10 August: Lentils

Another celebration from the French Revolutionary Calendar. On 10 August, they celebrated the Lentil. Here are some things you might not know about lentils.

1. The scientific name for the lentil is Lens ensculenta. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family which grows to about 40 cm (16 in) in height.
2. They originated in the Near East and Central Asia and are the oldest known pulse crop. They have been found in human habitations dating back to 11,000 BC.
3. Today, the country producing the most lentils is Canada, which produces about 51% of the world's crop. India is next, producing about 17%.
4. In India, the lentil is known as dal or daal.
5. The meal for which Esau gives up his birthright in the Bible, a "mess of pottage", is lentil soup.
6. Lentils grow in pods which contain one or two seeds.
7. They come in a number of colours - Brown, Yellow, Black, Orange, Red and Green; and they are lens shaped. In fact the optical lens was named after lentils.
8. People in Catholic countries who couldn't afford to eat fish during Lent would eat lentils instead.
9. In Judaism, lentils are eaten during mourning as their round shape symbolises the circle of life.
10. Growing lentils as a crop improves the quality of the soil so that any cereal crop sown after them will have a better yield.

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Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

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