6th April: North Pole Day

North Pole Day Commemorates the day in 1909 that Robert Peary and Matthew Henson became the first to reach the North Pole. 10 things you might not know about the North Pole.

1. There is some controversy over whether Peary, Henson and their team ever did reach the North Pole given that they weren't expert navigators and some of the speeds they claimed to reach seemed impossible to many people. Peary's records have been checked and re-checked, and several replica journeys have been made, and no-one seemed to agree. Even if they didn't get there, we can still celebrate North Pole Day today because on April 6 1969, Wally Herbert, Allan Gill, Roy Koerner and Kenneth Hedges of the British Trans-Arctic Expedition became the first men to reach the North Pole on foot (albeit with the aid of Dog teams and airdrops).
2. The first people who claimed to fly over the pole were naval officer Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft on 9 May 1926. This was verified by the National Geographic Society at the time, but in recent years there has been as much controversy over this as over Peary's expedition. Now the first flight over the North Pole is generally accepted as being made by Roald Amundsen and his US sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth with the airship Norge.
3. The North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean and is covered with sea ice, around 2 to 3 m (6 ft 7 in to 9 ft 10 in) thick, which shifts continually, so building any kind of permanent marker or station is virtually impossible. In May 1937 the world's first North Pole ice station, North Pole-1, was established by Soviet scientists by air 20 kilometres (13 mi) from the North Pole. By February 1938 it had drifted 2850km. The Russians build a base, Barneo, as near as possible to the Pole each year. This base accommodates scientists but is also used by adventure holiday companies who organise trips to the Pole either overland or by Helicopter and parachute jumps.
4. The sea depth at the North Pole was measured at 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007. In the same year a Russian scientific expedition Arktika 2007 made the first ever manned descent to the ocean floor at the North Pole, and left a Russian flag on the sea bed.
5. The nearest land to the Pole is Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (430 mi) away.
6. At the time of writing, no country actually owns the North Pole. Both Canada and Denmark have put in claims, but for now it is administered by the International Seabed Authority, an intergovernmental body based in Kingston, Jamaica, established to organise and control all mineral-related activities in the international seabed areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. Canada has gone so far as to assign the North Pole a postcode - H0H 0H0, a reference to the tradition that Santa Claus lives there.
7. At the North Pole, the Sun only rises and sets once a year. There is a two week twilight before sunrise and after sunset. When the sun is visible in the polar sky, it appears to move in a horizontal circle above the horizon. So what time is it at the North Pole? Whatever time you like. Since there is no permanent human habitation there, so it hasn't been assigned a time zone. The scientists and tourists who go there use whichever time zone is most convenient, which would tend to be either Greenwich Mean Time or the time of the country they came from.
8. Do any animals live there? According to tradition, Polar Bears do, although in general they rarely go there because there would be very little for them to eat. That said, polar bear tracks have been seen in the area and one was spotted a mile from the pole in 2006. Ringed seals and Arctic foxes have been seen less than 40 miles away. Birds seen at or very near the Pole include the snow bunting, northern fulmar and black-legged kittiwake, although one cannot be sure whether the birds actually live there or whether they were following the ships and expeditions. There are very few fish, but video footage made by the Russians on their 2007 expedition to the bottom of the sea shows Shrimps and amphipods.
9. In 1985, Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to stand on the summit of Mount Everest) and Neil Armstrong (the first man to stand on the moon) landed at the North Pole in a small twin-engined ski plane. Hillary thus became the first man to stand at both poles and on the summit of Everest.
10. The North Pole is substantially warmer than the South Pole because it lies at sea level in the middle of an ocean (which acts as a reservoir of heat), rather than at altitude in a continental land mass.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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