrical and mechanical power – the watt – is named in his honour.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

18 January: $6 Million Dollar Man

On this date in 1974, $6 Million Man starring Lee Majors premièred on US TV. 10 facts about this show.

1. What was it about? The plot concerns a former astronaut, Colonel Steve Austin, portrayed by Lee Majors. After being seriously injured in a NASA test flight crash, Austin is rebuilt with bionic implants that give him superhuman strength, speed and vision. Austin is then employed as a secret agent by a fictional U.S. government office titled OSI.

2. The working title for the series was Cyborg, which is the title of the book by Martin Caidin, published in 1971, on which the series was based.

3. Martin Caidin based the character of Steve Austin on astronauts David Scott and Eugene Cernan (commanders of Apollos 15 and 17, respectively).

4. The air crash in the opening sequence was real. The aircraft was an M2-F2 which crashed when a rescue Helicopter strayed into the air space during the test flight. Pilot Bruce Peterson had to suddenly swerve to avoid a collision causing the crash. The crash happened on May 10, 1967, at Edwards Air Force base in California (although the dialogue heard on the show was recorded by Lee Majors). The scene from the operating theatre was taken from a Columbo episode called "A Stitch in Crime".

5. The theme tune was written by Oliver Nelson.

6. So what could the Six Million Dollar Man actually do? The bionic Eye contained a camera, a night vision function, an infra-red filter and the ability to see things moving too fast for a human eye to distinguish. He could also see through it normally. The bionic legs enabled him to run at 60mph as shown in the opening credits, but it was never officially determined what his top speed was. He can leap 30 feet (9.1 m) high. His bionic arm is as strong as a bulldozer and contains a Geiger counter.

7. The producers made sure that, while bionics were pretty powerful, the stories were still plausible by placing limits on what Steve Austin’s bionic parts could do. For example, he could jump two storeys high but not three, and could jump down no more than three storeys. The implants have a major flaw in that extreme cold interferes with their functions and can temporarily disable them.

8. Lee Majors was married at the time to Farrah Fawcett, who appeared in the series three times. Majors would have liked her to play Jamie Sommers, the Bionic Woman, but the part went to Lindsay Wagner instead. The Bionic Woman first appeared in an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man in 1975. She was a professional tennis player who rekindled an old romance with Austin, only to experience a parachuting accident that resulted in her being given bionic parts similar to his. However, her body rejected the parts and she died. The character was very popular, however, and the following season it was revealed that she had been saved by an experimental cryogenic procedure, and she was given her own spin-off series.

9. The show was very popular during its run and introduced several pop culture elements of the 1970s, such as the show's opening catchphrase ("We can rebuild him; we have the technology", voiced over by Richard Anderson in his role of Oscar Goldman). Children saw Steve Austin as a role model which led to problems with some children deliberately trying to seriously injure themselves in the hopes of getting bionic parts. In one case, the producers and Lee Majors had to write a letter to one kid the tell him it was purely fiction.

10. In France, the show was called L'homme qui valait 3 milliards or "The Man Who Was Worth 3 Billion". In Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, the series was known as El Hombre Nuclear "The Nuclear Man". In Israel, the number six million is associated with the Holocaust, so there the show was called The Man Who Is Worth Millions.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

17 January: David Lloyd George

Born on this date in 1863 was David Lloyd George, a former British Prime Minister. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Although he was born in Manchester, David Lloyd George was the only Welshman ever to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the only one to speak Welsh as his first language. Lloyd George’s father was a Welshman from Pembrokeshire and had become headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester. His mother was the daughter of David Lloyd, a Baptist minister.

2. His father died when he was still a baby and his mother moved back to Wales, so Lloyd George grew up in Caernarvonshire.

3. The family was supported by his mother’s brother, who enabled his nephew to qualify as a solicitor in 1884.

4. He entered Parliament in 1890 when he was elected Liberal MP for Caernarvon, aged 27. He retained that seat for 55 years.

5. He married Margaret Owen in 1888 and had five children with her, but was a habitual womaniser and cheated on her often, including with their daughter’s teacher, Frances Stevenson, with whom he had a longstanding affair. He married her in 1943 after Margaret had died and he was 80 years old. Their letters to each other have been published under the name of My Darling Pussy. Apparently Lloyd George called Frances Pussy because of her gentle personality.

6. In 1906 he was made President of the Board of Trade. Herbert Asquith later promoted him to Chancellor. As Chancellor, he introduced state pensions for the first time and declared a war on poverty.

7. He became Prime Minister in 1916, during the first world war. He was acclaimed as the man who won the war, and in 1918, the first general election in the UK where women were able to vote, he won by a landslide.

8. In 1919 he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations and the war reparations settlement.

9. As well as introducing state pensions, he raised the school leaving age to 14, prohibited the employment of children in railways and transport, building and engineering works, factories and mines, and introduced national insurance.

10. In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George declined on grounds of age and health. In 1944 he was created Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, but died not long afterwards at the age of 82. He is buried on the banks of the River Dwyfor.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

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