7 August: Jerry Pournelle Quotes

Jerry Pournelle, the US sci-fi author, was born on August 7 1933. Here are some words of wisdom from him.

1. In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.
2. To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
3. The hard part of writing at all is sitting your ass down in a chair and writing it.
4. The importance of information is directly proportional to its improbability.
5. Bureaucracies are progressive, meaning they have a burning fear that someone. somewhere, is doing something without permission.
6. The definition of a Dark Age is that we no longer remember what we once could do.
7. Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
8. What man has done, man can aspire to do.
9. That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error.
10. Freedom is not free. It is bought at a high price. It can be squandered cheaply.

NEW!!

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

6 August: Alfred Lord Tennyson

The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson was born in 1808. Here are some things you might not know about him.

1. He was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the son of a clergyman. He had several siblings, including a sister, Emilia, who married his friend, the poet Arthur Hallam, and a brother Edward, who was in a mental institution.
2. Tennyson's first published work was in co-operation with two other brothers, Charles and Frederick. It was called Poems by Two Brothers and was published in 1827 when Alfred was 17. It wasn't a success.
3. While at Cambridge, he was a member of a secret society called the Cambridge Apostles.
4. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for Timbuktu.
5. He published his first solo poetry collection in 1833, which included his famous poem, The Lady of Shallot. However, the book received so much criticism that he didn't publish another for ten years.
6. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1850, succeeding William Wordsworth. He held that post until he died in 1892, and remains the longest serving Poet Laureate. Although Queen Victoria dismissed him as "peculiar looking" and "oddly dressed" the first time they met, she loved his poem, In Memoriam A.H.H. which was written about his friend Arthur Hallam, who'd died suddenly. The Queen said she found it a comfort when Prince Albert died. Being Poet Laureate gave Tennyson enough financial security that he could finally marry his childhood sweetheart Emily Sellwood.
7. He was first offered a baronetcy in 1865 and 1868 by Disraeli, but turned it down. Gladstone persuaded him to accept the honour in 1883 and he was made Baron Tennyson, of Aldworth in the County of Sussex and of Freshwater in the Isle of Wight. He was the first person to be raised to a British peerage for his writing. Even so, he wasn't all that comfortable as a peer. It is widely believed he only took the title to secure a future for his son.
8. Virginia Woolf, Thomas Edison and Walt Whitman were fans of his work. Whitman called him "the boss" and Edison made sound recordings of Tennyson reading a few of his poems, including The Charge of the Light Brigade.
9. He died at the age of 83 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His last words were, "Oh that press will have me now!"
10. He is one of the most quoted poets, having given us the quotations "'Tis better to have loved and lost/than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die" and “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” He also gave us the expression “airy fairy”. In Tennyson's time this meant ethereal, enchanting and magical, while now it is a derogatory term for something light and insubstantial. The Charge of the Light Brigade inspired Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927), and more recently Iron Maiden’s The Trooper. It's even been quoted in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

See Also:

Alfred Lord Tennyson Quotes

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5 August: Guy de Maupassant

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a French writer, remembered as a master of the short story form. He was born on 5 August 1850. Here are some quotes from him:

1. It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.
2. Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
3. A legal kiss is never as good as a stolen one.
4. Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck.
5. It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.
6. Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.
7. You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.
8. Travel, like dreams, is a door that opens from the real world into a world that is yet to be discovered.
9. There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.
10. A human being - what is a human being? Everything and nothing. Through the power of thought it can mirror everything it experiences. Through memory and knowledge it becomes a microcosm, carrying the world within itself. A mirror of things, a mirror of facts. Each human being becomes a little universe within the universe!

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4 August: Bluebells

Carpets of bluebells are a common sight in the woods in spring, but are a distant memory by August. However, the Bluebell is today's flower in ancient almanacs because it is dedicated to St Dominic, whose feast day is today.

1. About half of the world's bluebells grow in the United Kingdom. They are relatively rare anywhere else. They are associated with ancient woodlands – they grow well there because other, competing plants find it hard to grow because of the thick foliage of the trees.
2. They belong to the Hyacinth family and were given the Latin name Hyacinthoides non-scripta by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Non-scripta means "unlettered" or "unmarked", to distinguish bluebells from hyacinths. Common names for the bluebell include English bluebell, wild hyacinth, wood bell, bell bottle, Cuckoo’s Boots, Wood Hyacinth, Lady’s Nightcap and Witches’ Thimbles.
3. The British Bluebell is a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, making it illegal to uproot them and to trade the wild bulbs or seeds. Doing so will result in a heavy fine. The reasons for this include the fact that if a bluebell is trampled on it takes years to recover – in fact it may not recover at all because damage to the leaves can mean it can no longer photosynthesise. Bluebell colonies take a long time to establish - around 5-7 years from seed to flower. They are also under threat from a competing species, the Spanish Bluebell, which the Victorians introduced as a garden plant. It now grows in the wild and crossbreeds with the British native bluebell. Spanish bluebells are pale in colour and have no scent.
4. The sap of bluebells is sticky and has been used in the past to bind pages into the spines of books, and also to stick flight feathers to arrows.
5. The bulbs were used in Elizabethan times to make starch to stiffen the large ruffs they wore around their necks.
6. The folklore associated with bluebells includes the myth that if a person hears a bluebell ring, they will soon die. Bluebells would be rung to call fairies to a convention. Another myth is that carpets of bluebells are woven with fairy spells, which could lure and trap people, especially children, while walking through the woods. Also, if you wear a wreath of them you'll be compelled to tell the truth.
7. In the language of flowers, bluebells represent humility, gratitude, constancy and everlasting love.
8. People love bluebells. In a 2015 poll, English people voted bluebells the favourite flower of England. Emily Brontë, author of Wuthering Heights, wrote a poem about them (see below). If you want to know where you can go to find them come the spring, visit https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/, enter your town in the search box and it will give you a list of bluebell woods near you.
9. Bluebells are poisonous, because they have about 15 biologically active compounds to defend themselves from animals and insect pests. However, some of these compounds are similar to those used to fight HIV and cancer. Scientists are looking into how they could be used in medicine.
10. A stylised bluebell is used as the logo for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland.

The Bluebell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air:

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit’s care.

There is a spell in purple heath

Too wildly, sadly dear;

The violet has a fragrant breath,

But fragrance will not cheer,

The trees are bare, the sun is cold,

And seldom, seldom seen;

The heavens have lost their zone of gold,

And earth her robe of green.

Emily Brontë

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August 3: August

10 quotes about the month of August.

1. August is a wicked month. Edna O’Brien
2. Soft footed ants and meditative toads; Summer is passing, taking what she brings; Green scents and sounds and quick ephemeral wings. Babette Deutsch, In August
3. Broad August burns in milky skies,The world is blanched with hazy heat; The vast green pasture, even, lies Too hot and bright for eyes and feet. William Canton
4. Fairest of the months! Ripe summer's queen; The hey-day of the year With robes that gleam with sunny sheen Sweet August doth appear. R. Combe Miller
5. In the parching August wind, Cornfields bow the head, Sheltered in round valley depths, On low hills outspread. Christina Rossetti
6. Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar. William Faulkner
7. In August, the large masses of berries, which, when in flower, had attracted many wild bees, gradually assumed their bright velvety crimson hue, and by their weight again bent down and broke their tender limbs. Henry David Thoreau
8. Whilst August yet wears her golden crown, Ripening fields lush- bright with promise; Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing; Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn. Michelle L. Thieme, August's Crown
9. August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied. Joseph Wood Krutch
10. The brilliant poppy flaunts her head Amidst the ripening grain, And adds her voice to sell the song That August's here again. Helen Winslow

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2nd August: William II

On this date in 1100 the second Norman king of England, William II, aged 44, was killed by an archer in the New Forest. 10 facts about him:

1. William II was the third son of William the Conqueror. His exact date of birth isn't known, but was probably between the years 1056 and 1060.
2. He was known as William Rufus. Rufus is Latin for Red. He was described as having a ruddy complexion by William of Malmesbury in the 12^th century, with Yellow hair. It's possible his hair was red when he was a child, another possible source of the nickname. William of Malmesbury goes on to say that William II had “different coloured eyes, varying with certain glittering specks; of astonishing strength, though not very tall, and his belly rather projecting.”
3. He had three brothers and possibly as many as six sisters. The eldest son, Richard, was killed while hunting in the New Forest. The second son, Robert, inherited Normandy, so William ended up inheriting the English throne. He also had a younger brother, Henry. Contemporary accounts suggest the brothers didn't always get along and played pranks on each other. On one occasion William and Henry were said to have emptied a chamber pot on their elder brother Robert's head from an upper gallery, which resulted in a brawl which had to be broken up by their father.
4. In 1088, his uncle Odo of Bayeux attempted to oust William in favour of his elder brother Robert, but Robert didn't show up to make a claim on the throne, so he got nowhere. William, in turn, waged war against his brother in Normandy, and defeated him. Robert went off to join the crusades and mortgaged Normandy to William. William paid for it with taxpayer's money, which made him unpopular with his subjects.
5. He also made enemies of the church – he'd leave bishoprics vacant so he could keep the money and had bitter arguments with Anselm, who was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time. When Anselm went to Rome to seek the Pope's advice, William seized all his land.
6. He had skirmishes with the king of Scotland, Malcolm III, who he eventually defeated and killed at the Battle of Alnwick.
7. The fact William never married, despite the fact there would have been pressure on him to do so and produce an heir, and there would have been no shortage of marriage proposals, and the fact he never took a mistress, either, has led to speculation that he may have been gay. The other explanation would be that he'd taken a vow of celibacy, but he was known for his disdain of the church and arguments with religious leaders, making that explanation less likely. What's more, William of Malmesbury described William II's court as being full of effeminate young men.
8. William died as a result of being shot through the lung by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest, probably close to the town of Brockenhurst on what is now part of the Beaulieu estate. Accounts say he was shot by one of his own men, but the circumstances are unclear. One contemporary account said it was an accident and the fatal arrow had bounced off a tree. William's men abandoned the body for a peasant to find. Historians think it entirely possible he was assassinated, possibly by his own brother, Henry, who was part of the hunting party, and since William had never married or had children, was next in line for the throne. Since Henry rode straight to Winchester to seize the treasury, as an usurping king would do, rather than stick around to mourn his brother, suspicion naturally fell on him.
9. The spot where William II fell is marked with a stone called the Rufus Stone.
10. He is buried in Winchester Cathedral. His Skull is missing.

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1 August: International Childfree Day

Today is International Childfree Day. Parents and grandparents have their own days, so why not? Just so you know. Not all childfree people hate kids. They're not all selfish (quite the opposite, in fact. They're willing to forgo passing on their family name/DNA/fitting in with everybody else and what parents will tell them is the best experience ever, because they don't want to pass on an inherited disease or because there are too many people on the planet). They're not all unfulfilled. They're not all miserable. Here are 10 quotes about not having children:

1. Learning to dislike children at an early age saves a lot of expense and aggravation later in life. Robert Byrne
2. The Ninth Insight says that as the human race evolves spiritually, we will voluntarily decrease the population to a point sustainable by the earth. James Redfield.
3. A woman is incomplete until she has children. Then she’s finished. Anon
4. There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. Cyril Connolly
5. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She hadn’t any children; she knew what to do. Anon
6. Do your children a favour. Don't have any. Anon
7. My family is perfect. My kids do this cute thing where they don't exist. Anon
8. To accept procreation as a moral duty is to accept the role of an animal on a breeding farm. Ayn Rand
9. I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots. WB Yeats
10. To bear children into this world is like carrying wood to a burning house. Peter Wessel Zapffe

More details about my books. Follow this link if you like Superheroes, Psychics and/or quirky short stories. 

I've listed the themes each novel touches on here for easy reference.

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