7th February: Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born on this date in 1812. 10 facts about Charles Dickens:

1. He left school at 12 because his father had been sent to debtors' prison in Marshalsea, London. He was sent to work at a boot-blacking factory, pasting labels on jars. The boy who showed him how to do the job on his first day was called Bob Fagin.
2. In 1833 he submitted his first story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, to the London periodical Monthly Magazine.
3. He almost became an actor. He even had an audition lined up in Covent Garden, for which he prepared meticulously, only to miss the audition because he went down with a cold. Before another acting opportunity came along, he'd started doing well as a writer.
4. Dickens was the founder and manager of a home for "fallen women" in Shepherd's Bush, called Urania House. He set the house rules, did the accounts and even interviewed prospective residents. The aim of the house was to give the women an education and teach them how to run a household.
5. He was in a train crash in 1865. The carriage he was in was the only first class one to remain on the rails, so he wasn't hurt and set about helping tend to the wounded while they waited for the emergency services of the day to arrive. It's said he saved some lives. He didn't appear at the inquest, though, because he'd been travelling with His alleged lover, Ellen Ternan and that would have caused a scandal.
6. Dickens was one of the first celebrities to get divorced. He separated from his wife Catherine in 1858, possibly because Charles had fallen for Ellen Ternan, but since after his wife left, he burned most of his letters in a big bonfire, we'll never really know.
7. He suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, and was obsessed with combing his hair. He also had a thing about always sleeping with his head facing north. When he travelled anywhere, he would take a Compass with him and rearrange the furniture in hotels. He believed that sleeping facing north improved his writing.
8. In Tale of Two Cities, he mentions “Husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil,” which is the earliest reference to potato crisps.
9. The Oxford English Dictionary credits Dickens with introducing 247 new words or new usages into the language, including butter-fingers, cheesiness, fluffiness, abuzz, the creeps, flummox, devil-may-care, round-the-clock and rampage.
10. He had a pet raven called Grip which he had stuffed when it died in 1841.

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February 6th: Day of the Yew Tree

According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, today is the Day of the yew tree. Here are 10 things you may not know about yews.

1. Yew trees belong to the genus Taxus, which derives from the Greek taxon, meaning bow. Yew wood is traditionally used to make bows, because the wood is very springy. Otzi the mummified Iceman was carrying an unfinished longbow made from yew wood, and in Norse mythology, the home of the the god of the bow, Ullr, was Ydalir (Yew Dales).
2. Which brings us to why yews grow in churchyards. There is a myth that it is because villages were required to grow the trees for bow making, and to keep livestock away the villagers would grow them in the only enclosed space - the churchyard. In fact, wood for bows was imported from Europe because the wood from the British trees wasn't springy enough. Yews in churchyards probably have a lot more to do with their association with pagan worship. Many yew trees are so old that they pre-date the church! Churches were often built on the sites of pagan worship, where the yew tree would already be growing.
3. Yew trees are very long lived. The Fortingall Yew in Perthshire, Scotland, is said to be so old that Pontius Pilate once slept under it. It has competition now for being the oldest tree in Britain. A tree in the churchyard of a small Welsh Village called St Cynog is thought to be 5,000 years old.
4. The tree's longevity has led to it being associated with death and reincarnation in mythology. There is a romantic myth about intertwined yew trees - if two trees are intertwined they grew out of the stakes driven into the hearts of lovers whose relationship was forbidden by their community.
5. Yews are highly toxic. Cattle and Horses have been found dead after eating the leaves. It's very bad for humans, too. There is a tale of four prisoners in the 1980s who used yew to commit suicide. Three of the four died. The only part of the plant which isn't highly toxic is the flesh of the berries. That could be eaten provided the seed is completely removed first. Birds can eat yew berries, seeds and all, because their digestive systems cannot break down the seeds and they are harmlessly excreted (a fact which is very helpful to the yew tree for dispersing the seeds). Deer can eat yew without dying. They are so fond of it that wild yew trees tend to flourish only on cliffs and places where the deer cannot get to it.
6. Conversely, yew can save lives, too. Some cancer drugs are made from it. At one time people would collect the prunings of their garden yew trees to give to the pharmaceutical companies, until it was discovered that the medicinal properties actually came from a fungus growing on the tree, which could be grown artificially.
7. The Eihwaz rune is named after the yew. Its meanings in divination include death, destruction and weakness but also protection, initiation, moving towards enlightenment, spiritual growth, endurance, freedom from the fear of death, spiritual vision and communication between levels of reality.
8. Many place names are derived from the yew, including York, which is is a corruption of an Anglo-Saxon word meaning ‘the place where yew grows’, and Ewhurst in Surrey. The personal name Euan means “born of yew”.
9. Yew trees can grow under the shade of other trees, but nothing can grow under them, because of the thick carpet of shed leaves and lack of light under the canopy.
10. These trees are popular with ravens, which nest in February, because they are evergreen and therefore one of the few trees that provide them with enough shelter and protection.

5th February: Birthday of Apophis

The Ancient Egyptians believed that today was the birthday of the god Apophis, or Apep. Here are 10 facts about this deity. How many parallels with Satan can you spot?

1. Apophis/Apep was the god of chaos which made him the enemy of light and order as represented by the sun god Ra.
2. He was depicted as a giant golden serpent that was miles long and huge enough to eat the Sun, and was constantly trying to do so.
3. Of course, it was obvious that there was never a giant Snake chasing the sun across the sky during the day, so Apophis must be lying in wait below the horizon, or in the underworld. Stories varied as to whether he was lurking in Bakhu, a western mountain, or somewhere in the east where the sun rose. The possibility that he could be in both places gained him the title World Encircler.
4. If Apophis lived in the underworld, then it stood to reason that the souls of the dead were in danger from him - so people would be buried with anti-Apophis spells.
5. Apophis was seen as the god of evil and responsible for frightening natural events. Earthquakes happened because Apophis was moving about; thunderstorms were Apophis battling with Ra and a Solar Eclipse was him swallowing the sun.
6. The Egyptians carried out a rite once a year called the Banishing of Chaos, where an effigy of Apophis was made, which contained all the evil in the world. It would be beaten, spat upon and finally burned to keep evil away for the rest of the year.
7. There were whole books dedicated to fighting the evil god. The Book of Apophis contained instructions for making wax models to mutilate and the spells to recite while doing so.
8. The Egyptians believed that Apophis could never be completely destroyed, only temporarily defeated, and so he was one of the most powerful of their gods.
9. Although generally considered evil, there were two Egyptian kings who were named after him - Fourteenth Dynasty king Apepi and of the Greater Hyksos king Apophis.
10. Even in our modern world, it was believed for a time that Apophis might actually destroy the earth. Not the god, but 99942 Apophis, a near-earth Asteroid which appeared to be on a possible collision course with us and would hit Earth on April 13, 2029 or April 13, 2036. Further study determined that the probability of this happening was very small, but for a time, Apophis set the record for being the most dangerous asteroid ever, reaching 4 on the Torino impact hazard scale.

4th February: Sri Lanka Independence Day

Sri Lanka Independence Day is today. Here are some things you may not know about Sri Lanka:

1. Sri Lanka means "resplendent island" in Sanskrit. It has been known by many other names. Until 1972, it was known as Ceylon; in ancient times travellers called the island by different names depending on where they had come from: Indian travellers called it Lanka or Sinhala, ancient Greeks called it Taprobane (the historical name for an island in the Indian Ocean) and Arabs referred to it as Serendib, which was the origin of the word "serendipity" meaning pleasant surprise, which Horace Walpole coined from the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, who were known for finding things by accident. It is nicknamed ‘pearl of the Indian Ocean’ and the ‘teardrop of India’.
2. Sri Lanka may have been inhabited for as long as 500,000 years, although the first written reference to it is in the Indian epic poem Ramayana. In it, Sri Lanka was created by the divine sculptor Vishwakarma for Kubera, the Lord of Wealth. He was overthrown by his step-brother, Ravana, who had built a flying machine. Hence the modern city of Wariyapola is sometimes referred to as Ravana's airport.
3. According to Hindu mythology, Sri Lanka was once connected to the Indian mainland by a land bridge, reportedly passable on foot up to 1480 AD, but all that is left of it now is a chain of limestone shoals.
4. Sri Lanka was the first Asian country to be ruled by a woman, Queen Anula, who reigned 47–42 BC, and more recently it had the first female prime minister in the world, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, first elected in 1960.
5. It was also the first country in the world to have a dedicated hospital, established in the 4th century in Mihintale.
6. Sri Lanka is the world’s largest Tea exporter, but tea was only introduced to it in 1867. Before that, it was famous for its Coffee, but when the coffee crop was wiped out by disease in the 1870s they switched to growing tea.
7. Cinnamon originated there; the Egyptians discovered it. Sri Lanka still produces 80-90% of the world's cinnamon supply.
8. When Queen Cleopatra sent her son Caesarion into hiding, he went to Sri Lanka.
9. The highest point is Pidurutalagala, reaching 2,524 metres (8,281 ft) above sea level. The longest river is the Mahaweli River, and the largest city is Colombo.
10. If a Sri Lankan shakes their head with a slight wiggle, they are actually saying "yes"

3rd February: Gertrude Stein quotes

Gertrude Stein was born on this date in 1874.

1. The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.
2. Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.
3. A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
4. Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.
5. I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich.
6. It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.
7. I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.
8. Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.
9. We are always the same age inside.
10. Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

2nd February: Candlemas

Candlemas Day is the day on which the Virgin Mary was purified in the temple after the birth of Jesus. Traditionally, churches bless candles today. It is a cross-quarter day and in some years the festival of Imbolc falls on this date. Not surprisingly, it has become a day rich in tradition, so here are some of the world's Candlemas customs:

1. Predicting the weather is a common one. Typically a creature of some kind emerges from its hole, and if the Sun is shining it goes right back in again, because sun on this date is only a temporary blip before winter returns in earnest, whereas bad weather is a good sign. Which animal it is depends on where in the world you happen to be. In Germany, it's a Badger; in France, it's a Bear, and in the USA, it's the Groundhog - hence "Groundhog Day".
2. If Christmas decorations aren't removed from the church by now, there will be a death in the family of the pew where the decoration is still up.
3. In France, crepes are eaten after 8pm. If the person cooking them can flip one while holding a coin in their other hand, the family will be prosperous in the coming year...
4. ...Which could have a knock-on effect for next Candlemas if you live in Scotland, where it was traditional for children to give their teachers money. The boy and girl who gave the most would be declared the King and Queen of Candlemas and they would be carried through the streets.
5. Still in Scotland, landlords would visit their tenants today and ask if they wanted to stay another year.
6. Large Football matches were another Scottish tradition where half the town would take on the other half in the streets. The most famous annual game is played in Jedburgh, and it's said that this game was originally played with the severed heads of any Englishmen who'd had the audacity to try and cross the border.
7. Sailors didn't like to start a journey on this day, believing that if they did, the trip would end in disaster.
8. Another superstition is that it's unlucky to borrow Money on Candlemas day, as it means you will never be able to afford to pay it back.
9. Candlelight processions are another common theme, said to promote fertility in the fields before crops are planted. There may be bonfires as well.
10. Some traditions of witches hold their initiation ceremonies on this date.

1st February: Frankly I Don't Give A Damn Day (Clark Gable's birthday)

Frankly I don't give a damn was Clark Gable's final line in Gone With the Wind. Here are 10 things you might not know:

1. Clark Gable's full name was William Clark Gable, but he was always called Clark, even as a child.
2. He was mistakenly listed as female on his birth certificate.
3. Before becoming a full time actor, Gable worked as a horse manager, logger and tie salesman.
4. He married five times. His first wife was his acting coach, Josephine Dillon, who was 17 years older than him. She paid for his dental work and hair styling and spent much time training him in body posture and speech. When he first moved to Hollywood, she was his manager as well.
5. His first film roles were as extras in silent films. The woman who would become his third wife, Carole Lombard, appeared in one of these films as an extra, too, but they weren't in any of the same scenes.
6. His first role in a sound picture was as the villain in a low-budget William Boyd western called The Painted Desert in 1931. He got a lot of fan mail after that, but the studio executives weren't always so keen. "His ears are too big and he looks like an ape", was Darryl F. Zanuck's assessment of him after a screen test that same year.
7. Gable wasn't particularly keen to take on his most famous role as Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. Carole Lombard thought he should go for it and bought him the book, but her refused to even read it. The studio weren't keen either, as they wanted Gary Cooper for the part. "Gone With the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it'll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me," Cooper said, turning down the role.
8. Gable almost didn't go to the première of Gone With the Wind. He had become great friends with African-American actress Hattie McDaniel on set; she was not allowed to go to the première because she was black and so Gable decided to boycott the event. He did go in the end, because Hattie McDaniel insisted that he should.
9. When his third wife was killed in a plane crash, she had been on her way home from a tour publicising the sale of war bonds. She was declared to be the first US female casualty of the war and Gable received a personal message of condolence from President Roosevelt.
10. He served in the second world war, as a gunner on a bomber, although the first task he was given after training was making a recruitment film. After that, he flew on five combat missions, but after he narrowly escaped being killed, MGM studios insisted that he be assigned to less dangerous duties. While on the subject of World War 2, it's said that Adolf Hitler was a big Clark Gable fan and would have paid a handsome reward to anyone who could capture Gable and bring him to Hitler, alive and unscathed.

My novel, Death and Faxes is available: why not treat yourself?

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