5th September: Freddie Mercury

He was born on this date in 1946. Freddie Mercury would have been 71 today. Here are a few facts you may not know about Freddie.

1. Freddie Mercury's birth name was Farrokh Bulsara and he was born in Zanzibar. The family surname is derived from the town of Bulsar (now known as Valsad) in southern Gujarat. His parents were Bomi and Jer Bulsara and he had a younger sister, Kashmira. Freddie was 17 when the family fled to England to escape the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.
2. He started using the name Freddie while at school, and changed his name legally to Freddie Mercury when Queen got together.
3. He went to art college. This gave him the skills to design the Queen logo himself. The crest incorporates the zodiac signs of each member of the band, a crown and a phoenix. The name Queen for the band was his idea, too, because it sounded regal and majestic.
4. Although it's well known that Freddie was gay, he did have a long term girlfriend in the 1970s. Her name was Mary Austin, and he lived with her until he came out. The couple remained very close - he said she was his best and only friend, and the song Love of My Life was about her. He was godfather to her eldest son, and when he died, he left his house and recording royalties to her. She is also the only person who knows the final resting place of Freddie's ashes. In accordance with his wish that nobody knew his final resting place, she took the urn there and has said she will never reveal Freddie's final secret.
5. His other great love was his Cats. He had ten of them at one time, and wrote songs about them, too. He dedicated the album Mr Bad Guy to his cats, had their portraits painted and would even call home to talk to them when on tour.
6. His first single was a flop. While Queen were recording their debut album, a studio engineer, who'd been trying to recreate record producer Phil Spector's famed "Wall of Sound" style and thought Freddie's voice would be perfect for it. Along with Brian May and Roger Taylor, they recorded a cover of the Ronettes' I Can Hear Music, with Freddie singing lead. They decided the song was good enough to release a single , but Freddie needed a stage name so people wouldn't get this project mixed up with Queen's upcoming first release. He chose Larry Lurex, a self-confessed piss take of Gary Glitter, who dominated the charts at the time. The name was probably the reason the single bombed, because Glitter's fans refused to buy it and DJ's wouldn't play it.
7. Although known for his flamboyant stage presence, he was very shy off stage and rarely gave interviews. He dreaded live performances of Bohemian Rhapsody because he didn't think he was that great a pianist and was afraid he'd mess it up.
8. Inspiration sometimes struck him at odd moments, and his assistants would be required to carry a pen and Paper around with them to write down song ideas. Lyrics for Life Is Real came to him suddenly during a flight from New York, and Crazy Little Thing Called Love was composed in a hotel Bathtub. Freddie called for his Piano to be brought into the bathroom to aid the process.
9. He was a keen stamp collector and his stamp collections have been exhibited at stamp shows all over the world.
10. One night in the 1980s Freddie and his friend Kenny Everett wanted a night out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of the most iconic gay bars in London, known for its rough crowd and bar brawls. They'd spent the afternoon with another friend, who said she wanted to go with them. There was just one problem. This friend happened to be Diana, Princess of Wales. The solution? They dressed her up in an army jacket, sunglasses and a leather cap to hide her hair, so that she looked like a gay male model, and smuggled her in. The clientele that night were so excited by the presence of Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett that they barely noticed the unknown "model" they'd brought with them. Diana was completely ignored and was even able to buy herself a drink without anyone noticing her. However, the group didn't want to push their luck, and only stayed for twenty minutes.

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4th September: Toasts

On this date in 1639, the US's first prohibition law, outlawing the drinking of toasts, was passed in Massachusetts. Here are ten things it would have been illegal to say.

1. Here's to staying positive and testing negative.
2. May the best of our past be the worst of our future.
3. To our wives and girlfriends. May they never meet.
4. May we be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows we're dead.
5. Here’s to those who wish us well, all the rest can go to hell.
6. May the roof above us never fall in, and may we friends gathered below never fall out.
7. We don’t always get what we want, we don’t always get what we like, just as long as we don’t get what we deserve.
8. May all your troubles during the coming year be as short lived as your new year resolutions.
9. May you live as long as you want to, and want to as long as you live.
10. To your very good health. May you live to be as old as your jokes.

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3rd September: H Day

Today is H Day - so let's celebrate the letter "H".

H in sign language

1. The original H Day was 3 September 1967 on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The "H" stands for "Högertrafik", the Swedish word for "right traffic".
2. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.
3. Corresponding letters in other alphabets are Heth in the Semitic alphabet, which stood for a fence or posts, and the Greek letter Eta, which the Romans adopted to represent the sound of the modern letter H.
4. Most English speakers pronounce the name of the letter "aitch". In the Republic of Ireland, the letter h is generally pronounced as "haitch".
5. In the French language, the letter H is usually silent, which is why "an" is often used in front of words derived from French, such as "an hotel", although the convention has shifted now and the usual form is "a hotel".
6. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, H is represented by the world "Hotel".
7. .... is the letter H in Morse Code.
8. H is the international license plate code of Hungary.
9. In science, H is the chemical symbol for hydrogen and also represents the Hubble Constant. A lower case h represents the Planck constant.
10. H is used in signs to represent a heliport or a hospital.

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2nd September: National Hummingbird Day

The first Saturday in September is National hummingbird Day. Here are ten things you might not know about hummingbirds.

1. Hummingbirds are so called for obvious reasons - when they fly they flap their wings at a rate of about 50 times a second, which makes a humming sound that people can hear.
2. The family name for hummingbirds is Trochilidae. There are more than 325 hummingbird species in the world.
3. These include the bee hummingbird, which is the smallest living bird in the world. It measures 5cm (2.0 in), weighs less than 2.5 g (0.09 oz), and is endemic to Cuba.
4. They have amazing Brains. A hummingbird's brain accounts for about 4.2% of its total weight - proportionally the largest bird brains out there. A human brain accounts for 2% of the weight of a person. What do they use their brains for? Apparently, to remember every flower they ever visited, working out when is a good time to visit those flowers again, ie when they have generated more nectar. It's possible they even recognise individual humans, especially if they feed them.
5. They build the smallest nests and lay the smallest Eggs of any bird species. Their nests are about the size of a Walnut shell, and made from moss, leaves and Spider silk. Their eggs are smaller than Jelly beans.
6. The word for a collection of hummingbirds is a charm.
7. Their metabolism is superfast. An average hummingbird’s heart rate is more than 1,200 beats per minute, and it needs to eat pretty much constantly, taking in half its body weight in sugar every day. They don't only eat nectar - small insects, tree sap and fruit juice are also on their menu. When food is scarce they enter a state of torpor, in which they can slow their metabolic rate down to a fifteenth of its usual rate. They are quite long-lived for animals with a high metabolic rate - their lifespan is 3-12 years.
8. They have good eyesight and can see as many colours as we do, probably more since they can see ultraviolet light as well. They also have a third set of eyelids to protect their eyes while they are flying.
9. They can fly at speeds exceeding 54 km/h (34 mph). They can hover, and even fly upside down. They are pretty crap at walking, though. They have tiny feet which they mainly use for perching or scratching themselves. They put all their evolutionary energy into flying - their pectoral muscles, used for this activity, account for up to 30% of a hummingbird's body weight.
10. They feature quite a lot in South American mythology. To the Aztecs, they represented vigour and energy; their long, sharp beaks were symbolic of weaponry (helped by the fact that hummingbirds are actually very aggressive - not only with each other but have been known to attack much larger birds) and sexual potency. The Aztec god of war, Huitzilopochtli, is often depicted as a hummingbird, and their fallen warriors were said to be reincarnated as hummingbirds. They were important enough that one of the creatures depicted in the famous Nazca Lines is a hummingbird. Another land for which these birds are important is Trinidad and Tobago, which has a hummingbird on its coat of arms and as the symbol of its national airline.

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1st September: The Asteroid Juno

On the anniversary of its discovery, here are ten facts about the asteroid Juno.

1. The asteroid Juno was discovered on 1 September 1804 by a German astronomer called Karl Ludwig Harding.
2. It was the third Asteroid to be discovered.
3. It is the 11th biggest asteroid, accounting for 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt. It is, however, only 3% of the size of Ceres.
4. Like Pluto, Juno was initially considered to be a planet, but was downgraded to asteroid in the 1850s. It is too small and irregular in shape to be classified as a dwarf planet.
5. It is named for Juno, the queen of the Roman gods and wife of Jupiter.
6. Notation for Juno is either a number three inside a circle, or an old symbol which resembles a star on a stick or a Spider doing a handstand! (Neither appears in my computer's special symbol menu).
7. It takes roughly 4.4 years to orbit the Sun, and has one of the most eccentric orbits of any asteroid.
8. Infrared photography has shown that Juno has a crater on its surface.
9. It was the first asteroid to be observed passing in front of a dim star (occultation).
10. In Astrology, Juno rules over commitment in relationships, marriage, true love and soul mates. Also falling under her influence are diplomacy, fashion, beauty, flowers, the weather and women's rights. On the darker side, she rules marital abuse, powerlessness and inferiority, rage, bitterness, denial and betrayal.

More asteroids

Eris

Pallas 

Vesta

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31st August: Lawn mowers

The first lawn mower was invented by Edwin Budding in 1830 in Thrupp, Gloucestershire, England. Budding's mower was granted a British patent on August 31, 1830. If you have a garden, in this great British summer we're having as I write this, you've probably been using the lawn mower a lot - so here are ten facts about them:

1. Before Edwin Budding came along, a large, neat Lawn was out of reach of anyone of modest means. You would need either a flock of sheep to nibble at it (which is what US President Woodrow Wilson did. He kept a flock of sheep to trim the White House lawn, and as a sideline, sold their wool in aid of the Red Cross), or an army of gardeners using made to measure scythes.
2. Budding was inspired by watching a cutting cylinder at a cloth mill. He worked out that the same design could be used to cut grass. However, not everyone thought it was such a brilliant idea at first. So many people laughed at him that he'd test his invention at night when nobody was watching.
3. In 1893, another Englishman, James Sumner, patented the steam powered lawnmower, although these had their drawbacks. It would take a few hours for them to warm up sufficiently to get enough pressure.
4. Another solution was the Horse drawn lawnmower. The downside of this was that you'd get hoofprints all over your lawn, so the horses had to wear leather boots.
5. The average American spends, on average, 4 hours per week taking care of their lawn.
6. About 68,000 of them are injured while doing so every year. This might be because they didn't wear the right footwear, or because a lawnmower can pick up stones or other items on the lawn and propel them at high speeds.
7. Running a petrol driven lawn mower for an hour causes as much pollution as driving a car for 200 miles. On the plus side, a 50 foot square lawn produces enough Oxygen daily to allow one person to breathe for a day.
8. Lawnmowers in film: The Lawnmower Man was a 1992 film about a scientist who is working on mind-enhancing drugs and tests them out on the man who mows the lawn, who becomes a genius. The original story was written by Stephen King. The Straight Story is a David Lynch film based on a true story about a 73 year old farmer who drives his lawnmower from Iowa to Wisconsin to make up with his estranged brother - and then back again.
9. Lawnmower racing is a thing. There's even a British Lawnmower Racing Association which claims to offer the cheapest form of motorsport in the UK.
10. There is a museum dedicated to lawnmowers in Southport, Merseyside. Its exhibits include lawnmowers that used to belong to famous people, including Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Nicholas Parsons, Alan Titchmarsh, Vanessa Feltz, Brian May, Roger McGough, and executioner Albert Pierrepoint. You won't find Philip Larkin's lawnmower in there, though. That one is in the archives of the University of Hull.

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30th August: Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein and wife of Percy Shelley, was born on this date in 1797. Here's the low down on her:

1. Her name at birth was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, the feminist writer and philosopher, and William Godwin, also a writer and philosopher. She had an older half sister, Fanny. Mary's mother died from childbirth complications not long after Mary was born and so she was brought up by her father. He eventually married again – another Mary, who had two children. The young Mary detested her.
2. Her education was unconventional. She was mostly educated at home by tutors and governesses, and her father. He was a publisher of educational books for children and Mary often read these in manuscript form, as well as being taken on educational outings. She attended a boarding school for just six months. To complete her education, Mary's father sent her to Scotland to stay with William Baxter and his family. Whether this was because Baxter could provide a healthier environment or because Godwin wanted Mary exposed to Baxter's brand of politics, is a matter of speculation. We do know, from Mary's own writings, that it was here that she first started writing. She says she sat under trees and on hillsides and wrote, although she dismissed this early work as “a most common-place style.”
3. William Godwin was often in debt – his business didn't make Money. The only reason he didn't end up in debtor's prison was that he had numerous friends and associates who would bail him out. One of these was Percy Shelley, although eventually, Shelley's aristocratic family restricted his access to the money because they didn't like how he was spending it and giving it away, so he had to stop bailing Godwin out, causing a rift between the two men. Hence, when Mary, 16, and Percy, 22 and already married, started seeing each other, he did not approve.
4. Tradition has it that Mary lost her virginity to Percy in a graveyard. Later, they eloped, taking Claire, Mary's stepsister with them, and travelled around Europe, reading and keeping journals, until they ran out of money and had to return to England.
5. Somewhere along the line, Mary had fallen pregnant. Her father wanted nothing to do with her, and she moved in with Percy, but it wasn't a happy time. Not only was Percy's wife pregnant at the time, but he was also almost certainly cheating on Mary with Claire. Percy even tried to set Mary up with a lover, his friend Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who Mary disliked at first, but they did become friends in the end. The couple had no money – Percy often had to go away to escape creditors. His wife gave birth to a son, but Mary's baby was premature and died. This caused her to be seriously depressed, until she had her son, William, just over a year later.
6. In 1816, the family went on holiday to Geneva, with Claire and Lord Byron with whom Claire was now having an affair, and had got pregnant. Also with them was a doctor called John William Polidori. It was a wet summer, Mary recorded in her journals. It was here that Byron proposed that they each write a ghost story. For several days, to her shame, Mary could think of nothing to write; but a conversation about the meaning of life and death and whether a corpse could be galvanised back to life provided her with much needed inspiration. That night, she came up with the idea for Frankenstein. She finished writing it at the age of 19 and published it anonymously.
7. She and Percy Shelley were finally married after Shelley's wife was found drowned after being missing for two weeks. Mary's father and stepmother attended the wedding. There is a conspiracy theory that Mary's father may have killed her.
8. Mary had four children altogether – but only one survived. She also had a miscarriage and almost died, but for her husband's quick thinking – he sat her in a bath of ice to stop the bleeding.
9. Frankenstein wasn't her only book. She wrote several more – including Valperga, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, The Last Man, Lodore and Falkner. She also wrote a number of short stories.
10. She died, aged 53, probably from a brain tumour. 

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