8 October: Frank Herbert Quotes

Born on this date in 1920 was Frank Herbert, Sci-fi author, who wrote the Dune novels. Here are ten quotes from him.

1. The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
2. What do you despise? By this are you truly known.
3. The surest way to keep a secret is to make people believe they already know the answer.
4. There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
5. Silence is often the best thing to say.
6. Each life creates endless ripples.
7. The ultimate test ... to see the good in evil and the evil in good.
8. The joy of living, its beauty, is all bound up in the fact that life can surprise you.
9. It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.
10. Knowing where the trap is - that's the first step in evading it.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

7 October: P Day

A few years ago I discovered a group online calling themselves The Immortal Society, who'd invented a whole lot of new holidays and daily observances. They seem to have vanished now, at least as far as Google is concerned, but their celebration for today was P Day. So 10 things you might not know about the letter P.

1. P Day in terms of military designations isn't a fixed date, but the date at which the production of a consumable product is expected to equal the rate of demand by the armed forces.
2. The letter P is related to the Greek letter Pi.
3. A letter P inside a circle is the sound recording copyright symbol.
4. In the NATO phonetic alphabet P is represented by the word "Papa" and in Morse Code it is ".--.".
5. P is often used to represent pence or pennies, the smallest denomination of currency in the UK (eg 50p).
6. There is an expression in English - "Mind your Ps and Qs" which means watch what you say and be on your best behaviour. Explanations for the origin of this abound, including it being about being careful not to mix up lower case p with a lower case q when writing or typesetting, because they are so similar and close together in the alphabet. It might have been a warning to staff in pubs to watch out for confusion when recording sales of pints and quarts, or it may simply be to remember to say "please" Ps - and "Thank you" Qs.
7. :P is an emoticon representing someone poking their tongue out.
8. P is the chemical symbol for phosphorous.
9. If you're looking for somewhere to leave your car, you need to find a sign with a P on it which means parking spaces or a car park. Also in motoring, in EU registration plates, P represents Portugal.
10. In the 1990s there was an American alternative rock band which was called P, which was also the title of the one album they recorded. One of the guitarists was the actor Johnny Depp.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

6 October: Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale

Jenny Lind, singer known as "the Swedish Nightingale," an Opera Soprano, was born on 6 October 1820. Here are some things you might not know about her.

1. She was born Johanna Maria Lind in Stockholm. Her parents didn't marry until she was 14, Her mother, Anna Maria Radberg, a divorcee, refused to marry again for religious reasons for many years.
2. As a child, Jenny often sang to herself or to her pet cat. When she was nine, her singing was overheard by a Stockholm ballet dancer who was passing by her window. The dancer made enquiries as to who was singing, and took Jenny to see the director of Sweden's Royal Opera. By the time she was ten, she was singing on stage. By the age of 20, she was court singer to the King of Sweden and Norway.
3. She once auditioned for the Paris Opera, but was rejected. When she became an international star, she always refused any invitations to sing there.
4. Hans Christian Andersen was in love with her. His love was unrequited, though, as she saw him as just a friend. It's believed that she inspired several of his fairy tales - Beneath the Pillar, The Angel and The Nightingale; and also after she'd turned him down, she's said to have been the inspiration for the character of the Snow Queen, with a heart of ice.
5. Her name was also linked with that of Felix Mendelsson. There is evidence that he wrote letters to her asking her to have an affair with him, and threatening suicide if she refused. However, the letters no longer exist - they were destroyed after Jenny died. Whatever their relationship actually was, Jenny was devastated when Mendelsson died, and found herself unable to sing in the soprano part in the opera Elijah, because he'd written it for her. It was a year later that she finally performed it. This perfomance, in London, was in part a fundraiser for a scholarship in Mendelsson's memory. The first person to receive the scholarship was Arthur Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, when he was 14.
6. It was in 1849 that she was apporached by American showman PT Barnum with a view to arranging a grand tour of the United States. The main reason she agreed was because she would be able to use these performances to raise more money for charities she supported, such as free schools back home. Her reputation preceeded her - tickets for some of her concerts were in such high demand that Barnum sold them by auction. Eventually, she disagreed with Barnum's marketing methods and continued the tour without him.
7. She married her pianist and conductor, Otto Goldschmidt in February 1852. In May of the same year, they went back to Europe and set up home, first in Dresden, Germany and later in England.
8. In her later years, she went into teaching and was appointed Professor of Singing at the Royal College of Music. She strongly believed that singers should not only learn singing, but how to read music and play the Piano, and that they should also be taught deportment and at least one foreign language.
9. She died at the age of 67 in Herefordshire. She left a substantial sum to charity - in order to help poor protestant children in Sweden get an education.
10. She has had a number of things named after her - Jenny Lind Island in Canada, a locomotive, a clipper ship, a schooner in Australia (which later gave its name to the river in which it was wrecked), a children's hospital in Norwich and a pub in Hastings. Norweigan Airlines named one of their planes after her - this plane has a picture of her on its tail.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

5 October: October

Ten facts about the tenth month of the year.

1. The prefix Octo means eighth, yet October is the tenth month. Why is that? October used to be the eighth month in the old Roman calendar. When January and February were added, the names of later months (September, October, November and December) kept their old names.
2. Birthstones for people born in October are tourmaline and opal.
3. Their birth flower is the calendula.
4. The word for October in most European lnaguages is similar to English (Octobre, Oktober, Octubre, Ottobre). Exceptions are the old Dutch Wynmaand, meaning wine month, and the Welsh Hydref, which denotes the lowing of cattle.
5. Native American tribes named months after things they observed in nature at that time of year - so October time was variously known by different tribes as Rutting season of mountain sheep, Rutting time of the wild Reindeer, Naked tree month, Flying away and Hoarfrost covers the grass.
6. Weather lore for October says that one end of October will be warm and the other freezing (Czech tradition) and if there is no frost at October's full moon, there will be no frost until the full moon of November. A bumper crop of red berries in October means there will be a lot of frost and Snow in the winter to come. Another October warning of a cold winter is if birds and Badgers are fat. A lot of rain in October means December will be windy. If October is warm (an occurrence commonly known as an Indian Summer) the following February will be cold. Whatever the weather is like in October, so it will be the following March according to another English proverb. There is a Kentish proverb, however, which states that there will always be at least nineteen fine days in October.
7. Thinking of getting married in October? Married when leaves in October thin, toil and hardships for you begin, declares one folk saying. Another claims that couples who marry in October will either have plenty of love or plenty of money, but not both.
8. October has been designated the awareness month for adopting pets, AIDS, asthma, car battery and dryer vent safety, breast cancer, consumer information, cookery and craft books, country music, depression, diversity, domestic violence, family history, lung health, Lupus, hedgehogs, clocks, infertility, pasta, Pizza, Popcorn, spinal health and stamp collecting - to name but a few.
9. October is the name of an album by the band U2, released in October 1981.
10. In many old spiritual traditions, October marks the start of the descent into winter and the darker aspects - the goddess as the Crone, death, descent into the Underworld and so on. In modern times, the celebration of Halloween and all things dark and spooky is an echo of that.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

4 October: The Orient Express

On this date in 1883 the Orient Express first ran, linking Turkey to Europe by rail. 10 things you didn't know about the Orient Express.

1. The first Orient Express was actually two trains and two ferries. Passengers travelled from Paris to Vienna, where they were ferried across the Danube in order to catch another train to Varna, Bulgaria, where they'd catch another ferry to Constantinople. By 1889, the whole journey was being made by train.
2. The direct train journey from Paris to Constantinople in those days took 67.5 hours.
3. Direct trains from Paris to Istanbul stopped running in 1977 except for occasional revival services. The original Orient Express continued running until 2009 between Paris and Vienna. Nowadays other train companies run similar services, such as the Venice-Simplon Orient Express which travels between London and Venice. A trip on that one would set you back at least £2,000.
4. Agatha Christie's famous novel, Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by a severe delay on the service. In 1929 there was a severe case of "the wrong kind of snow" in Turkey which meant the train had to stop there for several days. There was no murder on that occasion but Agatha Christie was inspired to use such a delay as her inspiration. In the book, the murder takes place in Croatia.
5. The wrong kind of snow wasn't the only problem passengers faced in earlier times. In 1891, five passengers were kidnapped and held to ransom. In 1892, there was an outbreak of cholera on board. In 1901 the brakes failed and the train crashed into a restaurant at Frankfurt station, and in the 1930s it was attacked by Hungarian terrorists.
6. Agatha Christie isn't the only author who has written about the Orient Express. It also appears in Bram Stoker's Dracula, when vampire hunters use it to catch up with Count Dracula, who is fleeing from England to Bulgaria by ship.
7. Another fictional character to travel on it was James Bond. The Orient Express was a popular way for secret agents to travel in real life, to the extent that it was nicknamed The Spies Express. Mata Hari was one real life spy who used it; another was Robert Baden-Powell, who would go on to found the scouting movement. He used the trip to make sketches of coastal fortifications in Dalmatia. To avoid suspicion, he disguised his drawings to make them look like drawings of butterflies.
8. There have been a couple of kings of Bulgaria who weren't just content to ride on the Orient Express but would use their power and influence to get a go at driving it. Boris III, who reigned from 1918 to 1943 was one, another was Ferdinand I. Other kings such as Leopold II of Belgium and Carol II of Romania preferred to seduce women during their trips.
9. Some other famous passengers have included Tolstoy, Trotsky, Marlene Dietrich and Lawrence of Arabia. In modern times the Venice-Simplon Orient Express has had JK Rowling, Peter Gabriel, Julia Roberts and John Travolta as passengers.
10. The Armistice which ended the first world war was signed in an Orient Express coach. Hitler would later use the same coach to force the French to sign their surrender in 1940.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

3 October: The Bolshoi Ballet

On this date in 1956, The Bolshoi Ballet performed in Britain, at Covent Garden, for the first time.

1. The Bolshoi Ballet was founded in 1776, making it one of the oldest ballet companies in the world.
2. Its history actually goes back even further, to 1773, when a Moscow orphanage started a dance school for its residents.
3. In due course the dancers came to the attention of Prince Pyotr Urusov and Michaesl Maddox, an English theatre entrepreneur. They had the dancers perform in private venues, and later acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, later rebuilt as the Bolshoi Theatre.
4. It was in 1825, when the new theatre took over the ballet company, that they became known by the name Bolshoi Ballet.
5. The world Bolshoi means big or grand in Russian. The new theatre was given this name because it was bigger and grander than the old one.
6. They developed their own style, which became known as the "Moscow Style" which was influenced by Russian folklore and tended to be more spontaneous, colourful and bold than that of the other, more traditional ballet companies based in St Petersburg.
7. In the 19th century, productions staged by prominent choreographers of the time were popular, but at the end of the 19th century the company went into decline. When Aleksandr Gorsky was appointed Maitre de Ballet in 1900, he introduced more realism into the costumes and scenery and shaped the company into one of the world's best known ballet companies. It was when Moscow became capital of the Soviet Union that the company became known all over the world.
8. The first American dancer to join the copmpany was Micahel Shannon in 1989.
9. The company has around 220 dancers.
10. The Bolshoi Ballet opened its first dance academy outside Russia in 2000, in Joinville, Brazil.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

2 October: Eyebrow Day

Today is Eyebrow Day. Here are a few things you might not know about your eyebrows.

1. Why do we have eyebrows? What evolutionary purpose do they serve? They keep sweat, dirt and raindrops out of our eyes. They divert raindrops so that they run down the sides of our faces instead of into our eyes. There's another theory - that eyebrows helped protect our cavemen ancestors when they were asleep, because they made it look, to predators, like they were still awake and watching them.
2. On average, each eyebrow has about a thousand hairs. Your eyebrow hairs don't all point in the same direction. The ones nearest the nose point upwards while the ones from the arch onwards point outwards.
3. Eyebrow hairs don't last as long as the hairs on your head. They fall out after about four months, while the ones on your head last three to seven years. They grow more slowly, however. The hairs on your head grow twice as fast.
4. They don't start to turn grey until years after the hairs on your head do.
5. Brow hairs grow faster in the summer. Stress can make them grow slower, or not at all.
6. The space between your eyebrows is called the glabella.
7. Eyebrows are one of the most expressive parts of the face. You can often tell how someone is feeling based on the position of their eyebrows. Raised eyebrows, for example might mean shock or surprise while furrowed brows mean the person is angry.
8. An MIT study found that if people are shown pictures of celebrities with their eyebrows photoshopped out, they only recognise about 46% of them. Even Richard Nixon was hard to recognise without eyebrows apparently. If the eyes were edited out and the eybrows left in, people recogised the celebs 56% of the time.
9. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It's not known whether Leonardo da Vinci never gave her any or whether they came off when the painting was cleaned. Perhaps that's why nobody knows who she is...
10. The shape of a person's eyebrows is sometimes said to be an indication of their personality. People with straight eyebrows, for example, are said to be logical and analytical, while curved ones indicate a sociable person. Unibrows are generally thought to be undesirable and an indication of undesirable traits, so in the west, they get plucked. There are some cultures, however, where a unibrow indicates high intelligence.

NEW!

Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle