21 August: Venetian blinds

This date in 1841, the Venetian blind was patented by John Hampton of New Orleans, Louisiana. 10 things you didn’t know about Venetian blinds.

1. Venetian blinds are a type of window covering made up of horizontal slats connected by cords or tapes, allowing them to be adjusted for Light control and privacy.

2. Despite the name, they didn’t originate in Venice. In fact, the ancient Egyptians used a precursor to the blinds we use today, by tying reeds together, and in ancient China they did the same thing with Bamboo.

3. They are called Venetian blinds because Venetian merchants first introduced them to Europe, most likely from Persia. Venice at the time was a trade hub, so the name derives from the traders who made them popular.

4. They were called “Les Persienes” in France. France was the destination of choice for many freed Venetian slaves, who went into the business of shipping blinds to France.

5. The patent issued in 1841 was for the device that changed the angle of the slats, which is still used today.

6. In 1982, Atari produced a joke video “game” called Venetian Blinds, which was never intended for public release but eventually did find its way into game collections. Essentially, the game consists of the player raising and lowering a Venetian blind using the joystick. When the blinds are raised, they reveal a detailed sunset behind a green valley. Bad Game Hall of Fame stated that it was "honestly something of a stretch to even call it a 'game.'"

7. Venetian Blind is a 1959 suspense novel by the British author William Haggard about a rich Englishman with a second home in Venice, who is in the negative gravity business, and the plot revolves around him trying to uncover a traitor who is leaking the secrets of negative gravity to the Germans.

8. Venetian blinds are actually a death trap. Between 1996 and 2012, 184 children in the US were strangled by them.

9. One of the largest orders for Venetian blinds ever placed was to the Burlington Venetian Blind Co., of Burlington, Vermont, which supplied blinds for the windows of the Empire State Building in New York City.

10. Other common types of Window blind include panel blinds, which originated in Japan, and roller blinds, which consist of fabric wrapped around a roller.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

30 July: Barrels

Today is the feast day of St Abdon, who is the is patron saint of barrel makers. Here are ten things you might not know about barrels.

1. Some barrel words. A person who makes barrels is called a cooper. The wooden parts of a barrel are called staves, the rings around them are called hoops. The tops and bottoms are called heads or headers. As to what a keg is, I found two different meanings. One said a keg is a small barrel, another said a keg is an empty barrel, the word cask being used for one that is full. The bulge around the middle is called the bilge.

2. There’s a reason why barrels bulge in the middle rather than being straight cylinders. It makes it easier to roll and possible to change direction easily while doing so.

3. Barrels have been around a long time. Pictures of wooden containers bound with hoops have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 2600 BC, and archaeologists have found remains of barrels dating back to 200 BC.

4. The Romans were responsible for popularising the barrel as a means to store and transport Wine. Before the Romans, wine was kept in various types of pottery jars such as the qvevri or amphora. Alternatively wineskins as referenced in The Bible. There were drawbacks, however. Wineskins might rot and earthenware was too fragile and likely to break. The Romans, keen not to waste any wine, started using wooden barrels. Once the wine had been consumed, Roman armies found uses for the empties: Julius Caesar would fill the barrel with tar, set it on fire and lob it over the city walls during a siege. The Romans also used empty barrels to make pontoon bridges and to line shallow wells.

5. Until the 19^th century, the hoops were made from wood, but the Victorians found that metal was stronger, more durable and took up less space.

6. Does the type of wood matter? It certainly does when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Oak is most popular for storing and ageing wines and spirits such as Whiskey. English oak (Quercus robur), white oak (Quercus petraea), American white oak (Quercus alba) are most commonly used, but but chestnut and redwood are not unknown. Japanese Cedar is used for sake.

7. The type of wood matters because chemical compounds in the wood, such as tannins and vanillins, infuse into the liquid contents, giving it flavour. American oak lends notes of Vanilla, Coconut, and Toffee. French oak gives Clove, spice and nutty flavours. Japanese cedar imparts an unusual, minty-piney flavour to the sake. Some drinks, such as bourbon, benefit from a bit of treatment to the barrel before the contents go in. Bourbon makers will char the inside of the barrel first to enhance the flavour. Eventually, the barrel will have given up all its chemical contents and becomes neutral. At this point it’s time to recycle it. Hence you may find old barrels in use as tables or stools or plant pots.

8. Barrels don’t have lids, but a small hole in one side called a bunghole, which is sealed by a stopper known as, you guessed it, a bung. Modern bungs are usually made from silicon.

9. While barrels are watertight, some of the contents will always be lost to evaporation. This is known as the angels’ share.

10. A barrel is also a standard measure of the capacity or weight of a commodity. In the UK and Ireland, for example, a barrel of beer equals 36 imperial gallons (160 litres or 43 US gallons).

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

29 June: Photographs

As today is National Camera Day, here are ten facts about photographs.

1. The oldest surviving photograph was taken by Joseph Niepce about 200 years ago and was titled ‘view from the Window’. The view was of Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and is of a castle and some other buildings. It took 8 hours to record this image.

2. The first photograph of a person was taken in 1828 by Louis Daguerre, entirely by accident. What Daguerre intended to do was take a picture of a street in Paris, but it just so happened that there was a man getting his Shoes polished in the street at the time and so he, and presumably the person shining his shoes, became the first humans to be photographed.

3. A study conducted by Kelsey Blackburn and James Schrillo from Wake Forest University concluded that our "best side" in a photo is the left side of the face, which tends to show more intense emotion and so is seen as more attractive.

4. The first colour photograph was taken by Tomas Sutton in 1861. He used Red, Green and Blue filters which he layered and then projected onto a plate. It was a picture of a multicoloured ribbon.

5. Photos of Cats are nothing new. A man called Harry Pointer dressed his cat up in a little suit and hat and took a picture of it in the 1870s.

6. The most expensive photograph ever is Man Ray’s Le Violon d’Ingres, a picture of a woman with musical symbols on her bare back. It sold in 2022 for $12,400,000. The photo is over 100 years old.

7. There’s no statistic for how many photographs are taken in the world ever day, but it’s estimated that more than a trillion are taken every year.

8. The photograph which has been seen by the most people is the default wallpaper for Windows XP. It’s the one of fields and a blue Sky with fluffy clouds. It has a name: it’s called Bliss and it was taken by Charles O’Rear in 1996. However, he took it for a stock website and so it didn’t make him rich.

9. Looking at old photographs, it would seem that the Victorians didn’t smile much. The reason they’re not smiling is because they had to pose for as much as several hours, and it was just to much effort to smile for that long.

10. Another reason might be that the person in the photo was dead. It was a common practice in the 19^th century to take photos of recently deceased family members posed as if they were alive as a keepsake to remember them by.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

30 May: Buckets

Today is My Bucket's Got A Hole In It Day. To celebrate, 10 facts about buckets.

1. Why is today My Bucket's Got A Hole In It Day, anyway? Apparently, it’s a commemoration of the comedy song There's a Hole in My Bucket in which a character called Henry complains to another character called Liza that his bucket has a hole in it. Liza tells him to fix it. Henry, it has to be said, isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Or perhaps he’s just trying to get out of doing any work. “With what do I fix it?” he asks. “A straw,” says Liza. The straw is too long. So cut it. With what? A knife. But the knife is dull. So sharpen it. With what? With a stone. But the stone is too dry. So wet it. With what? Duh. Water, of course (although in a NSFW version perhaps Liza could suggest he pees on it). Ah, but in what do I fetch the water, Liza? In a bucket. But…

2. What’s the difference between a bucket and a pail? In everyday parlance, the words are used interchangeably, but technically, a bucket is a container with a wide opening at the top and a handle, used for carrying things, while a pail is for shipping things and has a lid.

3. Buckets have been used for thousands of years. Sculptures dating from around 3200 BC show Pharaoh Narmer with a servant carrying a bucket.

4. Early buckets were made from animal skins. They can be made of wood, metal or plastic.

5. Sometimes, buckets have sacred uses. Sculptures from Assyria-Babylonia and the Olmecs from Mexico show deities and priests holding buckets of water to be sprinkled using a pine cone. More recently, when a Catholic person died, people would bring holy water from the church in a special bucket to sprinkle on the corpse.

6. This custom is one of the suggested theories to explain the term “kick the bucket” meaning to die (or d*e or be unalived on social media where any word pertaining to death apparently has to be censored). Other theories suggest it started with hanging, where the condemned criminal or suicidal person stood on a bucket with the noose round their neck, and it would then be kicked away. Or it might come from an old word for a beam on which Pigs were slaughtered. Or from the idea of a Goat which kicks over the bucket after it’s been milked, signifying a bad ending.

7. No prizes for guessing that this is where the term “bucket list” comes from, meaning a wish list of things a person wants to achieve before the end of their life, or before they kick the bucket. In 2007 the term was used as the title of a film directed and produced by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill men who take a road trip in order to complete their bucket lists.

8. There was once, allegedly, a war fought over a bucket. The War of the (Oaken) Bucket was fought in 1325 between two rival city-states in Italy, Bologna and Modena. The story goes that it started when the Modenese stole a bucket from a Bolognese well. Sadly, it’s just a myth. If anything, the bucket wasn’t taken until the end of the battle, when it was taken as a trophy by the victorious Modenese.

9. There’s an obsolete measurement called a bucket, which is 4 imperial gallons (18 L; 4.8 US gal).

10. Occasionally, writers have named their characters after buckets. Charles Dickens created Inspector Bucket, a central character in Bleak House. Roald Dahl named the protagonist of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Charlie Bucket, and of course, there’s Hyacinth Bucket, the main character in Keeping Up Appearances, who insists it’s pronounced “bouquet”. Finally, "Buckethead" is the stage name of American rock guitar player Brian Patrick Carroll.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

4 April: Maps

 Today is National Reading a Roadmap Day. 10 facts about maps:

1. The study of maps and mapmaking is known as cartography, and a person who makes maps is known as a cartographer.

2. People started making maps at least 16,500 years ago. We know this because there is a map of stars in the French caves of Lascaux. The first road map is believed to be one called the Turn Papyrus Map. It was created in Egypt in around 1160 BC, showing ways to get around bends in rivers.

3. There is no such thing as a perfectly accurate map of the world. This is because the Earth is a sphere and maps are flat, so any representation will be distorted to some extent. The one we are most familiar with is called the Mercator projection, which was invented in the mid 16th century by a cartographer called Gerardus Mercator. It’s most useful for sailors as it shows exactly where you’d end up if you set sail from any coastline, but many of the land masses are completely the wrong size. North America and Europe look much bigger than they actually are. Greenland and Africa are shown as pretty much the same size when Africa is actually about 14 times bigger. Someone needs to explain this to Donald Trump: there’s 14 times less oil and minerals there than he thinks!

4. Another projection is the Dymaxion, or Fuller, map, which was created by Buckminster Fuller around 1943. He put a world map on an icosahedron, or 20-sided polygon, and flattened it.

5. Maps also frequently show places that don’t exist. Sometimes this is down to a mistake. In 1798, James Rennell drew the first map of Africa which wrongly included a mountain range called the Mountains of Kong which didn’t exist, but the mountain range appeared on maps of Africa for over 100 years. Many ancient cartographers believed the fictional city of El Dorado was real for centuries, and included it on maps as recently as 1808.

6. Sometimes fictitious places were included on purpose, so map makers would know if someone else had simply copied their map instead of putting the work in. The London A to Z had a fictitious street. Another example was created by Otto G. Lindberg and Ernest Alpers who used an anagram of their initials to name a fake town called Agloe, which they placed near the Catskill Mountains in New York as a trap. You can almost see these two rubbing their hands together and the dollar signs lighting up in their eyes when Rand McNally put Agloe on one of their maps. However, Rand McNally had the last laugh because someone, seeing the town on the original map, had built a general store there, and a real community had sprung up around it. Agloe had become a real town. In the modern age, even Google maps adds fake places. Argleton, England was discovered on Google Maps in 2008, but was later removed from Google Maps.

7. Also, places that do exist are sometimes left off on purpose – like military bases, in case the map ends up in enemy hands. American geological survey maps don’t include nuclear waste dumps, either.

8. Maps usually show north at the top, which could lead to the assumption that early explorers saw the northern hemisphere as more important or it was reflecting the position of the North Pole on the top of the planet. However, it might actually have been a convention that started in Korea with the Kangnido map, created in 1402 by a Korean astronomer named Kwon Kun. It’s believed he put North at the top because looking North was associated with looking at the emperor. European maps in the middle ages often put east at the top as it suited them back then to “orient” the map looking east (towards the Orient) to make sure they had it the right way up. Orient comes from the Latin word for East, ”oriens” and it evolved into the modern word orientation.

9. In 1891, a group of countries created the International Map of the World Initiative with the purpose of creating a worldwide standard for maps. Wars and depressions kept scuppering it, although it was still a thing up until the 1980s, but has since dropped off the radar.

10. During WWII, maps were smuggled into prisoner of war camps to help prisoners escape. There were Monopoly sets with silk maps concealed inside the playing board along with other helpful items like real money hidden in the piles of Monopoly money, and a playing piece which was a working Compass. There were also multi-layered Playing cards which, when soaked in Water, revealed a map.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

11 March: Spanners

Today is Worship of Tools Day in India. 10 facts about the spanner, or wrench.

1. What is it? A spanner or wrench is a tool used to provide grip and mechanical advantage when applying torque to turn fasteners, such as nuts and bolts.

2. In the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand it’s called a spanner; in the USA it’s called a wrench.

3. 'Wrench' is derived from a Proto-Germanic word meaning turning or twisting. The oldest recorded use dates to 1794.

4. The word ‘Spanner’ also derives from German, in this case from a word meaning to draw, stretch, or spin. The word was first used in the 1630s, referring to the tool for winding the spring of a wheel-lock firearm.

5. In the UK the phrase “throw a spanner into the works” means to screw things up. Americans would say "to throw a monkey wrench into (something)" to convey the same idea.

6. A common April Fool or trick played on a newbie in the workshop might be to send them to find a "left handed monkey wrench". Wrenches are ambidextrous.

7. The use of such tools dates back to the 15th century. They’d be used to adjust suits of armour or to tighten or loosen wagon wheels. Adjustable wrenches for the odd-sized nuts of wagon wheels were manufactured in England and exported to North America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

8. Why call it a Monkey wrench? Because you can monkey with it? One story goes that it was because it was invented by a man named Charles Moncky, who made enough money from selling the patent to buy himself a nice house.

9. However, there’s no evidence there ever was a Charles Moncky. There was a Charles Monk who lived at about the same time in the same area, and he did make and sell tools. However, the tools he sold were for moulders, not for mechanics, so he wouldn’t have sold spanners. In any case, he was born after the term first appeared in print.

10. Another story about the origins of the monkey wrench is that it was called that as a racial slur because it was invented by an African-American boxer called Jack Johnson while he was in prison. This isn’t the case as the first patent for a monkey wrench and the use of the name both date back to before Johnson was born. Johnson can take the credit, however, for a patent for improvements to the tool in question.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

28 February: Spades

In the French Revolutionary calendar, today is Bêche (Day of the Spade). Given the nature of the French Revolutionary calendar, celebrating plants, animals and tools, we must be talking here about the garden implements rather than the Playing card suit. So here are 10 facts about spades.

1. The word comes from the Old English "spadu", which, like similar words in other languages, meant a digging implement.

2. Before the advent of metalworking, people used spades made from riven wood or the shoulder blades of animals.

3. Parts of a spade are the metal blade, which is sometimes referred to as the spit, the shaft shaft, which is usually made of wood, and a handle.

4. Is it a spade or a shovel? The words are often used interchangeably but a spade and a shovel are actually two different things, with different uses. Spades are usually straight and push force directly down, making them good for digging, while a shovel often has a curved or scooped blade, because its function is to move stuff around, like Snow or sand or loose dirt.

5. Hence, when you’re at the seaside and buy a bucket and spade, you are actually buying a bucket and shovel. In North America, these are called shovels with pails.

6. Spade blades were used as currency in ancient China.

7. Some Ice cream scoops are also called spades, because of their shape.

8. The English expression, to call a spade a spade means saying something “as it is”, speaking directly and often to the point of rudeness. The expression ultimately comes from a line in a work in ancient Greece by Plutarch. Who actually said "calling a Fig a fig, and a trough a trough". It’s thought this expression in itself was made up of double entendres and therefore quite rude. Later, Erasmus translated Plutarch’s text and it was he who altered it to be about spades. It’s thought it was a deliberate choice for dramatic effect rather than a mistake in translation. Nicholas Udall translated Erasmus in 1542 and the phrase entered the English language, and was used by many famous writers including Charles Dickens, W Somerset Maugham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Browning, Jonathan Swift, and Oscar Wilde.

9. The phrase has also been seen as borderline racist, as in the late 1920s “spade” became an insulting term for a black person.

10. Spades today usually have footrests on both sides of the blade so both left and right footed people can use the same tool. This wasn’t always the case, however. Traditionally, a spade only had a footrest on one side. This was notably the case in rural Ireland. In due course, the English introduced spades with two footrests to the north of Ireland while farmers in the south retained the old type. This is the origin of a slur which you may have heard on Downton Abbey: the Protestants in the North would say that a person “dug with the wrong foot” or was “left-footer” meaning a Catholic person who still used the old style of spade.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

9 February: Fire extinguishers

On this date in 1863 a Fire Extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane. 10 things you might not know about fire extinguishers:

1. Alanson Crane didn’t invent the Fire extinguisher, but patented a new type. Fire extinguishers already existed before that. The first ever mentioned dates back to 1723 and was invented by Ambrose Godfrey, a celebrated chemist. The means by which the fire extinguishing substance was expelled was a system of fuses and, wait for it, Gunpowder! There’s at least one newspaper report, in Bradley's Weekly Messenger in 1729, which mentions that this device was efficient in helping put out a fire in London.

2. Captain George William Manby invented another, called the 'Extincteur', which he demonstrated in 1816 to the 'Commissioners for the affairs of Barracks'. His device contained 3 gallons (13.6 litres) of pearl ash (potassium carbonate) solution and compressed air in a Copper container.

3. The chemical foam extinguisher was invented in 1904 by Aleksandr Loran in Russia, based on his previous invention of fire fighting foam.

4. Another type which actually existed was a “fire grenade”. This consisted of a glass sphere filled with carbon tetrachloride (CTC) which could be used for electrical and liquid fires. Basically, one would just lob the thing at the fire. The problem was that CTC is highly toxic to start with, and when used on a fire would turn into phosgene gas, which has been used as a chemical weapon.

5. The carbon dioxide extinguisher was invented in 1924 by Walter Kidde Company. The specific type of fire it was created to deal with was fires in telephone switchboards. These extinguishers are still in use today and can be found in offices for use on electrical fires. They are also the extinguisher of choice for the movie industry, when they need to extinguish a burning stunt person.

6. There are five different types of extinguisher that you might find in a workplace or public area. It matters which one you use, as using the wrong type can actually make things worse. The classes are: Class A: For ordinary combustibles like wood, Paper, and cloth; Class B: For flammable liquids such as gasoline, oil, or paint.; Class C: For electrical fires; Class D: For fires involving flammable metals, like Magnesium or titanium (not one most people will come across that often); and Class K: For cooking oils and fats.

7. Rather than having to waste time finding and reading instructions, there’s an acronym to help you remember what to do: PASS. Pull the pin to unlock the device; Aim the nozzle at the fire; Squeeze the handle to release the extinguishing substance; and Sweep from side to side: Cover the entire area of the fire until it’s out. Unless it’s a large, out of control fire in which case the best thing to do is leave the building and call the fire brigade.

8. Typically, fire extinguishers last between 5 to 15 years depending on the type and make. They will need replacing in due course, and in the mean time, they need to be maintained regularly to make sure they will work properly when required.

9. Handheld extinguishers weigh from 0.5 to 14 kilograms (1.1 to 30.9 lb), so are easily portable by hand.

10. Some locations, such as construction sites, airport runways, heliports, docks and marinas often have heavier extinguishers 23 kilograms (51 lb) which are mounted on wheeled carts.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

24 November: Rope

Today is the feast day of St Catherine of Alexandria, patron saint of rope makers. Ten things you might not know about rope:

1. The oldest rope ever found is 50,000 years old, likely to have been made by Neanderthals, and was discovered in France. Although the sample was tiny and required a microscope to study it, archaeologists found that it was constructed in much the same way as rope is today, by braiding fibres.

2. Between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago, people began making tools to produce rope. In the Hohle Fels cave in south-western Germany a 20 cm (8 in) strip of mammoth ivory was found with four precise holes drilled through it. This device was most likely used for rope making. The ancient Egyptians were making similar tools at around the same time, not only for moving stones to build pyramids, but there’s evidence they used rope for skipping as well. A rope making machine was also one of Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions.

3. There are many different materials which can be used to make rope. Hemp, linen, Cotton, jute, straw, and sisal are among the natural fibres which can be used. Ropes can be made from synthetic fibres too, such as Nylon and polyester, and out of metal, usually steel. Silk, wool, and Hair have been used at times, but ropes made from these substances are not generally available in modern times.

4. A rope is a rope until it is given a job to do, at which point the correct term for it is a “line”. This is especially true for ropes used in sailing and mooring boats (e.g. yacht line, dock line, float line). On land, think of a clothes line.

5. Rope is weakened when you tie a knot in it. This is because the rope then rubs against itself or the object it is tied to. This will become the rope’s weakest point, by as much as 60% depending on the type of knot used.

6. While on the subjects of knots, the Incas used knotted ropes as a form of writing between 900–1950 AD, most likely for record keeping. These were called ‘khipus’.

7. In the Middle Ages, ropes would be made in ropewalks, which would be a building or area outdoors where the entire length of rope could be laid out and braided by hand. This allowed for long ropes of up to 300 yards (270 m) long or longer to be made, and avoid having to splice ropes together. It’s a method some ropemakers today still use. Ropes made for the Navy would include a “rogue’s yarn”, a coloured strand which would identify the source and discourage rope theft. Sailors used to make decorative items from rope including baskets or bracelets as gifts for their wives on their return home. This became so common that flogging became a punishment for half-inching the ship’s rope.

8. The world’s longest rope was made in 2013 in The Netherlands, 5,440 meters in length. It was used in an attempt to break the world record for the largest skipping rope.

9. Rope can be left or right handed according to the direction of the twist. The ISO 2 standard uses the uppercase letters S and Z to indicate the two possible directions: Z-twist rope is said to be right-handed, and the S-twist to be Left-handed.

10. The average life span of a rope is 5 years. However, if a rope is being used for a mission or life critical purpose, such as a mooring line or a climbing rope, it must be inspected way more often than this. In the case of a climbing rope, before each use.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

4 November: Cash registers

On this date in 1879, a patent was issued to one James Ritty for a cash register. 10 things you might not know about cash registers:

1. The inventor, James Jacob Ritty, was a saloonkeeper in Dayton Ohio. He opened his first saloon there in 1871, billing himself as a "Dealer in Pure Whiskies, Fine Wines, and Cigars." He had problems, however, with staff who would keep the money customers paid for their booze and fags for themselves.

2. In 1878 he went on a steamboat trip to Europe. He saw a machine which counted the number of times the ship’s propeller went round, and was inspired to create a machine that would record cash transactions.

3. He went home and consulted with his brother, John, who was a mechanic. Together they came up with the device they patented on this date, and called it "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier".

4. The brothers opened a factory to make the machines, but it didn’t do well, possibly because James didn’t want to let go of the saloon business and was trying to run them both at the same time. In the end, he sold the factory and the new owners re-named it The National Cash Register Company.

5. Some of their early designs were considered to be luxury items and were designed by Tiffany and Co.

6. Early models were mechanical, with buttons and a bell to signal transactions. Charles F. Kettering added an electric motor in 1906.

7. It is sometimes called a till or automated money handling system.

8. Bill Bryson has suggested that one reason for pricing which isn’t a round dollar or pound is because the employee would have to use the cash register in order to issue change and so the sale would be recorded.

9. The self-service till, which became popular in the 1990s, was invented by David R Humble. By 2013, there were over 200,000 of them in operation around the world.

10. Cash registers now are more like computers and have digital displays and Internet connectivity.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

10 October: Sticking plasters

Born on this date in 1892 was Earle Dickson, the man who invented sticking plasters. 10 things you might not know about his invention:

1. Dickson was a Cotton buyer at the Johnson & Johnson company. He combined some of the company’s products to make a bandage that his wife could apply herself when she cut herself when she was cooking.

2. He went on to tell his boss what he’d created. His boss told company president James Wood Johnson, who saw the potential for a new product.

3. The product, Band Aid, wasn’t a great seller at first because people didn’t know how to use them. This was solved by travelling salesmen who were hired to demonstrate their use to likely customers such as pharmacists, doctors and even butchers.

4. Following the commercial success of his design, Dickson was promoted to vice president of the company.

5. The first adhesive bandages were made by hand, measuring 3 inches wide and 18 inches long.

6. This changed in 1924 when Johnson & Johnson invented a machine to make plasters which were 3 inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide, so didn’t need scissors to cut them. They also introduced a little Red string to help open the packets.

7. The word “plaster” comes from old English and means “a bandage spread with a curative substance”. This in turn comes from the Latin word “emplastrum”, meaning “plaster” or “bandage”.

8. The Band Aid brand was used on the front lines in the second world war and was even part of the medical kit the Apollo astronauts took to the Moon.

9. It’s often said that the best way to remove a sticking plaster is to rip it off. However, the advice on the internet is not to do that, but rather to hold an edge of the plaster and lift it while using your other hand to hold the surrounding skin taut. Gently remove the plaster, keeping it close to the skin and pulling in the direction of hair growth.

10. At one time all sticking plasters were beige, but in the 1950s, different colours began to appear. These were mostly American patriotic designs but paved the way for the cartoon characters found on plasters for children today. The beige colour also blended easily with white Skin. Hence people with darker skin couldn’t so easily hide the fact that they’d cut themselves. Nowadays plasters are available which can blend with different skin tones.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book