Thursday 10 February 2022

11 February

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 11 February: 

  1. Two notable births which took place on this date are, in 1847, Thomas Edison, US inventor, who held over 1300 patents including the phonograph and electric light bulb. He said: "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." Then, in 1908, Sir Vivian Fuchs, an explorer whose expeditionary team completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958. Giving rise, perhaps, to the headline "SIR VIVIAN FUCHS OFF TO ANTARCTICA".
  2. In 1933, a 19 year old Japanese schoolgirl called Kiyoko Matsumoto committed suicide by jumping into crater of a volcano on the island of Oshima. This started a bizarre fashion in Japan, and in the ensuing months three hundred more young people did the same thing.
  3. The smallest country in the world came into being on this date in 1929 when the 109 acres of the Vatican in Rome was made an independent sovereign stateVatican City, by the Lateran Treaty signed by Pietro Cardinal Gaspari and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
  4. After more than 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela, the world’s most famous political prisoner, walked free from a prison near Cape Town on this date in 1990.
  5. In 1986, Boy George guest-starred on an episode of The A-Team. He played a singer mistakenly booked into a country dance hall.
  6. In 1895, the lowest temperature ever was recorded in Britain at Braemar, Grampian when the temperature plummeted to -27.2 degrees centigrade.
  7. It was on this date in 1988 at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, that English ski-jumper and plasterer Eddie Edwards became the surprise sensation of the Games. Despite coming last, he won all the headlines and the nickname ‘The Eagle’.
  8. In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415.
  9. This date in 1461 saw the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, in the Wars of the Roses. An atmospheric phenomenon at dawn, the reflection of light off ice crystals, made it seem as if there were three suns in the sky. Yorkist Prince Edward interpreted this as a good omen. Seems he was right. The Yorkists won the battle and two months later he was crowned king.
  10. It was on this date in 1991 that “The wrong kind of snow” was first blamed for UK train delays in a Daily Telegraph headline.


A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace. 
 

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.


Available from Amazon:

Paperback


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