1 May

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 1st May:

1. It's May Day, so here's a related event: in 1661, the tallest (at 130 feet) and longest-standing of old maypoles was placed in the Strand, London. In 1717 Sir Isaac Newton bought it to support a telescope.

2. This date in 1769 saw the birth of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, in Ireland. Known as the Iron Duke, he defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

3. Also born on this date, in 1852, was Martha Jane Cannary-Burke, better known as Calamity Jane. The nickname might have arisen from the fact she said any man who tried to court her risked calamity. She earned a reputation as one of the wildest women in the Wild West, but had a tender side, too, nursing patients with smallpox and stab wounds, often without pay.

4. In 2000, Washington University recalculated the mass of the Earth as 5972 billion tonnes, 6bn tonnes less than previously thought. That or the planet had been on a diet.

5. Some milestones in air travel occurred today. In 1927, Imperial Airways served the first hot meals on a flight from London to Paris. In 1981, the first frequent flyer scheme was introduced by American Airlines; and in 1998, Eva Woodman from Bristol became the oldest person to fly supersonic on Concorde at the age of 105.

6. In 1840, The first Penny Black stamps with Queen Victoria’s head on them went on sale five days before the official issue date. They are now worth at least £65,000 each.

7. In 1989, police in California were called to a jewellery store after employees reported a suspicious person wearing a wig, fake moustache and false teeth. Three squad cars arrived and police detained the man. It turned out to be pop star Michael Jackson shopping in disguise.

8. In 1931, President Hoover opened the Empire State Building in New York, the world’s tallest (1250 ft, 102 stories) until 1972 when it was overtaken by the World Trade Center.

9. In 1997, Terry Burrows broke the world window cleaning record, washing three 45 inch square Windows in 18.46 seconds.

10. In 2003, Aron Ralston amputated his own arm to get out of the narrow passage he'd become trapped in 127 hours earlier, in Blue John Canyon, Utah. The 2010 film 127 Hours tells his 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

Kindle

30 April

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 30 April:

1. In 1900, John Luther "Casey" Jones, a train driver; rode the Cannonball Express to his death when his train collided with a freight train – he didn't jump off to save himself but stayed to slow the train and save the lives of his passengers – he was the only person who died in the crash. He was 36.

2. In 1945 Adolph Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany, facing defeat as the Russians approached his bunker, shot himself in the head. His wife of less than 40 hours, Eva Braun, took cyanide.

3. In 2018, the world's oldest known Spider, a trapdoor spider known as "Number 16", died of a wasp sting at the age of 43.

4. In 1789, George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. Previously, he was commander in chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution. John Adams was the first Vice-President.

5. It's a popular day for abdications. In 1980 Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicated and was succeeded by her daughter, Beatrix; in 2013 Queen Beatrix in turn abdicated in favour of her son, who became King Willem-Alexander, the first male monarch in the Netherlands in 123 years. In 2019, Emperor Akihito abdicated the Chrysanthemum Throne in favour of his son, Crown Prince Naruhito. He was the first Japanese Emperor to abdicate in over two hundred years, the last being Emperor Kōkaku in 1817.

6. In 1939, Franklin D Roosevelt became the first US president to appear on television as his appearance was beamed to about 200 sets within a 40 mile radius of the New York World’s fair.

7. In 1955, element 101, Mendelevium was discovered.

8. In 1977, Speckle the goose in Goshen, Ohio, laid the heaviest goose egg ever. It weighed 24 ounces, twice as much as the average goose egg.

9. In 1006, the brightest Supernova in recorded history was observed in Europe, China, Japan, and Egypt. The explosion of Supernova 1006 occurred in the constellation Lupus.

10. In 1998, a book was found under the floorboards of the Information in Shop Shoreham-by-Sea. It was The Shadow of the East by EM Hull, and was a library book, due back on 3 January 1924. It was returned to Lancing West Sussex library. The fine due was £2,322,40. We're not told whether the Information Shop was expected to cough up.

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

Kindle

29 April

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 29 April:

Windsor Castle

1. In 1962, a boy in Mexico City, Henry Espinola, died of radiation poisoning. In March, he'd found seven pellets of radioactive cobalt in the street, brought them home, and kept them in a cookie jar. Henry's mother, sister died and his grandmother died later in the year. Only his father, who visited just on weekends, survived.

2. In 1990, wrecking cranes began tearing down the section of the Berlin Wall around the Brandenburg Gate.

3. In 1995 the longest sausage ever, 2877 miles long, was made in Kitchener Ontario.

4. In 2019 Avengers: Endgame broke numerous box office records, including the biggest opening weekend in cinematic history.

5. In 1990, Stephen Hendry of Scotland, aged 21, became the youngest ever Embassy World Snooker Champion by beating Jimmy White 18-12 in the final at Sheffield.

6. According to Medieval calendars, this was the date Noah left the Ark.

7. In 1993 Queen Elizabeth II announced that for the first time, Buckingham Palace would be opened to tourists to help raise money for repairs at fire-damaged Windsor Castle.

8. In 2002, the Queen held a dinner party to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. The guests included 5 prime ministers: Tony Blair, John Major, Baroness Thatcher, Lord Callaghan, Sir Edward Heath, and relatives of another five PMs from her reign. They ate cured duck with melon, and roast troncon of Turbot.

9. The first known horoscope was devoted to someone born on this date in 410 BC.

10. In 1998, David Hempleman-Adams, from Swindon, reached the geographic North Pole with Norwegian Rune Gjeldnes, the first person to reach both the north and south geographic and magnetic poles and climb the highest peaks in 7 continents. David's daughter Alicia, aged 8, became the youngest person to stand at the North Pole.

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

Kindle

28 April

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 28 April:

1. Two people who defied the Nazis during the second world war were born on this date. In 1908, Oscar Schindler, the German businessman credited with saving about 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, and in 1912, Odette Hallowes, who worked with the French underground. Using the code name Lise, she acted as a courier. She was arrested in April 1943 and condemned to death in June 1943. She was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, but survived the war and testified against the prison guards at a 1946 war crimes trial.

2. This date in 1948 saw the birth of Terry Pratchett, author best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Quotes: "In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find." "Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." and a personal favourite of mine, "90% of most magic merely consists of knowing one extra fact."

3. In 1770, English navigator Captain James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour, including botanist Joseph Banks and a Goat which had already circumnavigated the world once with Captain Wallis on board the Dolphin, landed in Australia, at the place which was later named Botany Bay.

4. More nautical events took place on this date in 1789, when the crew of the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, mutinied against Captain Bligh. They were on the return journey from Tahiti where they'd spent six months gathering breadfruit trees. Bligh and 17 others were cast adrift in a small boat. The mutineers eventually colonised Pitcairn Island. Bligh managed to sail his small boat to Timor, near Java, arriving there on 14 June.

5. In 1987, it was announced that 3,000 toads had used a special toad tunnel at Henley-on-Thames during its first six weeks. This crossing between two woods was built so the toads didn't have to hop across a busy highway to get from one to the other. It reduced the toad road death toll by 95%.

6. In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Callao, Peru on a 101-day journey to Polynesia aboard a balsa-wood raft named Kon-Tiki. His aim was to prove that early man could have emigrated from South America to Polynesia.

7. In 2001, a Soyuz rocket launched in Kazakhstan with American businessman Dennis Tito on board, the first paying tourist in an International Space Station. He paid $20m for a 6 day stay on the ISS. NASA had at first objected on safety grounds, but later withdrew their objection. No doubt $20 million went a long way towards changing their minds.

8. The first FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium took place on this date in 1923. Before the game started, the huge crowd spilled out on to the pitch, but a single policeman on a white horse managed to get the crowd off the playing area. Bolton Wanderers won 2-1 against West Ham in front of a crowd of 126,000 people and another 75,000 who'd scaled the walls.

9. In 1220, construction of Salisbury Cathedral began.

10. In 1985, the largest sand castle in the world was built near St. Petersburg, FL. The castle was four stories tall and contained hidden treasure for kids who came in and demolished the work of art, with permission, a week later.

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

Kindle

27 April

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 27 April:

1. On this date in 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was murdered by islanders in the Philippines. He's often considered to be the first person to circumnavigate the globe, having sailed from Spain, more than 18 months earlier, with five ships and 270 men, but he never actually made it home.

2. Another explorer died in a less dramatic fashion on this date in 1794. James Bruce, having survived numerous perils during his travels in Africa, died as a result of falling downstairs, having missed his footing while offering his hand to a lady.

3. In 1992, the House of Commons elected Betty Boothroyd, MP for West Bromwich and a former chorus girl, as the first female Speaker.

4. Two London attractions opened on this date. In 1828 The London Zoological Gardens in Regents Park, and in 1937 the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich was opened by King George VI.

5. Staying in London, in 1998 the tube station Mornington Crescent reopened after 5 years after a successful campaign by fans of the pointless panel game of the same name on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The opening ceremony was performed by the cast of the show.

6. In 1997 Leander Rowing club ended its 179 year ban on women members to qualify for £1.5m lottery grant.

7. According to A Pilgrim's Almanac, in1417, a Chicken in Basel, Switzerland was burned at the stake for violating natural law by laying a brightly coloured Egg.

8. In 1865, the steamer Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River killing about 1,700 people. Of the estimated 2,300 people on board, 2,134 were Union soldiers returning from Confederate prison camps. The cause of the accident was never determined. The disaster was eventually nicknamed the "Titanic of the Mississippi".

9. In 1546, William Foxley, a pot-maker for the Mint in the Tower of London, fell asleep and couldn't be awakened by anyone. He woke up 14 days later. No-one knows why.

10. In 2003, the longest Lego structure in the world was completed: using 2,477,140 bricks, over 20,000 children in Bangkok, Thailand made a Lego millipede 1,052 meters or 3,451 feet long.

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

Kindle

26th April

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 26 April:

1. In 1926 Bobby ‘The Canadian Daredevil’ Leach, from Cornwall, who'd been the first man to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, died of gangrene, a result of an incident a year earlier when he'd slipped on a piece of Orange peel.

2. On this date in 1923, the then Duke of York, future King George VI, and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the Queen Mother) got married in Westminster Abbey.

3. In 1964, the African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form a new country, Tanzania. The word "Tanzania" was formed by using the first syllable of each of the two places.

4. In 1982, on his way to the Clash's rehearsal studio in West London, lead singer Joe Strummer decided to go AWOL. He boarded a train for the coast and took a ferry to France. His disappearance forced the band to cancel their UK tour and put their US tour in June in jeopardy. He showed up again in London on 18 May claiming exhaustion and doubts about his career were the reason he'd cleared off to Paris without telling anyone.

5. The first ever cocktail party was held by Evelyn Waugh’s brother, Alex, on this date in 1924. It wasn’t much of a success, however, as only one guest turned up. Undeterred, Alex Waugh threw another one the following year, inviting 30 guests, only this time he told them it was a Tea party. Once people got there and had a few cocktails, they decided it was actually quite a good idea and the cocktail party concept took off from there.

6. In 1937, German bombers made the first raid on a civilian population during the Spanish Civil War when they attacked Guernica, the spiritual home of the Basques. This atrocity was the inspiration for a famous painting by Picasso.

7. In 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident happened at a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, Ukraine, releasing 100 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. 31 people were killed in the initial meltdown. Radioactive material was detected thousands of miles away, even affecting Welsh Sheep.

8. In 1998, police in Peru arrested a man at Lima International Airport for trying to smuggle a thousand Butterflies out of the country.

9. In 1928, Madame Tussaud's waxwork exhibition opened in London.

10. In 2000, an unusual Job opportunity was advertised in Job Centres in south Wales. Cottle and Austens Circus were looking for a knife thrower's assistant. The job description stated that the successful candidate's duties included standing on a 3ft wide board while 10 sharpened blades were thrown near their head on a daily basis.

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

Kindle