Sunday 13 February 2022

14 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 14 February:

  1. On this date in 1918, the first Tarzan movie Tarzan of the Apes, was released. The film was based on stories written by Edgar Rice-Burroughs. 10 year old Gordon Griffith played Tarzan as a boy, while Elmo Lincoln played the adult Tarzan.
  2. In 1843, a circus event called Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! took place. Many years later, The Beatles would see the poster advertising it and turn it into a song.
  3. In 1879, The Marseillaise, written by Rouget de Lisle in 1792, officially became the French National Anthem.
  4. In 2002, Texas A&M University announced they had cloned the first Cat. She was named cc, (meaning carbon copy). However, she didn't look exactly like her mother Rainbow, as a cat's fur pattern is determined in the womb.
  5. In 1931, Groucho Marx learned the hard way that customs officers don't have a sense of humour. Exasperated by having to wait in a queue in New York, he quipped to his wife, “Have you got the opium, dear?” which resulted in his entire family being strip searched.
  6. In 2004, the record for the world's longest paper clip chain to be made by an individual in 24 hours was set by Dan Meyer, who connected 54,030 paper clips making a chain 5,340 feet or 1,627.6 meters long.
  7. It's Valentine's Day, of course, so some events are bound to be related to that. Starting with in 1477, when Margery Brews sent a letter to John Paston in Norfolk, addressed ‘To my right welbelovyd Voluntyne’, which is probably the world’s first known Valentine.
  8. In 2007, the Pizza that Maurizio Morelli, an Italian lawyer, had ordered from eBay the previous November as a Valentine's present for his wife was delivered. It had cost him £2,150, so we hope she was suitably impressed. The pizza, dubbed Pizza Royale 007, contained venison medallions, Scottish smoked Salmon, edible gold, champagne soaked Caviar and Lobster marinated in the finest Cognac. Chef Domenico Crolla had flown over 1,000 miles to Rome from Glasgow especially to prepare the 12" pizza, the world's most expensive pizza ever.
  9. In 1977, Janis Ian received almost 500 Valentine's Day cards from her fans after revealing in her hit ballad At Seventeen that she'd never received any Valentine's Day cards when she was a teenager.
  10. The St Valentine’s Day Massacre’ took place in 1929, when seven members of George ‘Bugs’ Moran’s gang were ‘rubbed out’ at 10.30 a.m. in a Chicago garage. Al Capone's gang was suspected of the killings. The killers disguised themselves as police officers so it would appear to be a routine police raid.  



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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