September 23: Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney, US film actor was born on this date in 1920. Here are some things you might not know about him.

1. He had the longest film career of any actor ever. From his first starring role in 1926 in Mickey's Circus to reprising his role as Gus in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb in 2014, his career spanned 88 years and comprised 340 films. He is the only actor in history to appear in at least one film for 10 consecutive decades.
2. He was one of the last surviving stars of the silent film era.
3. His real name was Joseph Yule, Jr. and he was born in Brooklyn, New York, to vaudevillians Nellie W. Carter and Joe Yule. They separated when he was four, and his mother moved Hollywood.
4. He had more wives than Henry VIII. He married eight times. His wives were: Ava Gardner (ended in divorce after a year because he was unfaithful), Betty Jane Phillips (met and married during WWII, had two sons but divorced after the war), Martha Vickers (lasted two years), Elaine Mahnken (1952-1958), Barbara Ann Thomason (murdered by her lover in 1966), Marge Lane (Barbara's best friend, his shortest marriage, lasting just 100 days), Carolyn Hockett (1969 - 1975) and Jan Chamberlin, his longest marriage at 34 years, longer than all his other marriages put together. He was still married to her when he died, although they had separated.
5. He was very close friends with one of his co-stars, Judy Garland. Their first film together was Thoroughbreds Don't Cry in 1937. He said of her, “Judy and I were so close we could've come from the same womb.” He became the only film star to go on a promotional tour for a film he wasn't in when he went on the tour for Wizard of Oz with her.
6. During the Second World War he was inducted into the United States Army, where he entertained the troops in America and Europe in Special Services. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for entertaining troops in combat zones.
7. He was just 5 feet 2 inches (1.57 m) tall. That may well be why he chose to call his 1991 memoir Life is Too Short.
8. His life didn't always go smoothly. He experienced bankruptcy, addictions, suffered from bipolar disorder and attempted suicide a couple of times. It was also claimed that as an old man, he was abused by his family.
9. He once claimed that Mickey Mouse was named after him after he met Walt Disney as a child. However, it wasn't true.
10. Rooney said he had twelve hobbies, which were: reading the Bible, watching classic movies, football, dancing, swimming, praying, golfing, travelling, horse racing, spending time with the family, listening to music and singing.

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22 September: Fay Weldon

Today is the birthday of the author Fay Weldon, who was born in 1931. Here are 10 quotes:

1. Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.
2. If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.
3. I know that I'm a real writer because sometimes I write a story just because I want to; not because someone's told me to.
4. There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.
5. I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.
6. Be bold, but not too bold. Have courage, but not too much.
7. A 'weakness,' I now realize, is nothing but a strength not properly developed.
8. Prudence says one thing, desire says another, and I'd rather go with desire any time.
9. Because one cause is bad does not make the opposing cause good.
10. By and large, nothing is as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope.

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September 21: St Matthew

September 21 is the feast day of the apostle St Matthew. Here are 10 facts about him:

1. The name Matthew means "gift of Yahweh." It wasn't, however, his original name. Before meeting Jesus, he was known as Levi, son of Alphaeus. Jesus gave him the name Matthew.
2. Matthew was a tax collector by profession. He was at work, at his desk when Jesus came along and asked him to follow Him. Matthew didn't take much convincing. Of course, Jesus would have made a compelling case for him to do so, and perhaps he hated his job anyway!
3. As a tax collector, Matthew wouldn't have been very popular. We don't like them much now, but back then, they were even more despised because they were seen as collaborating with the occupying Roman forces. When Matthew invited Jesus back to his home for a feast, the Scribes and Pharisees were very critical of Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," Jesus replied.
4. St Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bankers, tax collectors and civil servants. Also of perfumers and Salerno, Italy.
5. In art, Matthew usually appears with a winged man.
6. He is credited with writing the first gospel, although in truth, it's not clear who actually wrote it, as the author does not identify himself. A second century bishop called Papias of Hierapolis decided that this gospel must have been written by Matthew. As a tax collector Matthew would certainly have been literate in Aramaic and Greek, and there are apocryphal writings which say Matthew was in the habit of writing things down, and collecting the sayings of Jesus, so it's possible he did write it, but nobody really knows. It is accepted that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek by a Jewish male, who was writing for fellow Jews (as he didn't explain the Jewish customs as other writers did).
7. We don't know much about what Matthew did later on, either. After his calling, he's not mentioned much in the Bible. He is included in lists of the apostles and is mentioned as working closely with St Thomas in spreading the gospel. Other writers say Matthew preached the Gospel to the Jewish community in Judea, before going to other countries, although there's no agreement as to which countries he went to. There is a Muslim tradition which says he went to Ethiopia (not the African country, but a region called 'Ethiopia' south of the Caspian Sea) with St Andrew.
8. It's not known how Matthew died, either. There are traditions suggesting he died a martyr by the sword, after unsuccessful attempts to burn or drown him. However, there are other traditions which say he lived to a grand old age and died of natural causes.
9. His tomb is located in the crypt of Salerno Cathedral in southern Italy.
10. His feast is celebrated on 21 September in the West, but in the East, it's on 16 November. He is also celebrated by the Orthodox Church, along with the other apostles, on 30 June.

See Also 

St Andrew

St Jude

St Luke

St Mark

St Matthias 

St Peter

St Thomas 

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20 September: Sophia Loren

Born on this date in 1934 was film star Sophia Loren. Here are ten Sophia Loren quotes:

1. Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.
2. I'd much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0.
3. There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
4. Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.
5. The most indispensable ingredient of all good home cooking: love for those you are cooking for.
6. If you haven't cried, your eyes can't be beautiful.
7. Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.
8. The first woman was created from the rib of a man. She was not made from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal to him.
9. Where youthful beauty is unconscious, mature beauty is knowing and sophisticated.
10. The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear.

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19 September: Traffic Wardens

On this date in 1960, Traffic Wardens first patrolled the streets of London. Here are 10 things you might not know about traffic wardens.

1. There were 40 traffic wardens that first day. Their uniforms had gilt buttons, Yellow shoulder flashes and yellow cap bands. Their average age was 50. Between them they issued 344 tickets. A parking fine in those days was £2.
2. The first person to receive a parking ticket was Dr Thomas Creighton. He was also the first person to successfully appeal against one, because he was answering an emergency call at the time.
3. They're not police, although in some areas they work on behalf of the police. Many are employed by councils or private companies. They will, however, co-operate with the police and report suspicious vehicles and anti-social behaviour.
4. They're known in popular culture for being over-zealous. While most do their job sensibly, there have been reports of insensitive and even ridiculous ticketing. Hearses and ambulances are examples of insensitive ticketing. A warden in Yorkshire once slapped a ticket on a Horse belonging to a retired blacksmith. Under "vehicle description", the attendant had written "brown horse". In Manchester, a Rabbit hutch got a ticket. The pet shop owner had unloaded the hutch and put it outside his shop, then driven off so his van wouldn't get a ticket. “It's ridiculous,” the pet shop owner said. “It hasn't even got wheels."
5. Motorists can be equally unreasonable, of course. Verbal and physical attacks and even death threats towards traffic wardens are common enough that wardens are sent on "conflict resolution classes" which include police guidance on calming angry motorists. Attacks against wardens reached a peak in 2007 when there were 21 attacks a month.
6. With the best will in the world, a traffic warden can make a mistake. In 2008, 12,423 motorists appealed against parking fines. About 62% were successful. So what do you do if you get a ticket and you think the warden got it wrong? Don't punch them in the face, obviously. The advice is to tell the warden (calmly!) why you believe they are wrong, and ask him or her to write your comments down. Check the parking ticket and make sure it has the correct date on it, the correct registration and description of your car, and states the location of the offence. Also check whether there are clear signs stating the parking restrictions and that any yellow lines are clearly visible. Take photographs if need be. If it was at night, were the streetlights on? There's no point arguing with the traffic warden – it's the council's job to deal with your objection so write to them as soon as possible. Don't pay the fine and appeal later, because paying up is an admission of guilt, and you won't get it back.
7. Some people think traffic wardens have targets to meet, which is why they can be over-zealous. Traffic wardens working for local councils don't have targets. The British Parking Association code of practice says “the practice of offering financial incentives relating to the quantity of parking charge notices in new and existing employee contracts is prohibited”. That said, wardens working for private companies to oversee their car parks, may not be members of the Association so they could have targets.
8. In 2009 in England and Wales, 18,000 parking attendants, issued 4,035,555 parking tickets raising £267,761,347 in fines.
9. Some people think you can avoid a ticket by driving away before the warden can slap the ticket on your vehicle, but if they've written the notice, they have your registration number and will track you down via the DVLA and send you the fine in the post. Another myth is that they have to observe your car for a period of time before they can issue a fine. If you've parked somewhere illegal or dangerous, that's an immediate fine, although if you're parked in a pay and display car park or on a meter, they are supposed to give you 10 minutes grace after the expiry time. People who are registered disabled may be able to park in more places, but they are not exempt from fines for illegal/dangerous parking and parking fees if the car park says they have to pay.
10. The Beatles song, Lovely Rita, is about a female traffic warden.

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18 September: Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson, famous for his dictionary, was born in 1709 on this date. Here are some things you might not know about him.

1. He's most famous for writing a dictionary which was published in 1755, and which some people believe was the first English dictionary. It wasn't, however. There had been others before, such as Nathan Bailey’s Dictionarium Britanicum, which had been published in 1730, which Johnson used as a reference work.
2. He was born in Lichfield, Staffordshire to Sarah, who was 40 years old. At the time, this was considered unusually old. There were concerns about his health from the start because he didn't cry for some time. As a child, he contracted scrofula which left him with scars, deaf in one ear and blind in one eye.
3. As a young man he suffered from depression and developed tics, leading modern doctors to believe he might have had Tourtettes' Syndrome.
4. He studied at Pembroke College in Oxford, but had to leave after about a year because he couldn't afford to pay the fees. He tried to get a job as a teacher, but was turned down because of his facial tics – the school authorities were afraid he'd scare the children. Johnson started his own school, but only had three pupils. One of them was David Garrick, who would later become a famous actor.
5. He didn't just write a dictionary. He was a journalist, a biographer, a poet, a novelist and a playwright. His first published work was a poem called London in 1738. He used a little bit of marketing trickery – he deliberately misspelled the publisher's name so people would think it had been pirated, and would assume that therefore, it must be popular. His famous quote about London (“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”) came from a discussion with a friend rather than from the poem.
6. He married the widow of his friend, Harry Porter, whose name was Elizabeth, or “Tetty”. This didn't go down well with her family as she was 46 at the time with three children and Johnson was only 25. She died in 1752. Johnson was so grief-stricken that it affected his work. He continued to write laments for her death in his diary until he died himself.
7. After his wife died, he took on a servant, a freed slave called Francis Barber, who stayed with him for over 30 years and became his heir.
8. It took Johnson nine years to complete the dictionary. In it, his political views and sense of humour shone through. His definition of lexicographer was “a writer of Dictionaries; a harmless drudge,” and Excise is defined as “A hateful tax levied upon commodities.” He didn't, however, know of any words beginning with the letter X. Under X, he wrote, “X is a letter which, though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language."
9. What was he like? He was tall 180 cm (5 feet 11 inches) tall when the average height of an Englishman was 165 cm (5 feet 5 inches), and robust. He was a religious man, a conservative Anglican, and politically, a staunch Tory. He would take in friends who were down on their luck, even when he was in dire financial straits himself, and he also loved Cats. He had two, named Hodge and Lily. He also enjoyed his food and drink. He is said to have drunk up to 25 cups of Tea in one sitting, and may have been an alcoholic. He also collected Orange peel, but refused to ever tell his biographer why he did so.
10. He died in 1784 at the age of 75. His last words were “I who am about to die.” He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

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17 September: Mimas (Moon of Saturn)

On this date in 1789 William Herschel discovered Mimas, a satellite of Saturn. It was the seventh moon of Saturn to be discovered.

1. Mimas is named after a son of Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology. He was a giant, killed by Hephaestus with red hot metal missiles.
2. It's the smallest of Saturn's major moons, but it is responsible for the clearing enough material to make the gap between Saturn's largest rings, which measures 2980 miles or 4,800km.
3. Its diameter is 396km (246 miles) making it the smallest known astronomical body which is round in shape.
4. The surface area of Mimas is slightly less than the land area of Spain.
5. Mimas is on average 125,000 miles from Saturn and takes about 23 hours to orbit the planet.
6. Because it has a low density, it is believed to be made mostly of ice.
7. Its most distinctive feature is a giant crater which measures 130km (81 miles) across and has walls 5km (3 miles high). It has a central peak which could be up to 8km (5 miles) high. Whatever created it almost broke up Mimas – on the opposite side of the moon there are fractures which could have been caused by the shock waves. The crater is named Herschel, after William Herschel.
8. This crater makes Mimas look a bit like the Death Star in Star Wars. However, Mimas wasn't the inspiration for the Death Star, because the crater wasn't discovered until three years after the film was made.
9. The Cassini orbiter passed Mimas at 9,500km (5,900 miles) and sent back images which include a temperature map. Because of the way temperatures are represented on such maps, the warmer areas look like a giant Pac-Man about to devour the Herschel crater.
10. There is something odd about the interior of Mimas but we don't know what it is yet. It has a slightly wobbly orbit which means the interior isn't uniform. Scientists don't know if the core is made up of different materials or is oval in shape. They have ruled out the possibility of the wobble being caused by an ocean inside Mimas because if there was one, it would be frozen.

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