March 13th: International Day of the Seal

International Day of the Seal was created in 1982 to raise awareness of the animals. So here are 10 things you may not know about seals.

1. The closest living relatives to the seal family are bears and musteloids (weasels, otters and badgers).
2. Seals belong to the category of animals known as pinnipeds. There are 3 different families in the pinnipeds group: phocidae (true seals), otaridae (fur seals and sea lions) and odobenidae, which contains just one species - the walrus.
3. The smallest species of seal is the Baikal seal, about 1m (3 ft 3 in) long and weighing45 kg (99 lb) and the largest is the southern elephant seal which measures 5m (16 ft) and weighs 3,200 kg (7,100 lb).
4. A seal's whiskers are highly sensitive, allowing them to detect vibrations in the water, so they can forage and hunt underwater in the dark.
5. Before diving, a seal will exhale and empty its lungs of half the air. On deeper dives, they can deflate their lungs completely.
6. Seals have been known to dive as deep as 4,100 metres (13,450 feet) and can remain submerged for up to an hour.
7. As they spend a lot of time at sea, seals are able to sleep in the water. They can sleep for several minutes in the water, although half their brains are still alert and on the look out for predators. Both sides of the brain go to sleep when the seal sleeps on land.
8. Seals can make a wide range of noises including barks, grunts, rasps, rattles, growls, creaks, warbles, trills, chirps, chugs, clicks and whistles. Some of the sounds they make are ultra- or infrasonic, meaning humans cannot hear them.
9. Ancient Greek coins had seal heads on them. The Greeks believed seals were protected by both Apollo and Poseidon, because they lived in the sea and in the land.
10. In Celtic mythology, there are creatures which live in the sea as seals and also on land as humans. These are the selkies. Male selkies are very handsome in their human form, and very desirable to human women. They will seduce women who are dissatisfied with their lives and husbands - in order to attract one, a woman should shed seven tears into the sea. If a human male wants to marry a female selkie, he must steal her skin and hide it. Although she will long for the sea, she can only return when she finds her skin. They will be excellent wives and mothers, but as soon as she finds her seal skin, she will return to the sea without so much as a backward glance at her husband. In some legends, she will return to visit her children; in others, she will drag her husband to the sea with her so that he drowns. Other legends hold that selkies are formed from the souls of people drowned at sea.

March 12: Alfred Hitchcock Day

Alfred Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 and died on 29 April 1980, so it isn't clear why Alfred Hitchcock Day is celebrated on 12 March. Anyway, it is, so here are 10 things you may not know about the iconic film director:

1. He made a career out of scaring people - and had a few phobias of his own. He claimed to be frightened of watching his own films and would never go to see them. He claimed to have a phobia of Eggs, especially the yolks, and said he had never eaten one. Also, he had a fear of the police. This is thought to be because, when he was a child, his father sent him to the police station with a note. The policeman on duty read it, then locked the young Alfred in a cell for several minutes, saying, "this is what happens when you do bad things." This phobia not only influenced the plots of a number of his films, but was also the reason Hitchcock never learned to drive.
2. Before working in film, Hitchcock had a number of short stories published in the in-house magazine of Henley's, where he was working as a draughtsman. His first story was called Gas, and was about a young woman who believes she is being assaulted in Paris - but the whole thing turns out to be a hallucination under dental anaesthetic. In another story, Fedora, the description of the heroine exactly fitted his future wife, Alma, even though he had not met her yet.
3. His first job in the film industry was as a title designer.
4. As a director, he was not an immediate success. His first project in 1922, Number 13, was cancelled after only a few scenes had been filmed because of financial problems; the next two, The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle, were flops. However, after directing his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, his luck began to change.
5. The first British feature film with sound was a Hitchcock film, Blackmail.
6. Alfred Hitchcock is known for appearing in a cameo role in most of his films. In later films, his cameo would appear early in the film, because audiences got distracted from the main plot because they were looking out for Alfred Hitchcock.
7. The use of famous landmarks as backdrops to the action was another Hitchcock trademark. The British Museum and the Royal Albert Hall have both been used. However, Hitchcock was not always granted access to his chosen locations. He was not permitted to have Cary Grant climb up Abraham Lincoln's nose on the Mount Rushmore sculpture; and Disneyland was also off limits, because Walt Disney thought that Psycho was a disgusting film and would not allow Hitchcock to film in his theme park.
8. Hitchcock is known for popularising a plot device known as a "MacGuffin", an item or idea which is a motivation for the protagonist, and drives the plot initially, but becomes less important as the plot develops, and may be entirely forgotten by the end. A MacGuffin may be a spy's papers, a stolen necklace or other item people are searching for (According to George Lucas, in Star Wars, R2D2 is the MacGuffin).
9. He is the "voice" of the Jaws ride at Universal Studios.
10. The iconic silhouette of Hitchcock which appears at the beginning of the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents was drawn by Alfred Hitchcock himself.

11th March: Don't Panic! It's Douglas Adams' birthday

Author Douglas Adams, who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy among other things, was born on this date in 1952. Here are 10 Douglas Adams Quotations:

Mucking about in the water,
having a good time

1. A cup of tea would restore my normality.
2. First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realised it's a brochure.
3. I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
4. The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.
5. “What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water!”
6. On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.
7. A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."
8. A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
9. I'd far rather be happy than right any day.
10. I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

10th March: Telephone Day

To celebrate telephone day, here are 10 telephone jokes:

1. Telephoning 0800 1800 didn’t get me through to National Rail Enquiries - turns out I was trying to ring the opening hours.
2. A bloke keeps ringing me and singing Stand and Deliver down the line. I keep telling him he’s got the wrong number but he’s adamant.
3. What do you get if you dial 666? The Australian police.
4. What do you get if you dial 18076493280? A blister on your finger.
5. Sometimes I wonder how long I would be on hold if my call wasn’t important to them.
6. One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone.
7. A man makes a phone call. he dials, waits a moment and put the receiver down. "She must be out with the dog," he said. "I didn't hear him bark."
8. Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls. If thou art in the bath, it tolls for thee.
9. For people who like peace and quiet: a phoneless chord.
10. Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you. Fran Leibowitz

9th March: Barbie's Birthday

Barbie, the popular doll, was launched on this date in 1959, and is her official birthday, so here are 10 facts about Barbie.

1. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Her parents are called George and Margaret Roberts. Ken's full name is Ken Carson. She has younger siblings called Skipper, Stacie, Todd and Chelsea.
2. Barbie and her family live in the fictional town of Willow, Wisconsin.
3. She has a lot of friends, too, including: Midge, who married Ken's best friend Allan; Christy, an African-American friend; Jamie, Steffie, Whitney, Teresa, Summer (Blaine's sister) and Becky, a disabled character with a wheelchair.
4. Barbie was created by US businesswoman Ruth Handler, who took her inspiration from a German doll called Bild Lilli.
5. Barbie hasn't always been faithful to Ken. Manufacturers Mattel released a press release in 2004 announcing the pair had split up, and Barbie was dating an Australian surfer called Blaine. However, Ken was given a makeover in 2006 and it was announced that Barbie and Ken were getting back together.
6. Barbie has had over 40 pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra.
7. She has had a huge number of different careers, including art teacher, dentist, vet, paratrooper, firefighter, astronaut, hairdresser, model, singer and tour guide. She has been both doctor and nurse, business executive and secretary, airline pilot and stewardess.
8. Barbie Dolls are collectable. Mattel estimates that there are over 100,000 collectors. The average collector is a woman aged 40, who buys around 20 dolls a year, which might include special collectors editions, depicting Barbie as different races, made of porcelain or dressed up as characters from TV shows. The most expensive Barbie ever was sold at Christie's in London for £9,000 in 2006. Bettina Dorfmann from Germany has the world's biggest collection - over 15,000 dolls.
9. A Barbie Doll is 11 and a half inches tall and said to be at 1/6 scale. A life sized Barbie would be 5 feet 9 inches tall and have an 18 inch waist. Researchers at University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland concluded that a real life Barbie would be too thin to have normal menstrual periods. In response to controversy that young girls might try and emulate Barbie, Mattel redesigned her in 1997, giving her a thicker waist.
10. In September 2003, Saudi Arabia outlawed the sale of Barbie dolls, saying that she did not conform to the ideals of Islam. 

March 8th: International Women's Day

To celebrate International Women's Day, 10 quotations celebrating women:

1. Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior. Socrates
2. Women don't have hot flushes - they have power surges.
3. I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. Rebecca West
4. There is a woman at the beginning of all great things. Alphonse de Lamartine
5. A woman is like a teabag. Only in hot water do you realise how strong she is. Nancy Reagan
6. Whatever women so, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. Charlotte Whitton
7. I married beneath me. All women do. Lady Nancy Astor
8. Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month I can be myself. Roseanne Barr
9. Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. Timothy Leary
10. Some people think large breasts make a woman stupid. Just the opposite. A woman having large breasts makes men stupid. Rita Rudner

7th March: Opening of the Victoria Line

On this date in 1969 the Victoria line was officially opened as part of London's Underground railway.

1. Although the timetable had been in operation since September 1968, the official opening ceremony took place on 7 March 1969. It was opened by the Queen, who, as part of the ceremony, bought a 5d ticket (about 2p) and rode the train from Victoria to Green Park.
2. The line is 21km long (13,25 miles) and has 16 stations. It takes 32 minutes to travel from one end of the line to the other.
3. There are 43 trains in total. 37 of them will be running during the rush hour.
4. The stations on the line are hump-backed, which saves energy by helping the trains slow down as they approach the station, and to accelerate as they leave.
5. The line runs entirely below ground except for the line from the terminal at Seven Sisters to the train depot at Northumberland Park.
6. It could have been known as the Walvic Line (Walthamstow - Victoria) or the Viking Line (Victoria - King's Cross), but Victoria Line, after Victoria Station, was the name that was chosen.
7. Although there is a driver on every train, the trains run automatically and all the driver needs to do is close the doors and press "start!" Impulses are transmitted through the track for other functions. This makes the Victoria Line the first automated train system in the world.
8. Part of the line was suspended for several days in January 2014 when liquid concrete from improvement work at Victoria Station leaked into a control room.
9. The southernmost station, Brixton, is the ninth busiest station on the tube network.
10. Many of the stations have tiled artwork on the walls which is relevant to the individual station and the area around it. Brixton's is a pile of bricks, and is called "Ton of Bricks" as a pun on the station's name.