31 January: National Brandy Alexander Day

Today is: National Brandy Alexander Day. Here's what you need to know about this cocktail.

1. What is it? It's a cocktail made from Cognac, crème de cacao, and cream, often garnished with grated nutmeg.
2. It was originally known as the Alexander #2, because it was based on another coctail, called simply an Alexander, which is made from Gin and cream.
3. The gin based Alexander has been around since 1915 when a recipe was published by Hugo Ensslin. An even earlier variation is a Whiskey based cocktail which appeared in a 1910 recipe book by Abraham Grohusko.
4. Nobody knows whose idea it was to make the drink using brandy. Some sources say the brandy Alexander was created to coincide with the wedding of Princess Mary and Viscount Lascelles in 1922.
5. Opinions differ as to who the original Alexander was, Some say it was a bartender called Troy Alexander who was the original inventor. Others say it was named for drama critic and Algonquin Round Table member Alexander Woollcott (including Woollcott himself). Still others say it was named for Russian tsar Alexander II.
6. Troy Alexander is credited with creating the drink based on an advertising campaign for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Wanting to promote how clean their trains were, they invented a character called Phoebe Snow who travelled by train in a white dress.
7. There are 296 calories in a 3.5 serving of Brandy Alexander. It would take 77 minutes of walking to walk it off.
8. Brandy Alexanders have made an appearance in several films, including Days of Wine and Roses in which the alcoholic Joe tempts Kirsten, who says she hates liquor but likes chocolate, to drink one. She likes it and becomes alcoholic herself. In Tattoo, Bruce Dern says of it, "I like the foam...it reminds me of the ocean."
9. In literature the drink appears in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited and Kurt Vonnegut's story Mother Night. In my own Raiders trilogy, the supermodel character Puffball McKenzie drinks them because white is her favourite colour; she wears white, has white accessories and extends this to drinking white drinks.
10. A real life brandy Alexander fan was John Lennon. He was introduced to the drink by Harry Nilsson, and said afterwards that it "tasted like milkshakes."

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30 January: World Law Day

Today is World Law Day. Some countries, states and cities have some truly strange laws. Here are ten from around the world.

1. Prisoners, when released, are required to be given a handgun with bullets and a Horse so they can ride out of town. Canada
2. No Pig may be addressed as Napoleon by its owner. France
3. It is a legal requirement that anyone who goes to college must be intelligent. China
4. It is illegal to go out without wearing any underwear, or step on any of the nation's currency. Thailand
5. A male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but cannot look directly at them - he can only view their reflection in a mirror. Bahrain
6. A betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. The husband’s illicit lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired. Hong Kong
7. In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague.
8. In Liverpool it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public unless she is a clerk in a tropical fish store.
9. It is illegal to be drunk in possession of a Cow. Scotland
10. It is illegal to take a goldfish upstairs on a double decker bus. Scotland

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29 January: Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer, Australian feminist author whose books include The Female Eunuch. was born 80 years ago today in 1939. Here are 10 quotes from her:

1. A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.
2. You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.
3. Every woman knows that, regardless of all her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.
4. The essence of pleasure is spontaneity.
5. Every time a man unburdens his heart to a stranger he reaffirms the love that unites humanity.
6. The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy, and envy.
7. Act quickly, think slowly.
8. Military mythology has to pretend that real men are in the majority; cowards can never be allowed to feel that they might be the normal ones and the heroes are insane.
9. War is the admission of defeat in the face of conflicting interests.
10. One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

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28 January: National Kazoo Day

Today is National Kazoo Day. 10 things you might not know about kazoos.

1. A kazoo is a small musical instrument played by humming, singing or speaking into the mouthpiece rather than blowing. Its shape resembles that of a Submarine with holes at both ends and another in a raised cylinder on top, in which there is a vibrating membrane. Its popularity lies in the fact that anyone who can hum or sing could pick one up and play it right away.
2. It is based on an instrument called a mirliton, which was used by African tribes to disguise their voices during religious ceremonies. Those instruments were typically made from Cows’ horns and Spider egg casings.
3. The story regarding the invention of the modern day kazoo was that it was invented by an African-American man named Alabama Vest in the 1840s. He drew up the plans for the instrument and had it made by a German clockmaker named Thaddeus Von Clegg. They took their instrument to the Georgia State Fair in 1852 where they called it the “Down-South Submarine.” There is no documentation to support this story, however.
4. The first patent for a kazoo was registered in 1902 by George D Smith from New York. The method for large-scale kazoo manufacture was developed by Emil Sorg and Michael McIntyre. The latter patented the process in 1923.
5. The name "kazoo" is thought to have been given to the instrument by Warren Frost in 1883, possibly an onomatopoeia of the sound it makes.
6. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, kazoos often features in popular music. The first professional music recording to feature one was by the Original Dixieland Jass (or Jazz) Band, in the song Crazy Blues in 1921. Another popular band of the time who used kazoos was The Mound City Blue Blowers.
7. While the kazoo later fell out of popularity where professional musicians were concerned, becoming an instrument mainly used for comedy songs, a few modern day artists have used them. The Beatles song Lovely Rita and Jimi Hendrix's song Crosstown Traffic both feature kazoos. In 1961, kazoos featured in a scene in the film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
8. There is even at least one person famous for playing the kazoo, even being dubbed a “kazoo virtuoso”. Barbara Stewart she started out as a classically trained singer and later formed a quartet called “Kazoophony.” She appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall in London. There, in 2011, she led her audience of 3,910 in a world record breaking kazoo ensemble.
9. There is a kazoo museum in Beaufort, Carolina, which opened in 2010.
10. Finally, not forgetting the small number of people in the world for whom Kazoo is their first name. There aren't many of them - less than five people are given the name each year. The first person to be named Kazoo was born in August 1916.

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27 January: Swan Lake

On this date in 1895 Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake premièred in St Petersburg, Russia. 10 things you might not know about Swan Lake.

1. It was, however, the second, updated version which premiered on this day. It originally premiered 18 years earlier, on March 4th, 1877.
2. On that occasion, it wasn't very well received. Critics said the Music was too loud, too ‘Wagnerian‘ and too symphonic. Another criticised the production and the dancers, writing "I must say that I had never seen a poorer presentation on the Bolshoi stage. The costumes, decor, and machines did not hide in the least the emptiness of the dances. Not a single balletomane got out of it even five minutes of pleasure." This guy, Herman Laroche, did like the music, however. Audiences weren't so harsh. There were 40 more performances of this version up until 1883.
3. In 1875 Vladimir Begitchev asked Tchaikovsky to write a ballet about swans for the Moscow Imperial Theatre. Tchaikovsky hadn't written ballet music before, but was keen to give it a go. It took him a year to write.
4. The story of the ballet was based on The Lake of Swans, a German fairy tale.
5. Tchaikovsky had written a short ballet about swans already, for his nieces and nephews in 1871. He used some of the music from that for Swan Lake.
6. The company started rehearsals before the score was completely finished. Initially, the orchestra's conductor and the dancers hated it. They described the music as "undanceable" because it was so complex.
7. The plot is as follows: Prince Seigfried is turning 21. At his birthday party, he is expected to choose a bride. Six hopeful princesses are attending the ball for him to choose from. The day before the party, Seigfried and his friends go hunting and are about to shoot a flock of swans when they turn into young women. Their leader, Princess Odette, explains that her wicked stepmother has cast a spell on them so that they are swans by day and maidens by night. The spell can only be broken by a vow of marriage. Seigfried falls in love with Odette and she agrees to attend the ball. However, her stepmother's companion Von Rothbart is watching, disguised as an owl. He decides to screw things up for Odette. He arrives at the ball with his daughter Odile, who is disguised as Odette. Seigfried is completely fooled and asks Odile to marry him. Odette arrives in time to see this and flees back to the lake in despair, knowing the spell can never now be broken. Seigfried by now has realised his mistake and goes to the lake to beg forgiveness from Odette. She is so stricken with grief that she dies in his arms, after which Seigfriend drowns and the swans swim away.
8. In the early 1890s, discussions began with Tchaikovsky about the possiblity of a revival with a few changes to the story by Tchaikovsky's brother Modest. He made the ending happier by having the spirits of the lovers reunited in the afterlife.
9. However, Tchaikovsky died in November 1893, two years before the premier of the new version. Today, when someone in the music business dies there is a surge of interest in their music. It was the same then – because Tchaikovsky had died, people wanted to hear his music. However, the premier of the new version was postponed because Tsar Alexander III died in November 1894 and due to a period of mourning, all performances and rehearsals had to stop.
10. The 2010 film Black Swan features the ballet. Odette is often referred to as The White Swan and Odile as the Black Swan. One dancer usually takes both roles but in the film, ballerina Nina is unable to embody the Black Swan even though her White Swan performance is perfect. The film tells of a bitter rivalry between Nina and the dancer brought in to be the Black Swan.

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January 26: Michigan Admission Day

Today is Michigan Admission Day. Michigan became the 26th state on this day in 1837. Here are ten things you might know about the US state of Michigan.

Lake Michigan

1. The name of the state comes from an Algonquian Chippewa Indian word "meicigama" which means "big water", referring to the Great Lakes.
2. 40% of Michigan is covered in Water - more than any other state. Michigan isn't by the sea but has the longest freshwater shoreline in the world and more shoreline than any other state apart from Alaska. No point in the state is more than 6 miles from a lake, or more than 85 miles of one of the great lakes.
3. 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan is a stone formation thought to have been parallel to an ancient shoreline. One of the stones is said to have a carving of a mastodon on it. The stones were discovered in 2007 by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan College, although they have yet to be authenticated.
4. The state motto is "Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circum spice" which translates as "If you are seeking a amenable (pleasant) peninsula, look around you." The state consists of two peninsulas, the Lower and the Upper.
5. Michagan is sometimes called "The Wolverine State" despite the fact there are no longer any wolverines there. The state mammal is actually the White-tailed deer.
6. The capital is Lansing, and the largest city is Detroit, which is known as the car capital of the world, or Motor City. It's also the home of Motown music. Other towns have claims to fame in other fields, such as Battle Creek, the Cereal Capital of the World, and Colon, home to the world's largest manufacturer of magic supplies. There is even a town called Hell, which sometimes freezes over.
7. The state is also home to the world's largest cement plant, the world's largest limestone quarry, the world's largest registered Holstein dairy herd and the world’s largest weathervane. It is 48 feet tall with an arrow 26 feet long.
8. In 1835, Michigan went to war with neighbouring state Ohio, over which of them owned the city of Toledo.
9. Famous people from Michigan include basketball player Magic Johnson, singers Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Alice Cooper, Madonna, Suzi Quatro and Diana Ross, Rapper Eminem, actors Lily Tomlin, Gillian Anderson and Burt Reynolds, and former President Gerald Ford.
10. Some of the state's wacky laws include: Dogs cannot go out alone after sunset; A woman must not cut her Hair without her husband’s permission; It is illegal in Harper Woods to paint Sparrows to sell them as parakeets; only one-armed people can own automatic (switchblade, etc.) knives; and there is a 10 cent bounty for every Rat’s head brought into a town office.

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25 January: Auckland Day

Today is Auckland Day in New Zealand. Here are ten things you might not know about New Zealand's largest city.

1. The Maori name for Auckland is Tamaki Makaurau, which translates to ‘Tamaki with a hundred lovers’. The English name was given to it by William Hobson, then Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand, after George Eden, Earl of Auckland, British First Lord of the Admiralty.
2. With a population of around 1,628,900 people, it's the largest city in New Zealand. About 33% of New Zealand's population live there. 28% of them are Polynesian, which makes Auckland the largest Polynesian city in the world.
3. Auckland was the capital of New Zealand for 25 years from 1842-1865. It lost out to Wellington because, for government officials travelling from the south, the journey could take up to two months.
4. Auckland is home to the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere, namely, the Sky Tower, which is 328 metres high.
5. Auckland lies on and around an isthmus, less than two kilometres wide at its narrowest point. It has two major harbours, Waitematā Harbour, which opens onto the Pacific Ocean and Manukau Harbour which opens onto the Tasman Sea. A favourite walk in Auckland is the 16km walk bwtween the two harbours, which takes about 4 hours.
6. Auckland's coastline is 3,702 kilometres (2,300 miles) long.
7. It's probably not surprising, then, that one in three people there own a boat, which has led to the city's nickname - the City of Sails.
8. The residents have been given a nickname, too - Jafa. It's actually quite insulting, an acronym for "Just another f***ing Aucklander" because there are so many of them and because the city is seen by some to get more than its share of government funding. A little like the resentment some provincial areas in England have for London, I guess. Aucklanders, however, re-interpreted it as meaning Just Another Fabulous Aucklander and adopted it as a term they use to refer to themselves.
9. There are over 50 volcanoes in the city of Auckland, from a magma source 100 kilometres under the city. Luckily, they are not expected to erupt any time soon.
10. Famous people from Auckland include Alannah Currie, a member of the 80s UK pop group Thompson Twins, pop singer Lorde, Lucy Lawless, actress who played the title character in television series Xena: Warrior Princess, and Sir Edmund Hillary, famous for climbing Everest.

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24 January: Beer Can Appreciation Day

Today is Beer Can Appreciation Day, because on this date in 1935 the first beer in cans was sold in Richmond, Virginia. 10 things you might not know about beer cans.

1. First of all, what are they made of? 75% of the world's drink cans are made from aluminium and 25% from Tin-plated steel.
2. The bad news is that it takes more energy to mine and produce aluminium than any other metal. To produce four cans from scratch would require enough energy to fill one of them with petrol.
3. The good news, however, is that aluminum is the most recyclable material on the planet. It can be recycled indefinitely. Making new cans out of old ones takes only five percent of the energy you'd need to mine the stuff.
4. The history of the beer can began in 1934 when the Kruger Brewing Company of Richmond, VA delivered four thousand of their newly developed beer can to potential consumers with a questionnaire. The product was well received by the test audience and Beer in cans went on sale proper on 24 January 1935.
5. The first brewery outside America to sell beer in cans was the Felinfoel Brewery at Felinfoel in Wales, also in 1935. Come the Second World War, the company was a major supplier to the troops abroad. They shipped over beer in cans rather than bottles as aluminium, being less dense than Glass, was cheaper to ship and didn't have to be returned to be re-used.
6. Beer in cans quickly became popular, which posed a problem for smaller breweries who couldn't afford to replace their manufacturing equipment. Hence, up until 1960 it was possible to get cans of beer that were shaped like bottles and sealed with the same bottle tops as their glass counterparts. However, as small breweries closed or upgraded their machinery, bottle shaped cans disappeared.
7. Early cans of beer required a can opener or a special tool known as a "church key" to get at the contents. In 1959, a man called Ermal Fraze forgot to bring a can opener to a family picnic and ended up using a car bumper to open his beer. This got him thinking that there must be an easier way to open the damn things - so he invented the now familiar pull tab. People of a certain age will probably remember pull tabs which came off the can completely - but these weren't ideal because they created a litter problem which was bad for wildlife. Variations in which people pushed the tab into the can with their fingers weren't ideal either because they could cut their fingers or their mouths on the sharp edges. In the 1970s Daniel F. Cudzik invented the "Stay-Tab" in which the tab was pushed into the can using a riveted lever.
8. Purists often say that beer from cans tastes metallic. It shouldn't, because beer cans are lined to stop the beer from coming into contact with the metal. It may be that the metallic "taste" is actually the smell of the metal can entering the drinker's nose (as most of taste is actually smell) so pouring the contents into a glass should solve that problem. If it doesn't, the beer is probably off.
9. More advantages of cans over bottles: cans, being factory sealed, are more airtight so the beer is less likely to become oxidised. They also shutout UV light, which bottles don't, and UV light can react with the chemicals in hops to produce a chemical called 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, which is a bit like sulphur.
10. Collecting beer cans was a popular hobby in the 1970s and 1980s and people who were into it formed a club, The Beer Can Collectors of America, later re-named the Brewery Collectibles Club of America to make it sound more modern. Even so, the hobby could be dying out. In 2009 membership had fallen from 11,954 to 3,570. The average age had risen to 59, with only 19 members under 30.

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23 January: Quotes for National Pie Day

Today is National Pie Day. Here are some quotes by famous writers about pie:

1. If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. Carl Sagan
2. We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie. David Mamet
3. It could be argued that there is an element of entertainment in every pie, as every pie is inherently a surprise by virtue of its crust. Janet Clarkson
4. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can be permanently vanquished. Dinah Fried
5. What a sad and cynical world this has become when one is forced to be suspicious of pie. Sandra Peterson Ramirez
6. Never ask a baker what went into a pie. Just eat. George R.R. Martin
7. Pie makes everybody happy. Laurie Halse Anderson
8. If somebody doesn't like pie, I don't trust them. Al Roker
9. Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken. Jonathan Swift
10. Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness. Jane Austen

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January 22: Lord Byron

On this date in 1788 George Gordon Byron, Baron Byron of Rochdale was born.

1. Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his lovers, described him as "mad, bad and dangerous to know". Looking at his family history, it may seem hardly surprising. His father was known as Captain "Mad Jack" Byron - Byron's mother was his second wife, Catherine Gordon, the second woman he'd married for her money. (She was heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.) Byron used to claim that his father cut his own throat when Byron was three, but that might not have been true. Byron's grandfather was Vice-Admiral the Hon. John "Foulweather Jack" Byron, and the great uncle from whom he inherited his title at the age of ten was the 5th Baron Byron, known as "the Wicked Lord".
2. Lord Byron was born in a department store. Well, he was born in his mother's lodgings, but today a branch of John Lewis stands on the site on Holles Street in London.
3. He had a deformed foot since birth which meant he had a limp all his life. His mother was short and plump, and Byron inherited from her a tendency to put on weight. He'd exercise on the advice of his doctor but his disability made physical activity difficult and possibly painful. Byron, self-conscious about his limp, (he referred to himself as "the limping devil and refused to wear a brace) tried to control his weight with "violent" bouts of exercise, fad diets and purging.
4. In spite of his deformed foot, he nevertheless played Cricket for Harrow school in the first Eton v Harrow cricket match at Lord's in 1805, and became proficient at boxing, Horse riding and swimming. In fact the sport of open water swimming owes much to Lord Byron. His swim from Europe to Asia across the Hellespont Strait in 1810 was the first recorded notable open water swim and is seen by some as the birth of the sport.
5. His name was George Gordon Noel Byron. The Gordon comes from his mother, and had been adopted by his father in an attempt to claim her estate. When he was at school, Byron used the name "George Byron Gordon." Noel was added later, when his mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon. Lady Milbanke died in 1822, leaving him half her estate on condition that he adopted the name.
6. Byron was a great animal lover, and kept any number of pets as well as being a vegetarian for most of his life. He once nursed a pet Dog which had contracted rabies, with no apparent fear of catching the disease. When the dog died, he commissioned a huge memorial for the dog on his estate and stated in his will that he wanted to be buried with his dog. He wanted to take another pet dog to Cambridge university with him, but was told dogs weren't allowed. The rules didn't outlaw all pets, however. There was no mention that Bears weren't allowed, to Byron got himself a pet bear and used to take it for walks around the campus. Other pets he kept as an adult included not only horses, dogs and Cats, but monkeys, peacocks, an eagle, a Crow, a falcon, guinea hens and an Egyptian Crane.
7. He first wrote poetry with the encouragement of a childhood friend, Elizabeth Pigot. At 17, he had some poems published in a collection called Fugitive Pieces - but some of Byron's poetry was described as "amourous" and the book was recalled and burned. His breakthrough work was Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812, which made him a celebrity, which, along with his good looks, made him sought after in London society until rumours about his numerous affairs forced him to leave England and never come back.
8. It was suspected he'd had an affair with his half sister Augusta and that affair had produced a daughter, Medora. He had affairs with both men and women, and stated one difference between the genders was that ‘men were cleverer but women kissed better.’ By the time he was 21, he'd contracted both gonorrhoea and syphilis. Pressure from the rumours and also because he was in debt, Byron started looking for a wife. He married Annabella Millbanke, who had a rich uncle. They had a daughter, Ada Lovelace, but due to Annabella's perception of her husband as insane and still obsessed with Augusta, Annabella left him.
9. Being a Baron meant he had a seat in the House of Lords. Before quitting Britain for good, he'd taken his seat and made a couple of speeches, which he described himself as "theatrical". He opposed the death penalty for Luddites who broke the machines which were putting them out of work. He was opposed to automation in general. He also made a speech supporting Catholic emancipation, declaring that the established religion was unfair to those of other faiths.
10. He was a bit of a war gamer, too, but on a grand scale. He built two small forts on the banks of a lake on his estate from which he would direct the movements of a fleet of toy ships. One of his servants was given the job of sitting in a small boat on the lake to move the ships around as directed.

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