January 21: The Jolly Roger

Today is the Feast of Jolly Roger. So here are some facts you might not have known about the pirate flag:

1. Jolly Roger is used today as a name for the iconic pirate flag, a Skull and crossbones on a Black background. However, in the 18th century, pirates had any number of flag designs which they would refer to as "Jolly Roger". They might be red, or green as well as black and have different designs on them, although symbols of death did tend to be a theme.
2. The name Jolly Roger could have come about in a number of ways. It was a term used to describe a happy, carefree man, and may have been applied to the grinning skull; "Old Roger" was an old nickname for the devil; or it might have evolved from the red flags used by French pirates, which they called the "Jolie Rouge" or Pretty Red.
3. The skull and crossbones on black may have been first used by Barbary pirates, although the colour was unlikely to have been selected with reference to the historic Muslim black flag - as Muslim pirates tended to fly Green flags at that time.
4. 18th century pirates may have seemed to be acting independently but it's possible they were actually part of large, interconnected groups - which is why the pirate flag eventually became standardised and known by the name Jolly Roger - by about 1730.
5. In those days it was virtually a criminal offence to even possess such a flag - it would be considered proof that a person was a pirate, and piracy carried the death penalty. Only an actual pirate, then, would dare fly it.
6. They didn't fly it all the time. When chasing down a victim, they'd usually fly no flags at all, or false ones to give the victims a false sense of security. They'd only raise the Jolly Roger when they were in firing range, often along with a warning shot, to give the victim ship a chance to surrender. If they didn't surrender, the pirates would lower the Jolly Roger and fly a red flag instead, meaning they would take the ship by force and would have no mercy.
7. In the 20th century the Jolly Roger was flown by British Navy Submarines in both world wars. This started after a comment by Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, the First Sea Lord of the British Royal Navy, who expressed the opinion that submarines were "underhanded, unfair, and damned un-English", and that enemy submariners should be executed as pirates. When in September 1914, the British submarine HMS E9 successfully torpedoed the German cruiser SMS Hela, the crew remembered this statement and made a Jolly Roger flag. They made a new one every time they had a successful mission - and eventually they filled up all their flag flying space with Jolly Rogers. At that point they made a large one and added symbols for each successful mission.
8. There are fifteen Jolly Rogers in the Royal Navy Submarine Museum. The symbols on them mean different things, for example, A bar denotes the torpedoing of a ship: red bars indicated warships, white bars represented merchant vessels, and black bars with a white "U" stood for U-boats; a dagger indicated a 'cloak and dagger' operation; A Lighthouse or torch symbolised the boat's use as a navigational marker for an invasion force. At least 20 different symbols have been recognised.
9. Nowadays, pirates are less of a feature on the high seas and the flag has taken on more light-hearted uses. It was the name of the pirate ship in J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, and has appeared on the covers of LPs. The song "Jolly Roger" appears on the Adam and the Ants album Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980).
10. Sports teams use it as well, especially those nicknamed "pirates" or "buccaneers", such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and The South African Football Association soccer team Orlando Pirates.

20th January: Reindeer Day

Missing Christmas already? Well, for some reason, today is Reindeer Day so here are some facts about reindeer to keep you going.

1. Caribou and reindeer are the same thing. The name reindeer is of Norse origin and means "horned animal", while Caribou derives from French and means "snow shoveler".
2. Reindeer are perfectly adapted to life in very cold climates. The insides of their noses have a large surface area in order to warm cold air before it reaches their lungs; their hooves change in with the seasons - soft in summer, and hard in winter so they don't slip on Snow and ice. Their feet are especially wide, so they act like snowshoes. Their tails are very short so they don't get frostbite.
3. Reindeer are the only species of deer in which females grow antlers as well as males. The males shed their antlers in winter, the females lose theirs in spring - so since Santa's reindeer are generally depicted as having antlers, this would suggest these reindeer are all female, or very young males who haven't started losing their antlers regularly yet.
4. Their favourite food is reindeer moss, a type of Lichen. They are the only mammals which have the enzyme lichenase, which allows them to digest lichen. They also eat the leaves of Willows and Birches, Mushrooms, sedges and grasses, and sometimes, when they're really hungry, small rodents such as lemmings, fish and bird eggs.
5. Reindeer are the only mammals which can see ultraviolet light.
6. Herds of reindeer migrate, following their food supply. Their winter feeding grounds can be as much as 400 miles from the summer ones, and they don't always travel by the most direct route. Some have been found to cover as much as 3,000 miles a year.
7. A reindeer can run at 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph). Even at a day old they can run faster than an Olympic athlete. They can swim, too, so wide rivers are no obstacle to them during their migrations. They can reach speeds of 10 km/h (6 mph) when swimming.
8. Powdered reindeer antlers are said to be an aphrodisiac in parts of Asia.
9. The commonly cited names of Santas's reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen (the latter two meaning "thunder and lightning"). These names come from the poem, "The Night Before Christmas". Thanks to Robert L. May, a poet who wrote a verse for a chain of US Department stores in 1939, Rudolph has been added to the list and is usually depicted as the one in front with a red nose. He's often cited as being the son of Donner or Blitzen and Mitzi. Santa’s reindeer are most likely the R.t. platyrhynchus subspecies from the Svalbard islands off of Norway. Why? Because the poem describes them as "tiny" and these reindeer are about half the size of most.
10. Various comics, TV shows and films have added even more reindeer, usually related in some way to the original nine. For example, Rudolph has a brother, Ralph, the Infrared-Nosed Reindeer, whose nose emits infrared radiation, and another brother, Rusty, who can't fly but still helps Santa by being in charge of Air Traffic control. He has a son, too, Robbie, who has special powers, and possibly a sister called Blizzard. Cupid has a son called Arrow, who is Rudolph's rival for winning the heart of a female reindeer called Zoey. Vixen has a daughter called Holly, and Prancer a son called Niko. There's also a giant reindeer called Thrasher, a trainee reindeer called Chet and an antagonist reindeer named Scratcher.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

19 January: Edgar Allan Poe

On this date in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe was born. Here are ten quotes by Edgar Allan Poe:

1. All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
2. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
3. I have great faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it.
4. Years of love have been forgot In the hatred of a minute.
5. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
6. I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
7. I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
8. That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
9. If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
10. The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

18th January: Cary Grant

Today was the birthday of actor Cary Grant, born in 1904. Here are some things you may not have known about Cary Grant.

1. His real name was Archibald Alexander Leach, and he was born in Bristol. There is a statue of him in Bristol's Millennium Square.
2. He had an unhappy childhood - his father was an alcoholic and his mother was hostile to him. This may have been because he had an older brother who died before he was born and the loss of that child triggered clinical depression. His father had his mother committed to a mental institution when Archie was nine, and told her she'd gone on a long holiday, and later lied to him that she'd died.
3. His father took him to the theatre as a child, which they both enjoyed. His father used to go backstage to flirt with the showgirls. As a result, Archie, aged six, met a troupe of dancers called The Penders. He developed a particular bond with one of the dancers, Robert Lomas, who became his mentor. Archie began performing with the troupe at six, and later, when his father married again he left his son in the care of the dancers. When he was expelled from school, he joined them full time.
4. He trained as a stilt-walker.
5. When Archie was 16, the troupe toured America. Archie was so entranced by New York and Broadway that he decided to stay.
6. He was noticed by a film producer in 1931, when he appeared in a play called Nikki, in which he played a soldier called Cary Lockwood, opposite Fay Wray (who went on to star in King Kong). Ed Sullivan of The New York Daily News, wrote that the "young lad from England" had "a big future in the movies". This review got him an uncredited role as a sailor in Singapore Sue, a ten-minute short film by Casey Robinson. For Archie, the film was one day's work.
7. The following year, he had a screen test with Paramount Pictures and was signed up for $450 a week. This was when he changed his name. Archibald Leach sounded too British, the studio said, and wanted him to have a name "that sounded more all-American like Gary Cooper". It was Fay Wray who suggested that he name himself after the character in the play which had turned out so well for him - Cary Lockwood. Cary was fine, but there was another character with a name similar to Lockwood so that wouldn't do. Archie chose the name Grant from a list of surnames given to him by the studio.
8. He almost quit Hollywood after his first film, This is the Night. He felt the character he played wasn't believable, because he didn't think anyone would accept his wife cheating on him so calmly. A friend persuaded him to stick it out.
9. He married five times - Virginia Cherrill, Barbara Hutton, Betsy Drake, Dyan Cannon (with whom he had a daughter, Jennifer) and Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent who was 47 years younger than him.
10. He never won an Oscar, although he was nominated twice, for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944). He did, however, receive a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1970.

17th January: Benjamin Franklin

Ten quotes from Benjamin Franklin who was born on this date in 1706.

1. Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
2. Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.
3. The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
4. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
5. Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
6. To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.
7. Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.
8. All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.
9. Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.
10. Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

16 January: Lead

Today is Lead Day in the French Revolutionary Calendar. Some things you may not know about this heavy metal.

1. The chemical symbol for lead is Pb, an abbreviation of its Latin name plumbum. The English words "plumbing", "plumber", "plumb", and "plumb-bob" derive from the same Latin root.
2. The atomic number of lead is 82. This is the highest atomic number of all the stable elements. Anything above lead is therefore radioactive, although bismuth (atomic number 83) has such a long half life (billions of years) that it is stable for all intents and purposes.
3. The melting point of lead is 600.61 K (327.46 °C, 621.43 °F) and the boiling point is 2022 K (1749 °C, 3180 °F).
4. Up until the 17th century, people didn't distinguish lead from Tin. Lead was called plumbum nigrum (literally, "black lead"), while tin was called plumbum candidum (literally, "bright lead").
5. The Romans used lead extensively. They used it to make Water pipes, often stamped with the emperor's insignia, to make pins to hold large blocks of limestone in buildings together, and even used lead acetate, (also known as sugar of lead) to sweeten their Wine. The latter is often put forward as an explanation for why so many Roman emperors went mad and the empire eventually declined.
6. Lead is toxic and ingesting it causes Brain and Blood disorders. We know that now, and so use is controlled, but as well as the Romans putting it in their wine, historically lead was often used in highly dangerous ways. It was used in cosmetics, in particular for geishas and women who wanted their faces to look pale and white. It was used to make cider presses in Devon and this gave rise to a disease called "Devon colic", now known to be a form of lead poisoning. It was even an ingredient in the paint used for children's toys.
7. Its uses include small arms ammunition (hence, "I'll fill you fulla lead"). Because it is dense and doesn't corrode, lead is used for the ballast keel of sailboats and for scuba divers' weight belts. More than half of the US lead production goes into the production of car batteries. It is effective at stopping gamma rays, and x-rays, so is used in shielding from radiation and hiding things from superheroes!
8. One thing it isn't used for, contrary to popular belief, is making Pencils. Lead pencils have no lead in them. The stuff inside pencils is graphite. When pencils were first produced, the particular type of graphite used was called plumbago (literally act for lead, or lead mockup).
9. In alchemy, lead was thought to be the oldest metal and was associated with the planet Saturn. Alchemists used Saturn's symbol (the scythe, ♄) to refer to lead.
10. At current use rates, the supply of lead is estimated to run out in 42 years. Or less, given population growth (18 years is one recent estimate). Or more, because the rate of recycling has gone up.

January 15th: Top Hats

On 15 January 1797 a man called James Hetherington, a haberdasher, first wore his latest creation, the top hat, in public.

1. His appearance caused such a stir that he was fined £50 for causing a breach of the peace, it being found that he "appeared on the public highway wearing a tall structure of shining lustre and calculated to disturb timid people". The sight of his hat made women faint and children scream. So says the urban myth. There is no evidence that this tale is true. The top hat in England was actually created by George Dunnage, a Middlesex hatter, with no mention of his creation causing a riot.
2. What is known is that the hat was popular in the late 18^th century. Some familiar historical figures are often pictured wearing a top hat – Abraham Lincoln and Isambard Kingdom Brunel among them. Victoria and Albert Museum curator James Laver once commented that a group of men, all wearing top hats, resembled the factory chimneys of the industrial age.
3. In France, men also embraced the top hat and the fashion developed for larger and larger hats with flared crowns and wide brims until cloakrooms at the opera became clogged up with them and in 1812 a man named Antoine Gibus invented a top hat that could collapse for easy storage when it wasn't being worn.
4. By the mid-twentieth century, these hats were falling out of fashion in general although they were still part of the uniforms of some public schools and for some high ranking officials in the City of London. The Government Broker at the London Stock Exchange was required to wear one in the streets of the City of London, right up until the reforms of 1986.
5. When the Japanese delegation arrived to sign their surrender at the end of World War II, the civilian members of the group all showed up in top hats.
6. US presidents traditionally wore them for their inaugurations up until Dwight D Eisenhower, who decided not to wear one. John F Kennedy, however, did, even though he hated wearing hats – it's said he only wore one because Eisenhower didn't. No president since then has worn a top hat for their inauguration. However, Uncle Sam, the personification of the US, is usually depicted wearing a colourful one with stars and stripes on it.
7. It tends to be associated with the upper classes and used in cartoons to symbolise wealth and status. Fictional characters who are upper class or extremely wealthy are often depicted with a top hat. Think Lord Snooty and Rich Uncle Pennybags (the Monopoly Man). Other top hat wearers from the world of literature include the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, who wears a top hat which he states was not his own, but part of his stock for sale, and the hat is usually pictured with the price tag of ten shillings and sixpence attached. In some illustrations, Sherlock Holmes ditched his iconic deerstalker in favour of a Black top hat when visiting the City of London. Willy Wonka and Mandrake the Magician both wear them. In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, the murderer Raskolnikov wears one, but removes it before killing as it would be too conspicuous at the time the novel was set. No prizes for guessing what the favoured head covering for Rev W Awdry's character Sir Topham Hatt would be, either. Sir Topham is better known as the Fat Controller in Thomas the Tank Engine.
8. Top hats are also associated with stage magic. Many magicians perform some variation of the “hat trick” and produce objects out of an apparently empty top hat. Live Rabbits were a popular object of choice and the phrase “to produce a rabbit out of a hat” is a figure of speech for a surprise pulling off of a near impossible feat. How is it done? The hat will have a hidden opening, as will the table the magician puts it on. The table has a secret compartment in which the rabbit or other object is hidden. Alternatively, the magician uses sleight of hand and produces an object hidden up his sleeve. The trick was first performed in France by a celebrated magician called Comte, “the King's Conjuror”.
9. Ceremonial wear often includes the top hat. The Groundhog Day ceremony in Pennsylvania is presided over by men in top hats. They are worn by Worshipful Masters in the Freemasons – the only rank of Freemason allowed to wear them. In some synagogues, high ranking rabbis may wear them at great festivals. It's said that one hot day in London, a cantor was getting ready for a service, and got so hot and bothered in his traditional wig that he threw it out the window in a fit of pique, but found that his tricorn hat, which was made to fit over the wig, was too big, so the only option left to him was to wear his topper.
10. Traditionally a top hat was made from silk, but nowadays they are made from wool. Silk ones are no longer made, and the looms for making the material no longer exist – so vintage top hats are sought after collector's items. Even today, the process of making a top hat is a long one, with the shell of the crown coated in a special solution and left to cure for five months on a frame and left to rest for a further week. The crown and the brim are attached, varnished and left for another week before the plush material is ironed on and the lining stitched in by hand. So if you're having one custom made, allow at least six months!