1 April: Bristol

On this date in 1996 Avon was abolished and Bristol became a unitary authority. Here are ten things you might not know about Bristol.

1. The first recorded name for the settlement which would become Bristol was Caer Odor, which is Old Welsh for “fort on the chasm”. Translate that into Saxon and you get “Bric Stowe”.
2. Some well known people from Bristol include the pirate Blackbeard, JK Rowling, Allen Lane Williams who founded Penguin paperbacks, street artist Banksy (probably), Cary Grant and David Prowse, who played both the Green Cross Code Man and Darth Vader. Nipper the HMV dog was also from here. Wallace and Gromit were created in Bristol.
3. Things invented or built in Bristol include Ribena, Bungee jumping (the first jump was from the  Clifton Suspension Bridge in 1979), Lead shot, Chocolate bars, chocolate Easter Eggs, Concorde, the Internet Movie Database and blankets – they were invented by a Bristol wool merchant called Edward Blanket.
4. Bristol has often been used as a filming location. Nelson Mandela House from Only Fools and Horses isn't in Peckham at all – it's in Bristol. The house The Young Ones lived in is also here. Episodes of Doctor Who and Sherlock also feature parts of Bristol masquerading as places in London. 25% of the world's nature documentaries are produced here. Not every filming project in Bristol is as successful as the aforementioned shows. The Truth About Love was a film starring Jennifer Love Hewitt which managed to score 0% on the ratings site Rotten Tomatoes.
5. At one time Bristol had its own time zone – ten minutes behind London. That changed, however, when times across the country had to be brought into line so that railway timetables would work. An extra minute hand was added to the clock on the Exchange Building to help people get used to the new times – and it's still there.
6. There is a plant in the Onion family known as the Bristol Onion, because the only place in the UK where it can be found growing wild is in the Avon Gorge. There are also trees not found anywhere else in the world – the Bristol Whitebeam.
7. Bristol is the world's largest manufacturer of Hot air balloons. In August every year the city hosts the International Balloon Fiesta, Europe's largest gathering of hot air balloons.
8. After Bristol was bombed in the second world war, the rubble was exported to America and used to build the Waterside Plaza in New York City.
9. The phrase “Ship shape and Bristol fashion” came about because the tidal range in the Bristol Channel is one of the highest in the world. Ships docked in Bristol were likely to be aground at low tide and to fall to one side, so if Bristol was the destination, everything had to be properly stowed to avoid a terrible mess when the tide went out.
10. There is a book in a Bristol museum which is bound with human skin. The skin belonged to John Horton, who was hanged for murder in 1821. The doctor who testified against him claimed his body for “medical purposes” which included tanning some of his skin and turning it into a book. It's also said that a pub in Bristol which dates back to 1602 has a front door made from human skin (more executed criminals) under the layers of tar and paint.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

31 March: Crayons

Today is Crayola Crayons Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about crayons.

1. The name Crayola was coined by Alice Binney, the wife of one of the company founders. It combines the words "craie," which is French for chalk, and "ola," for oleaginous, because crayons are made from petroleum based paraffin.
2. The smell of Crayola crayons is distinctive enough to reach to the top 20 most recognisable smells, according to a Yale University study. The stuff that makes the smell is stearic acid, a derivative of beef fat. So crayons aren’t suitable for vegans.
3. In 1994 Crayola produced a range of sweeter smelling crayons including cherry, coconut, Chocolate and Liquorice. The problem with that was that children would eat them, so the range was discontinued. It was followed in 2006 by a range of silly scents with names like "Booger Buster" and "Alien Armpit".
4. Grant Wood, the artist who painted the famous American Gothic painting, said he was inspired to choose art as a career thanks to Crayola crayons. He entered a Crayola drawing contest at the age of 14. He came third.
5. There’s a word for the tiny nubs of crayons left at the end which are too small to use – “leftolas”. There is a product called the Crayola Crayon Maker which allows children to melt them down to create new crayons.
6. In 2003, Binney and Smith, the company which makes Crayola Crayons, asked people to send in their blue leftolas so they could make the world’s biggest crayon. Called Big Blue, it was made from the equivalent of 123,000 crayons, is 15 feet long, 16 inches in diameter and weighs 1,500lb.
7. The reason they asked for blue was because the most popular crayon colour is Blue. One shade of blue, marketed as “Bluetiful” by the company is a new shade of blue which was only discovered in 2009 by scientists at Oregon State University, and then completely by accident. The scientists named in YinMn blue because it contains the elements yttrium, indium, manganese, and Oxygen.
8. Crayola makes 3 billion crayons a year, enough to circle the Earth six times. They need to, because the average child will have used up 720 of them by the time they are 10 years old.
9. One of Crayola’s top executives was colourblind – not severely so but he did have trouble discerning slight differences in colours. Nevertheless, he worked for the company for over 35 years.
10. When Sally Putnam Chapman, a relative of the Crayola company founder, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, she brought with her a box of an exclusive crayon just for Oprah, called “The Color Purple”.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

30 March: Francisco Goya

This date in 1746 saw the birth of Francisco Goya, Spanish painter. Here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His full name was Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.
2. As a young man, he applied to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766, but without success, so he set off for Rome, then the cultural capital of Europe. All that’s known for sure about his time there is that he produced some paintings, although his early biographers paint some colourful tales, claiming that he travelled with a gang of bullfighters and worked as a street acrobat, and that he fell in love with a beautiful nun and plotted to abduct her from her convent.
3. As well as paintings, his work includes a set of 80 satirical prints called The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. They represent, in his own words, ‘the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance or self-interest have made usual.’ They weren’t on the market for long – Goya withdrew them for fear they would make him a target for the Spanish Inquisition. Should you have a full set in your attic, they’d fetch more than £1 million at auction.
4. He was the first artist to use a process of printing called aquatint. This involved using nitric acid to etch a plate and then add resin and varnish to produce shading. The plates would wear away after a time and so early prints were more valuable than later ones.
5. He was the first major artist to paint a female nude which wasn’t a figure from religion or mythology. It’s not known who the model was – it’s thought to be a composite of Pepita Tudó, the mistress of Manuel de Godoy, who commissioned the painting, and the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was said to be having an affair. There’s also a painting of the same woman in the same pose, but with clothes on. Both paintings were confiscated by the Spanish Inquisition in 1813.
6. He married Josefa Bayeu, “Pepa”, in 1771. She was the sister of his friend. They had seven children but only one, Xavier, survived to adulthood.
7. After his wife died, Goya lived with and was cared for by a maid called Leocadia Weiss. She was 35 years younger and may have resembled Josefa, so it was rumoured they were lovers and that the last of her three children was Goya’s.
8. Some of his later paintings were quite dark, possibly because he was ill with an undiagnosed condition which had made him deaf. (His home was known to locals as “The House of the Deaf Man”). The god Saturn biting off his son’s head is one example of his so-called Black Paintings. He painted them on the walls of his house rather than intending them to be seen by the public. 50 years after he died, however, they were transferred to canvas and put on show.
9. One theory about the nature of his illness is that it was Lead poisoning, since he often used lead White as a pigment and ground it himself.
10. He died in 1828, aged 82.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

29 March: Niagara Falls

29 March 1848 was the only recorded occasion when Niagara Falls froze up completely and stopped flowing for about 30 hours. 10 things you might not know about Niagara Falls.

1. It's actually made up of three waterfalls - American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe (or Canadian) Falls. Horseshoe Falls is the largest of the three.
2. The American Falls is so called because it's in the USA; Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe Falls are so named because of their appearance. The word Niagara comes from an Iroqois word meaning "point of land cut in two".
3. The whole thing was created by a glacier about 10,000 years ago, towards the end of the last ice age. When the ice melted the Water flowed from the Great Lakes into the Niagara river and carved a gorge. This erosion is an ongoing process - the falls are eroding at a rate of 30cm/1 foot per year which has been slowed down from 91cm/3 feet a year by the action of engineers. Even so, in about 50,000 years, the falls will have eroded away completely.
4. We don't know for sure who was the first European to see the falls, but the first person to paint them was Captain Thomas Davies in 1762.
5. On average, 2,400 cubic metres or 85,000 cubic feet of water flow over the falls every second. It varies according to the season with the peak flow occurring in late spring/early summer. Some of the water is diverted to make hydroelectric power, particularly in the winter and at night when there are less tourists.
6. The first person to go over the falls in a barrel was a teacher from Michigan called Annie Edison Taylor, who was 63 at the time. Previously, she'd sent the barrel over to test its strength with her pet cat, appropriately named Iagara, inside. The cat survived, and so did Annie, although the comment she made as she climbed out of the barrel, "No-one ought ever do that again," suggests she didn't enjoy it much. The authorities agreed with her and made such stunts illegal - survivors face a stiff fine. That hasn't stopped a dozen or more people from trying it since. The youngest barreller was Steve Trotter, aged 22, who, 10 years later, went back and did it again. The first duo to do it successfully were Peter DeBernardi and James Petkovich in 1989.
7. Not all plunges are intentional. A seven year old boy and his 17 year old sister fell into the rapids in 1960. The girl was pulled out by two tourists just 20 feet from the edge, but the boy went over. Miraculously, he survived and was pulled out of the pool at the bottom by the crew of the Maid of the Mist tourist boat. In 1918 the crew of a barge called the Niagara Scow narrowly escaped going over when its crew managed to ground the barge on the rocks near the edge. The wreck is still there.
8. Not everyone is so lucky. Matthew Webb, famous for being the first person to swim the English Channel, drowned when he tried to swim the rapids in 1883. Jesse Sharp, a canoeist from Tennessee, paddled over without wearing a helmet or a life jacket. His canoe was found, but he never was. Robert Overacker attempted the feat on a jet ski but died when his parachute failed to open, and Kirk Jones, having survived a suicide attempt in 2003 decided in 2017 to go over again, this time in an inflatable ball - but by then his luck had run out.
9. Other crazy people walk across on tightropes. The first was Jean Francois Blondin Gravelet in 1859 which sparked a craze over the next 37 years for crossing the gorge on a tightrope. Amazingly, there was only one fatal fall during this time, a man who fell near the spot where he'd anchored his rope, at night. The first woman to do it was Maria Spelterini, aged 23. Tightrope walkers attempted more and more difficult stunts - crossing carrying someone on their back, with ankles and wrists manacled, or blindfolded. People came from miles around to watch. In 1896, it was made illegal. The only person to have done it since then was Nik Wallenda in 2012. His walk was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history at 1,800 feet/550m. Because he was crossing from America into Canada, he had to carry his passport with him and show it to Canadian immigration officers on arrival.
10. About 30 million people visit the falls every year. It is a popular destination for honeymooners.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

28 March: Weeds

Today is Weed Appreciation Day. A day to appreciate the plants people usually don't want.

1. A weed is defined as a plant which is unwanted or unappreciated where it grows.
2. About 3% of the world's plant species are classified as weeds – that's about 8,000 out of a total of around 250,000.
3. Despite the bad press they get, some weeds are useful. Some are edible, like Dandelions, can be used as herbal medicine, or attract desirable insects like Butterflies and Bees.
4. Weeds tend to be species which can adapt quickly to a changing environment and thrive in it. Hence they are often the first plants to grow in ground after a disturbance. In other words, they are pioneer plants. They can help prevent soil erosion in such areas.
5. A weed species need not be a plant. Biologists sometimes use the term “weed species” to refer to animals as well. A weed species is one that is adaptable, can live in a variety of environments, reproduce and disperse rapidly. Examples might include Pigeons, Rats, and even, according to paleontologist David Jablonsky, humans.
6. Weeds often produce huge numbers of seeds. A single horseweed plant (Conyza canadensis) can produce as many as 200,000 seeds. Seeds can remain dormant in the ground for up to 40 years.
7. During Word War II, milkweed fluff was used to stuff life jackets, as it is six times more buoyant than cork.
8. We have a weed to thank for Velcro. It was invented by a Swiss hiker after he came home with burrs stuck to himself and his Dog. He looked at them under a microscope and noticed they were covered in tiny hooks.
9. There's a type of weed, called hydrilla, which can grow about 100 inches a day.
10. Thistles are said to be weeds, but it’s said they once helped win a battle. Norsemen landed in Scotland at night, hoping to surprise the sleeping Scottish soldiers. In order to move silently they took their boots off – but a large thistle patch got in their way. The thistle is now Scotland’s national flower.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.