17 October: Annette Name Day

In Sweden, today is the name day for people called Annette.

Annette or Anette is a given name that is the diminutive of Anna or Anne, and has been used as a name of its own since the Industrial Age.

10 famous Annettes:

1. Annette Bening: American actress whose films include American Beauty and Being Julia.

2. Princess Annette of Orange-Nassau: member of the Dutch nobility.

3. Annette: Special Operations Executive codename for Yvonne Cormeau, a British spy during World War II

4. Annette Pavlovna Scherer: a character from the Russian literary work War and Peace

5. Annette Ashberry: British engineer, gardener and author, and the first woman elected to the Society of Engineers.

6. Annette Badland: English actress known for her roles as Charlotte in the BBC crime drama series Bergerac, Margaret Blaine in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, Mrs Glenna Fitzgibbons in the first season of Outlander.

7. Annette Funicello (above): American actress and singer. She began her professional career at 12 as one of the most popular Mouseketeers on the original Mickey Mouse Club, and had a successful career as a pop singer recording under the name "Annette".

8. Anette Hoff: Norwegian actress. She has played hotel manager Juni Anker-Hansen in Hotel Cæsar since 1998.

9. Annette Fantine Dominic: a character from the video game Fire Emblem: Three Houses

10. Annette Birkin: character from the original and remake Resident Evil 2 games.

NEW!!

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

16 October: Feral Cat Day

Today is Feral Cat Day. 10 things you might not know about feral cats:

1. What is a feral cat? Basically, a domestic Cat (Felis catus) which has always lived outside in the wild and has had little contact with people. Since it didn’t learn as a kitten that humans are mostly nice, they avoid human contact.

2. Of the 700 million cats in the world, an estimated 480 million are feral.

3. It’s said that in seven years, two unfixed feral cats can produce up to 420,000 kittens. Which is why there is often a policy of TNR (trap-neuter-release).

4. In Italy, feral cats have been protected since 1991, and it is illegal to kill them.

5. They make a lot of noise, especially at night. If you hear caterwauling it’s likely a feral cat that hasn’t been neutered and is looking for a mate. They might also make a racket because they are in pain, hungry, fighting other cats, or simply because they are bored. However, one sound they don’t make is a meow. That’s because domestic cats learn this sound as a way to interact with their humans.

6. There is a difference between a stray cat and a feral cat. A stray cat is one which has lived with humans but has become homeless for some reason. A feral cat has always lived outside. A stray cat is more likely to approach humans as they’ve learned not to be afraid of us, and that we might feed them.

7. Male feral cats have bigger heads than male domestic cats. This is because they don’t get neutered so early and produce hormones which give them larger heads.

8. If the cat’s coat is in good condition, it’s more likely to be a feral cat. Stray cats are used to being looked after and so their coats will suffer if they find themselves out on the street. Feral cats have learned to take care of themselves from birth.

9. If you see a feral cat with a bit of its ear missing, it probably hasn’t lost it in a fight with another cat. It has probably been done by a vet. When a feral cat is caught and neutered, before it’s released back into the wild, the vet will snip off part of its ear to show this cat has already been “done” and there’s no need to waste time trying to catch it.

10. While they will catch small animals and Birds, According to The British Journal of Nutrition, 1.2% of free-range feral cats in North America rely on insects as a protein source.

NEW!!

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

15 October: Virgil

This date in 70 BC is the birthdate of the poet Virgil. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Virgil was a Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Bucolics (or Eclogues), the Georgics, and the Aeneid.

2. His full name was Publius Vergilius Maro.

3. We don’t know a lot about him. Much of what we do know comes from a lost biography by the Roman poet Varius. There’s also a fair amount of speculation.

4. Some say his family were peasants, although they had enough Money to give their son a pretty decent education. It’s said he was sent to Rome at the age of five to study rhetoric, medicine, philosophy, and astronomy.

5. One of his teachers was the Epicurean Siro. The Epicurean philosophy is reflected in his early poetry, although his later works tend more towards Stoicism.

6. Virgil was a young man at the time when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and began the series of civil wars that didn’t end until 31BC. Virgil and his contemporary Horace wrote about their distaste for civil war.

7. Virgil never fought in the war, because it’s said his health was never good. He didn’t enter political life because he was shy and retiring and poor at public speaking. His schoolmates nicknamed him "Parthenias" ("virgin") because he was so shy. Virgil never married.

8. All the same, he was considered by the Romans to be their greatest poet, and there were even legends that he had magical powers. For example, he is said to have carved out his tomb from the rocks near Naples with his gaze alone. His reputation as a magician spread as far as Wales. The medieval Welsh for his name, Fferyllt/Pheryllt, became a generic term for magicians and in due course, the modern Welsh word for a pharmacist – fferyllydd. Early Christians believed that he predicted the birth of Christ in Eclogues, where he describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age.

9. Virgil’s work inspired Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Virgil appears as Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory.

10. He worked on the Aeneid for 11 years and never quite finished it. As part of it was set in Greece, Virgil set out for Greece, probably for research and to get a feel for the place. He was planning to spend another three years writing it. However, he was taken ill on the voyage and returned to Italy. He died soon after he arrived at Brundisium in 19BC. His dying wish was for his unfinished work to be burned, but Augustus countermanded that request and The Aeneid survived. However, we can’t possibly know how much more editing Virgil would have done and how much he might have changed it.

NEW!!

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

14 October: Ida Pfeiffer

On this date in 1797 Ida Pfeiffer was born in Vienna. She travelled the world, alone, in a time when women just didn’t do stuff like that, and wrote books about her adventures which were translated into seven languages. Here are some facts about Ida and her travels:

1. Her father was a textile manufacturer named Aloys Reyer. She had five brothers and a younger sister. She was a bit of a tomboy growing up, preferring to wear boys’ clothes. "I was not shy," she wrote in her autobiography, "but wild as a boy, and bolder and more forward than my elder brothers." Her father encouraged her liking for sports and made sure she got the same education as her brothers did.

2. Aloys died in 1806 and Ida’s mother tried to put a stop to her tomboyish ways and turn her into a lady, making her wear dresses and learn to knit and play the Piano. She hated her piano lessons so much that she would burn and mutilate her fingers to get out of them.

3. In due course, Ida fell in love, with her tutor, who often came to stay with the family. For him she began wearing skirts and learned embroidery. Far from being pleased, Ida’s mother refused to let her marry him and threw him out of the house. She arranged a marriage to Mark Anton Pfeiffer, a widowed lawyer who was 24 years older than Ida and had a grown up son. Ida didn’t want to marry him and told him straight off the bat that she was in love with someone else. He replied, “I think we all are.” Nevertheless, the couple got along well enough and Ida had two sons with him.

4. It was only after her husband died and her sons were grown up and working, that Ida embarked on her epic travels, at the age of 45. She may have been pretty brave in terms of the things she did on her travels, but telling her family what her true intentions were was not one of them. She told them she was going to Constantinople to meet a friend. A woman doing this trip alone was scandalous enough, but Ida set off for the Holy Land instead and spent 8 months exploring there. She did visit Constantinople, so what she told her family wasn’t entirely a lie. She joined a mounted tour there despite never having ridden a Horse before.

5. She seriously considered travelling to the North Pole, but “insurmountable difficulties on closer inspection” put her off. So she went to Iceland instead. Here, she collected samples of local plants and insects and took what were probably the first ever photographs of Iceland, having taken with her “daguerreotype apparatus enclosed in a small case”. Her preparations for the trip had been learning how to use this, plus how to preserve specimens and learning to speak English and Danish. Selling the samples of nature she collected during her trips were one of the ways she financed her journeys.

6. She went round the world twice, between 1846 and 1855, covering about32,000 kilometres (20,000 miles) by land and 240,000 kilometres (150,000 miles) by sea. She met any number of scientists and explorers, including her childhood hero Alexander von Humboldt. She dined with Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti, went Tiger hunting in India, rode Camels through Iran and went hiking in the jungles of Brazil. It was here she had a close encounter with a native who jumped out at her brandishing a knife and “gave us to understand more through gestures than words that he would murder us and drag us through the forest.” Ida fought him off with an Umbrella and a pocket knife until she was rescued by two riders who just happened to be passing by. She’d received some cuts to her arms and the umbrella was broken – kept the broken off handle of the umbrella as a trophy – but was otherwise undeterred and once her wounds were dressed, carried on, “although not completely without fear”, but in “continually increasing admiration of the beautiful scenery”. Despite being 50 years old by now, the local guides could barely keep up with her pace.

7. In Indonesia, she spent time with by the Batak tribe, who were Cannibals and so most travellers were afraid of them. She chose not to believe the horror stories she’d read and sought them out anyway. She joked that she was too old and tough to be worth eating, and made extensive notes of her stay which proved useful for anthropologists. She even noted down some of their recipes.

8. Her travel diaries were initially intended just for herself, but her friends at home persuaded her to publish them and the rest is history.

9. While she was aware enough not to believe the writings of xenophobic Europeans, preferring to see for herself and make up her own mind, she could be judgemental at times. She called Praya dos Mineiros “a filthy, disgusting place.” She called Arabs lazy, thought the people of Borneo walked funny, and that Iranian women were uneducated and ignorant. She noted that indigenous tribes were often at war with each other and sometimes mounted their enemies’ heads on spikes. However, she then wrote about Europeans: “[Are we not] really just as bad or worse than these despised savages? Is not every page of our history filled with horrid deeds of treachery and murder?” She noted that the Turks and Bedouins were welcoming and went out of their way to make travellers feel at home, which, she pointed out, put the Europeans treatment of foreigners to shame.

10. Her final trip was to Madagascar in 1857. She got thrown out of that country, as she’d befriended a Frenchman called Joseph-François Lambert. Ida had no idea that he was involved in a plot to overthrow Ranavalona I, the queen of Madagascar, but was expelled along with him when Ranavalona found out about the plot. Not only that, but it was on this trip that she caught a disease, thought to be malaria, which she never fully recovered from. Ida Pfeiffer died on October 27, 1858, in Vienna at age 63.

NEW!!

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

13 October: National Face Your Fears Day

Today is National Face Your Fears day.

10 unusual phobias:

1. Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

2. Xanthophobia:  Fear of the colour yellow. Also porphyrophobia, fear of the colour purple.

3. Octophobia: Fear of the number eight (There aren’t many known phobias to specific numbers apart from this and triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13. A fear of numbers in general is called arithmophobia.

4. Ombrophobia: fear of rain. Other weather related phobias include hurricanes (lilapsophobia), snow (chionophobia), cold (cryophobia), and wind (ancraophobia).

5. Anatidaephobia: is the irrational fear that somewhere, a duck or goose is watching you. Or is that just a Gary Larson cartoon? If so, Anatidaephobia would simply be a fear of ducks.

6. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words, which is, ironically, one of the longest words in the dictionary.

7. Aibohphobia: Fear of palindromes, ie words, verses, sentences, or numbers that read the same backward or forward, as does the name of this phobia.

8. Ephebiphobia: fear of teenagers or adolescents. It could be argued that nearly every generation of adults has a mild forms of this phobia, viewing teenagers as "out of control".

9. Kathisophobia: Fear of sitting down.

10. Phobophobia: Fear of phobias, or perhaps a free-floating anxiety, where a person spirals into a circle of anxiety due to fearing fear itself.

NEW!!

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

12 October: Parachutes

On this date in 1799 Jeanne Geneviève Garnerin performed the first parachute descent by a woman. Garnerin ascended in a gondola attached to a balloon. At 900 meters she detached the gondola from the balloon and descended in the gondola by parachute. 10 facts about parachutes:

1. The earliest parachute design dates to the 1470s when an Italian named Taccola drew one in a manuscript. His drawing shows a free-hanging man clutching a crossbar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps run from the ends of the rods to a waist belt. Not long after that, Leonardo da Vinci got in on the act and published another design in his Codex Atlanticus. His design had the size of the parachute more proportional to the jumper’s weight.

2. The modern parachute was invented in the late 18th century by Louis-Sébastien Lenormand in France. It was he who coined the word parachute from the Italian prefix para, to avert, defend or resist, and chute, a French word for fall. He made the first recorded public jump in 1783.

3. The first military use of the parachute was by artillery observers on tethered observation balloons in World War I. They are still used today to deploy troops and supplies as well as their emergency function. Incidentally, it is not a war crime to attack troops deployed by parachute as they fall, but it is a war crime to attack a pilot who has ejected from his aircraft and is using a parachute to reach the ground safely.

4. Animals have been parachuted on many occasions, too. During the Second World War some British paratroopers had specially trained Dogs with them, to help with mine-detecting, guard and patrol duties. Ironically the breed most often used was the German Shepherd. On D-Day a dog called ‘Bing’, landed in a tree and was stuck there until the next morning when his handler came to get him. Dogs were also used in Afghanistan, and would be strapped to their handlers’ chests for the descent. Other parachuting animals include Monkeys which were launched off a cliff with parachutes to test ejection seats, and Beavers who were released into the wild by the Idaho Fish and Game Dept in the 1940s by being parachuted out of planes.

5. Dummies have been parachuted as well. During the D-Day landings, the Allies dropped thousands of 'paradummies' over Normandy to distract the enemy from where the real troops were landing.

6. There’s even been a “Parachute murder”. It happened in 2010 when two female Belgian skydivers fell in love with the same man. Els "Babs" Clottemans was found guilty of murder when she sabotaged her rival’s parachute.

7. Another crime involving a parachute was the hijack and robbery of a plane in 1971 by one D.B. Cooper, who then escaped with the loot using a parachute. Incidentally, Agent Dale Cooper, of Twin Peaks is named after him.

8. Early parachutes were made of silk or linen. The most common fabric today is Nylon. It isn’t recorded what the parachute that saved the pilot of a B-29 when his engine caught fire in China was made from, but he saved it and later proposed to his girlfriend with the words, “I’d like to have you make a wedding dress out of my parachute. It saved my life.” She said Yes.

9. Thinking of doing a parachute jump for charity? It might not be as lucrative as you think. There has been a study published in a medical journal which suggests that charity parachute jumpers in the UK injure themselves so frequently that, for every £1 they raise for charity, they cost the NHS £13.75.

10. James Bond aimed to impress with his parachute in the opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me. He skies off a cliff and deploys a Union Jack parachute. At the premier this scene got a standing ovation. The then Prince Charles stood up to applaud with everyone else.

NEW!!

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

11 October: Snow geese

Today is the Festival of the Snow Geese. 10 things you might not know about snow geese:

1. The scientific name for a Snow goose is Anser caerulescens.

2. The snow goose is 27-33 inches long with a wingspread of about 54 inches. It weighs around 3.5-7 pounds.

3. The name derives from its White plumage. No surprises there. However, not all snow geese are white. There are some which have bluish-grey plumage except for their head, neck and tail tip. These are called Blue geese. It’s possible to tell when they are goslings which they will be when they grow up. The ‘blue’ types are Grey and the whites are Yellow.

4. Snow geese find mates when they are around two years old and form long term bonds. They don’t breed until their third year, however.

5. Their nests are shallow depressions on high ground lined with plant material and may be reused from year to year. The eggs are creamy white.

6. In the first few weeks of their lives, snow goose goslings may walk up to 50 miles with their parents from the nest to a more suitable brood-rearing area. After 42 to 50 days they can fly, but they remain with their parents until they are two to three years old.

7. Adults spend more than half the year migrating to and from their summer and winter habitats, which can be more than 3,000 mi (4,800 km) each way.

8. They eat a lot, in order to build up reserves for their long migrations. In winter, they feed 2-7 hours per day. The heavy serrations on their bill aren’t just there to make them look as if they are smiling. The serrations help them get nutrients from their plant based diet. They also poo a lot as passes through a snow goose’s digestive tract in just an hour or two, meaning 6-15 poos every hour.

9. The oldest Snow Goose on record, a blue morph, was shot in Idaho in 2020. It was 30 years, 8 months old and was originally banded in Arizona in 1990. Who knows how long it might have lived if someone hadn’t shot it.

10. While mostly found in Greenland, Arctic North America and Siberia, they do stop off in the UK sometimes. They don’t breed here, though, unless they’re captive birds which have escaped. A small group of them were even spotted in Hawaii once, in 2015, and spent 3-4 months there.

NEW!!

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