9 February: K

This week is Circle K International week. Circle K International is an international organisation which promotes service, leadership, and fellowship. Here are 10 facts about the letter K, the 11^th letter in the alphabet:

1. The letter K comes from the Greek letter kappa, which was taken from the Semitic kaph, the symbol for an open hand, which in turn came from the Egyptian word for a hand, which began with a “K” sound.
2. In early Latin writing, the letters K, C, and Q were all used to represent the sound but eventually Greek words were standardised with kappa being translated as C. Hence C is more commonly used in English and romance languages.
3. In the International System of Units (SI), the SI prefix for one thousand is k, for kilo (which is, incidentally, the word used to represent K in the NATO phonetic alphabet). Hence K is often used to represent thousands, eg. 30k for thirty thousand.
4. It’s also the symbol for the kelvin, used to measure thermodynamic temperature.
5. K is the chemical symbol for element Potassium (from its Latin name kalium).
6. Vitamin K is a group of vitamins needed for blood coagulation.
7. If a drug user mentions K, they are probably referring to Ketamine.
8. There have been a few songs named K. Artists who have recorded songs with this name are Cul de Sac, The Tutts, Bump of Chicken and Cigarettes After Sex.
9. K in Morse Code is -.- and the maritime signal flag is Yellow and Blue (picture the flag of Ukraine rotated by 90 degrees to the right).
10. In the CMYK colour model, K represents Black ink.

Character Birthday

The Milky Bar Kid, aka Neil Birch. He is one of the Star Cruisers. Hawk Wind, the leader, initially recruited Neil’s older brother, Gordon, and Neil insisted on tagging along. While Gordon was athletic and practical, Neil was more of a nerd, interested in maths, computers and physics. Hawk saw him as a liability, but a short lived one, as he was deemed unlikely to survive for long in the rigours of outer space and a Star Cruiser lifestyle. Neil surprised them all, however, as not only did he survive, but he thrived. While he never became as athletic as his brother, his skills did improve, and he proved invaluable to the group for his intelligence and ability to solve problems.