5 March: O Day

Today is "O" Day, according to the Immortal Society. Here are ten things you might not know about the letter O.

1. The letter O derives from the Phoenician letter eyn. Eyn means "eye", and the letter in their alphabet was a drawing of a human eye, which may itself have derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph.
2. In most alphabets the symbol representing the "o" sound are similar, perhaps because it's the shape a person's mouth makes when speaking the sound.
3. O is the fourth most commonly used letter in the English alphabet.
4. It can be used, usually capitalised, to signify something or someone which is being addressed. This is called the vocative case. An example is O Captain! My Captain!
5. O is the chemical symbol for Oxygen.
6. O is a common Blood group. People with group O blood do not have the antigens that people with A, B or AB blood have. Their blood is compatible with any other group - they can donate to anyone and are therefore universal donors. Therefore if someone requires an urgent blood transfusion and there isn't time to establish what their blood group is, O negative blood is used. Hence it is the group that is usually in short supply. People with group O blood cannot receive blood from any of the other groups. O in the case of blood groups comes from the German word ohne, meaning "without".
7. O is sometimes used to classify stars. An O type star is blue-white and very bright. They are also quite rare.
8. The Story of O is an erotic novel by Anne Desclos, originally published in French.
9. In the context of Irish surnames, such as O'Sullivan, the prefix O means "grandson of" or "descendant of".
10. The O Brook is a small river on Dartmoor, England, a tributary of the River Dart. The name may have evolved from Oak Brook, even though Oak trees aren't common in the area. There is a rock formation called the Dragon's Den on its banks, which has given rise to a legend that a Dragon lives around the brook.

My Books 

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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.