Topical Tens

Power Blaster is a superhero who lives in a dimension not unlike our own, in the mega-nation of Innovia. No-one knows who he is or where his powers come from.
After saving the life of the President several times, Power Blaster learns that a test of a nuclear warhead to defend the planet against asteroid strikes will have devastating consequences for his world and sets out to prevent it.

Power Blaster's actions lead to an unexpected result - a wormhole opens between his dimension and our own. Anyone in the vicinity is pulled through. People from diverse backgrounds and cultures must co-operate to survive and learn to live with the powers travel through the wormhole has bestowed on some of them.

A stable wormhole is established between the two dimensions. Power Blaster is determined to bring Desi Troyes, the person responsible for the bomb, to justice. Help comes from some rather unexpected sources. Meanwhile, Shanna Douglas sets out on a mission of her own, to find out if there is a cure for the life altering condition the wormhole gave her friend, Benedict Cole. Little does she know that she will stumble upon the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious origins.

Thursday, 13 June 2019

13 June: Molly Malone Day

June 13 is Molly Malone Day in Dublin. Here are 10 things you might not know about the song.

The tune is also known as ‘Cockles and Mussels’.
The full lyrics are below, but in a nutshell, Molly Malone was a beautiful fishmonger selling her wares on the streets of Dublin. She died of an unspecified fever and now her ghost haunts the city.
There is no concrete evidence that the song is about a real person. "Molly" is a derivative of the names Mary and Margaret; Malone is a not uncommon surname in Ireland, so there have probably been hundreds of Molly Malones, but there's no definite evidence that any one of them was a beautiful fishmonger who died young.
That said, there was a Mary Malone who died in Dublin on June 13th, 1699, and the date of her death was adopted as Molly Malone Day.
No-one is completely sure, either, about the origins of the song. It was first published in the US in the late 19th century and is attributed to a Scottish composer called James Yorkston with music arranged by Edmund Forman. It isn't known whether Yorkston had re-arranged an old folk song, or if he'd written the song himself in the tragicomic style popular in Victorian music hall.
There is, however, a similar song dating back to 1790 in which Molly is described as living in Howth, a fishing village in North Dublin. In this version, she sells cockles and mussels by day and her body at night!
The song is regarded as the unofficial anthem of Dublin.
In 1988 a statue of Molly Malone was unveiled in Dublin. The statue is by Irish sculptor Jeanne Rynhart and depicts her wearing a low cut 17th century dress, hinting at the possibility she was a prostitute. Locals have nicknamed the statue ‘the tart with the cart’ - and the bronze hue is wearing off around the bosom area thanks to people touching her boobs.
The song has been recorded in English by Heino, U2, Danny Kaye, Pete Seeger, Alfred Deller, The Limeliters, Frank Harte, Sinéad O'Connor, Johnny Logan, Ian McCulloch, Paul Harrington, Damien Leith and Burl Ives. Probably the best-known version is by The Dubliners.
It has been sung in movies, including A Clockwork Orange and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It has also been used as a football anthem. In London, the lyrics have been adapted to "As she wheeled her wheel-barrow, Through Wealdstone and Harrow" and in some versions "Kylie Minogue" is substituted for "Molly Malone."

In Dublin's fair city

Where the girls are so pretty

I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,

As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

"Alive, alive, oh,

Alive, alive, oh,"

Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh".

She was a fishmonger

But sure 'twas no wonder

For so were her father and mother before

And they each wheel'd their barrow

Through streets broad and narrow

Crying "Cockles and mussels alive, alive oh!"

(chorus)

She died of a fever,

And no one could save her,

And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.

But her ghost wheels her barrow,

Through streets broad and narrow,

Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

(chorus)

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Wednesday, 12 June 2019

12 June: Helsinki Day

12 June is considered to be the birthday of Finland's capital city. Here are some facts about Helsinki you might not know.

While Helsinki is the largest city in Finland, with a population of around 650,000, it is the second most thinly populated capital city in Europe (after Brussels).
Its area is 82.5 square miles (214.8 square kilometers).
The city is built on a peninsula and includes 315 islands, with numerous bridges connecting them all. Some of the notable ones are Korkeasaari, where Finland's largest zoo is to be found, the fortress island of Suomenlinna, the military island of Santahamina, and Pihlajasaari, which is popular in summer with naturists and gay men.
It's not entirely clear where the name Helsinki came from. One theory is that it was named by settlers from Hälsingland in central Sweden who named its river "Helsinge River" (today it's called the Vantaa). The settlement was named for the river. It could also derive from an old Swedish word for neck, meaning the narrowest part of a river.
The city was founded in 1550, by King Gustav I of Sweden. At that time it was called ‘Helsingfors’, which is still used as an official name. Gustav wanted to build a trading town to rival the city of Reval (today known as Tallinn). He ordered the bourgeoisie of the towns of Porvoo, Ekenäs, Rauma and Ulvila to move to Helsingfors. However, the town was plagued by poverty, wars, and diseases, and didn't grow for some time.
It's the coldest capital city in the world - the average annual temperature is 0 °C or less, with no sun at all for 51 days a year and about 120 days when it rains.
That said, if you go there in winter, you will not see any Snow on the pavements because they have underground heating, so any snow will melt.
Their tap water is among the best quality in the world. It is conveyed to people's taps by Päijännetunneli, the longest water tunnel in the world. In fact, the tap water is so good that they export it, with Saudi Arabia being one of its customers.
Helsinki doesn't have any twin cities but has partnership relations with several - Saint Petersburg and Moscow, Russia; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm, Sweden; Berlin, Germany and Beijing, China.
Since 2012 the city has been home to a swimming pool especially for Dogs, which offers swimming lessons for puppies.

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Tuesday, 11 June 2019

11 June: Hammersmith Bridge

On this date in 1887 Hammersmith Bridge opened. Here are 10 things you might not know about Hammersmith Bridge.

The bridge which stands on the site today is the second bridge to be built there. The first one was designed by William Tierney Clark and opened in 1827. It was the first suspension bridge over the River Thames.
By the 1850s, however, there were concerns that this bridge wasn't strong enough. In the 1860s, when crowds gathered on the bridge to watch the boat race (as Hammersmith Bridge was the half way point), as about 11,000 people moved from side to side to watch the race, the bridge actually swayed from side to side.
The current bridge was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette and was opened by the Prince of Wales on 11 June 1887.
When it was first built, it was painted Pink - that was the undercoat - it was a year before Bazalgette's chosen colour of Green was painted over the top.
This one isn't strong enough, either. There's more traffic now than there was in 1887 so there's still a problem. Traffic had to be severely restricted with only one Bus in either direction allowed on it at a time. In April 2019 it was closed to motor traffic completely although people can still walk or cycle across.
Hammersmith Bridge is 700 feet (210 m) long and 43 feet (13 m) wide.
It is also the lowest bridge over the river Thames, with just 12 feet (3.6m) water clearance at high tide.
There is a motif on the bridge made up of seven coats of arms. In the middle is the present Royal Arms of the United Kingdom and surrounding it are (clockwise from the left): the coat of arms of the City of London; Kent; Guildford; the original coat of arms of the City of Westminster (with the portcullis); the coat of arms of Colchester; and Middlesex (in its original form without the crown). They are not, however, painted in their original colours but in gold and green.
There is a plaque on the bridge commemotating the bravery of one Lieutenant Charles Campbell Wood from Bloemfontein in South Africa, who dived from the bridge in December 1919 to save a drowning woman. The woman survived but Campbell Wood died of tetanus contracted from his injuries two weeks later.
His was not the last act of bravery the bridge has seen. In 1939, a Chiswick hairdresser called Maurice Childs was walking home across Hammersmith Bridge when he spotted a smoking suitcase on the pavement. Childs threw the case, which contained an IRA bomb, into the river where it exploded, producing a 60-foot (18m) column of water. Childs was later awarded an MBE.

Wandsworth Bridge

Waterloo Bridge
Westminster Bridge

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Monday, 10 June 2019

June 10: Z Day

Z Day was 10 June 1945, the day Australian Imperial Forces landed in Brunei Bay to liberate Brunei as part of Operation Oboe Six. Here are 10 things you might not know about the letter Z, the 26th and final letter of the modern English alphabet.

It is pronounced differently depending on where you are. In the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Zambia, and Australia, it's "zed". In the USA, it's "zee". Zee comes from a 17th century English dialect. "Izzard" is another, obsolete, dialectal form.

It hasn't always been the last letter in the alphabet. In the 19th century, the ampersand (&) was also considered to be a letter and came after Z in some alphabets. The alphabets of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway have extra letters at the end of their alphabets, such as Ö or Å.

Iceland has dropped Z from its alphabet altogether, although some personal names still contain it.

Some creatures have Z chromosomes. While humans and mammals have X and Y chromosomes with the gender being determined by the sperm, birds, some fish and crustaceans have a different system whereby the ovum determines the gender of the offspring. To distinguish their sex-determination chromosomes from ours, they are referred to as Z and W chromosomes. Males will have two Z chromosomes. The Z chromosome is larger as is the X chromosome in humans.

Z is the least frequently used letter in written English, and few words begin with it. Americans use Z more often than Brits due to variations in the spelling of words like "organisation" which in America is spelled "organization".

The word in the Oxford English Dictionary which contains the most Zs is Zenzizenzizenzic, an obsolete mathematical term meaning the eighth power of a number.

The American Poet Ezra Pound used "Z" as a pseudonym.

British people of a certain age may remember Z-Cars, a police drama series which aired between 1962 and 1978. The title does not, as sometimes suggested, come from the cars used, Ford Zephyr and Ford Zodiac. Instead, it is based on the radio call signs allocated by Lancashire Constabulary, which assigned areas with letters from north to south.

A row of Zs in a comic or cartoon signifies that a character is asleep, because snoring sounds like the pronunciation of Zs.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet, Z is "Zulu". --.. is the Morse Code for Z.

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