15 November: Sir William Herschel

Sir William Herschel, the German astronomer and composer was born on this date in 1738. He's most famous for discovering Uranus and its two moons, and studying nebulae. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in Hanover, Germany, one of ten children. He was called Friedrich Wilhelm, only using the names Frederick William after he moved to England.
2. His father, Isaac, played the oboe in the Hanover Military Band, and two of his sons, William and Jakob, followed in his footsteps. It was during a war with France that William and his brother were sent to England by his father to protect them.
3. His main occupation in England was that of musician. He played the Violin, harpsichord and organ as well as the oboe. He played with an orchestra in Sunderland, led a military band in Durham and composed a number of symphonies. Later he became the organist at a church in Halifax, and then at the Octagon Chapel in Bath.
4. As his interest in astronomy grew, he began building his own Telescopes. He was known to spend up to 16 hours a day grinding and polishing the lenses.
5. He found Uranus while searching for double stars. He stumbled upon an object that looked like a disc. At first, he thought it was a comet and continued observing it, eventually reporting his observations to the then Astronomer Royal.
6. He discovered over 2,400 nebulae and catalogued them. His system for classifying nebulae is still in use today.
7. When their father died, William invited his sister Caroline to join him in Bath. She became his assistant, spending many hours polishing the mirrors in his telescopes and copying out his observations notes. She became interested in astronomy herself and made significant discoveries of her own.
8. He believed in aliens. He believed there was life on the Moon and that it was probably similar to pastoral England. He believed there was probably life on the other planets, too, and even in the interior of the Sun.
9. While famous for his telescopes, Herschel made a significant discovery using a microscope, too - he established that Coral was not, as many scientists then believed, a plant, because it didn't have plant-like cell walls.
10. There is a long list of things named after William Herschel including craters on both the Moon and Mars, an Asteroid, a space observatory, a street in Paris and a pub in Slough, where he lived towards the end of his life. The symbol for the planet Uranus features an H, his initial, and the shape of Slough bus station is based on one of his experiments.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

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November 14: Claude Monet

Claude Monet, French impressionist, sometimes called the Father of French Impressionism, famous for his pictures of waterlilies and serene gardens, was born on this date in 1840. Here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His mother encouraged his artistic talent, evident from a young age, but his father was less keen. He wanted young Claude to work in the family business, a grocery store. In order to be able to study art after his mother died, he left home to live with an aunt.
2. At 15, he was drawing caricatures of people in Le Havre, where he grew up and selling them for 10-20 francs each. He signed them O. Monet, because his first name was actually Oscar. Claude was his middle name.
3. He had a brief military career when drafted into the African Light Cavalry in Algeria. His father offered to pay to get him out of military service, but on the condition that he gave up painting. Monet refused - seven years national service was preferable to never painting again. However, a bout of typhoid after a year brought his army career to an end when his aunt paid for his discharge. Her condition was that he went to art school.
4. After this he went to art school, but hated it, as he was expected to produce formulaic art, and copy other people's pictures. His paintings were rarely accepted for the Academie's exhibitions. In the end, he was so depressed by this that he tried to commit suicide by throwing himself in the Seine. He survived, however, and found some other disgruntled art students to hang out with.
5. As it happened, this group included Renoir, Degas and Cezanne. They decided to organise their own exhibition in 1874. Not everyone liked their work. One critic descibed one of Monet's paintings as an unfinished sketch, or impression - and the term "Impressionists" was born.
6. Once his career took off and he was earning money, he invested a lot of it in creating a beautiful garden where he could paint. His famous paintings of waterlilies and a Japanese footbridge were views of his garden. He imported lilies from Egypt and South America. Not that he did the gardening himself - he hired six gardeners to look after the garden, including the task of paddling a boat into the pond every morning to clean the lily pads before he started painting them. The local council told him to get rid of the foreign plants in case they poisoned the water, but Monet refused to comply.
7. In later life, he suffered from cataracts to the extent that he was declared legally blind. Even though he put off having surgery, which was risky in those days, and complained that he could no longer see colours properly, it didn't stop him from painting. He'd memorised where each colour was on his palette and carried on. Critics maintained his impressionist style was more to do with him being unable to see than his talent. He eventually did have surgery and got tinted glasses to help him see colours. After the surgery, it's said that he could see ultraviolet light.
8. After the surgery, he destroyed a number of paintings he'd done while his vision was impaired. Even before that, it was by no means unknown for him to slash paintings he wasn't satisfied with. A 1908 exhibition of his work in Paris had to be postponed because he destroyed 15 of the paintings.
9. He married twice. His first wife was Camille. Monet painted her over 30 times, including on her deathbed when she tragically died at the age of 32. His second wife, Alice, was so jealous of Camille that she made Monet destroy all photos of and letters from her, so only one photo of her survives.
10. Monet died of lung cancer in 1926, at the age of 86. At his funeral, his friend Georges Clemenceau replaced the Black shroud on his coffin with a colourful, floral print, declaring, "No black for Monet!"

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

13 November: Fantasia

On this date in 1940, the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia had its world première in New York. 10 things you didn't know about Fantasia.

1. It was the first film to use stereophonic sound and the only film ever to use Fantasound, a system invented specifically for Fantasia.
2. Fantasia is two hours and six minutes long, making it the longest animated film Disney ever made.
3. It was originally going to be even longer, with a ninth segment, Clair de Lune.
4. It was the first time ever that Walt Disney wasn't picky about the colours the animators used. He gave them no intructions and instructed them to use whatever colours they liked.
5. Disney had plans for a sequel, in facts, he wanted to produce a new Fantasia film every year, but ticket sales in the initial run were small. This and the onset of the second world war meant the sequel wasn't made until the segments he envisaged, including Ride of the Valkyries and Flight of the Bumblebee, were included in Fantasia 2000.
6. The sorceror in The Sorceror's Apprentice sequence was based on Walt Disney himself. The sorceror's name is Yen Sid, which is Disney backwards.
7. Because there's no dialogue, you might be forgiven for thinking a lot of the characters don't have names, but they do. The ostrich in The Dance of the Hours is Mlle Upanova, the alligator is Ben Ali Gator and the Hippo is Hyacinth Hippo. There's also Little Hop Low, a dancing mushroom, Peter Pegasus, a baby flying horse and Jacchus, the tipsy Donkey.
8. Mickey Mouse nearly wasn't the apprentice. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was about to make it big, so Disney's collaborator on the project, Leopold Stokowsky, suggested Dopey from that film instead, or even a brand new character. Disney, however, stuck to his guns and kept Mickey in the role.
9. Disney wanted the film to feature "smell-o-vision" as well as 3D. Floral perfumes and gunpowder were considered as possible olifactory effects. It didn't happen, though, because it wasn't possible to clear the auditorium of one smell in time for the next one to be introduced.
10. The team were still putting the finishing touches to the film four hours before the New York premiere.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

12 November: Mice

Today is Fancy Rat and Mouse Day, a celebration of these popular pets. Rats we've covered already, so here are some facts about mice.

1. There are lots of different species of mouse, including the house mouse, field mouse, dormouse, wood mouse and zebra mouse.
2. Mice are usually around 1-7 inches (2.5 - 18cm) in length (not counting their tails, which can be as long as their bodies), depending on the species. The smallest mouse, just an inch long, is the African pygmy mouse.
3. Mice are usually portrayed as being fond of Cheese. In actual fact, their favourite food is grains, fruit and seeds. They are omnivores, however, which means they will eat anything, including cheese, and if food is scarce, even other mice. They eat as often as 15 times a day.
4. If you have mice and they've chewed up Paper and wires, they're not actually eating those things - they're using them to build nests. A female mouse starts having babies at about 4-7 weeks old and can have a new litter every three weeks. There are a number of names for baby mice depending on how old they are. Pinkies are newborn mice without any fur. Once they've grown a little fur they're called fuzzies. Hoppers are baby mice who are mobile but smaller than adults.
5. Mice have poor eyesight, but use their whiskers to detect changes in ground temperature and terrain.
6. A mouse can jump up to 18 inches into the air. They're also very good at climbing and can swim.
7. Mice are similar to humans in many ways, which is why they're often used in experiments. Also, they're small, cheap, easy to keep and they breed quickly.
8. Musophobia is the word for an irrational fear of mice.
9. A wild mouse only lives about six months, as so many bigger animals see them as a tasty snack. Pet mice can live for up to two years.
10. In 1972, five mice orbited the Moon 75 times. They were on board Apollo 17 and remained in the command module with astronaut Ronald Evans while Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon. The mice were called Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum and Phooey.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

11 November: Poppies

Poppies are the symbol of remembrance, of all those killed in wars, in particular the First World War which ended on this date in 1918. Here are ten things you might not know about poppies.

1. The variety of poppy associated with Remembrance Day is the common field poppy or Papaver Rhoeas. It's not the only variety - there are more than 70 others, and they're not all red. Some are white, lilac, Yellow, violet or blue. Different strains you might find growing in a garden include Shirley, Iceland, California, Himalayan and Welsh.
2. There is a lot of symbolism attatched to poppies. As well as remembering the fallen in wars, they also symbolise sleep, death, rest and recovery, imagination, resurrection and eternal life, beauty, success, peace, extravagance, luxury and messages in Dreams. In Greek mythology poppies were associated with Demeter, goddess of agriculture.
3. The common field poppy is often one of the first wild flowers to grow in abandoned areas or fallow fields, since their seeds can remain active in the soil for up to eight years. After corn fields were churned up by the battles of the first world war, when the war ended, the poppies grew on those fields in abundance, which is one reason it came to symbolise those who fell in the war. John McRae's poem, In Flanders Fields did a lot to associate poppies with remembrance.
4. However, it wasn't the first time the poppy has been associated with such things. In the Iliad, poppies are mentioned in connection with the untimely death of a young prince.
5. During the 1920s, Poppy became a popular girl's name, especially for girls born in November. By WWII, however, its popularity had waned. It has seen a revival in recent years and was the 13th most popular name for girls in England and Wales in 2012.
6. Opium poppies have been used as medicine since ancient times. Poppy seeds were found in Egyptian tombs. Eating poppy seeds was prescribed by doctors in ancient times for pain relief, and it is from these plants that the modern drugs morphine, codeine and heroin derive. Eating poppy seeds, even completely innocently when they're in buns or cakes, can result in a positive drugs test. Poppy seeds are even banned in some places, like Singapore.
7. The arms of the Royal College of Anaesthetists features opium poppies. The idea that they can put a person to sleep is reinforced in the film Wizard of Oz when the characters are in danger of falling asleep forever in a poppy field.
8. Remembrance poppies are designed so they can be made with one hand, so that veterans who'd lost a hand or arm could make them.
9. Poppies appear on currency in Canada and North Macedonia. It also features on North Macedonia's coat of arms. In Albania, the poppy is an unofficial national flower, because it is similar in colour to the Albanian flag. The California poppy is the state flower of California.
10. White poppies have come to symbolise pacifism and Black ones the campaign to end world poverty.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

10 November: Wheat Day

Today is Wheat Day - so here are 10 facts about wheat.

1. Wheat is a member of the grass family which was originally native to the Tigris and Euphrates river valley - present day Iraq.
2. The scientific name for the most common variety of wheat grown by farmers is Triticum aestivum.
3. Wheat is grown in 42 of the 50 American states. 63 million acres of land there is dedicated to wheat production. The top wheat producing state is Kansas.
4. The country which produces the most wheat, however, is China, although the most productive wheat farms in terms of production per hectare are in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand and the UK. Worldwide, 544,6 million acres of land is used for growing wheat.
5. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined.
6. Wheat is a cereal crop. The word cereal comes from the Roman goddess Ceres, who was the protector of the grain.
7. It takes wheat between 110 and 130 days from when it is sown to grow and ripen ready for harvest. This means two crops can be planted and harvested over the course of a year.
8. Most varieties of wheat grow to between 60 and 120cm (2-4 feet) tall, although there are varieties which can grow to 210cm (7 feet). The roots can reach as much as 2m deep.
9. A combine harvester can harvest enough wheat to make 70 loaves of Bread in just nine seconds.
10. Wheat is a good source of protein, fibre, B vitamins and manganese.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

9 November: Day of the Skulls

In La Paz, Bolivia, they celebrate Dia de los ñatitas (Day of the Skulls) today. Here are 10 things you might not know about the human skull.

1. A human skull has 22 bones in it. Eight of them form the cranium and fourteen make up the face.
2. The teeth, nose and ear cartilege aren't counted as bones.
3. Only one of those bones moves - your jaw bone.
4. The joints between the cranial bones are called sutures. They are complex joints which are actually fractals.
5. An expert can tell, just by looking at a skull, whether it belonged to a man or a woman, and what race they were.
6. There are in the world a number of crystal skulls which have been claimed to be ancient artefacts with mystical powers. How could ancient peoples have made such things? Numerous books have been written about them, claiming they have the power to forsee the future, cure cancer or even kill people, and that there are thirteen of them, made in the lost city of Atlantis. Deliciously spooky as these claims are, it's now thought the crystal skulls were made in Germany in the 19th century and that the claims they are ancient were fraudulent.
7. Skulls are pretty tough - they have to be, since their function is to protect the brain. It would take about 785lbs of pressure to crush a human skull.
8. There are holes in the skull, aside from the obvious ones, the eye sockets and nose cavity, there are a number of openings called foramina which are there for Blood vessels and nerves. The largest of these is the foramen magnum, which is the one at the base where the spinal chord passes through.
9. Trepanation is a crude surgical procedure in which a hole is drilled in the skull. Archaeologists around the world have unearthed many human skulls with trepanation holes, showing it was a common procedure in ancient times, although nobody knows why. Some of the skulls also show signs of head injury or disease, so it may have been, in some cases, a means to try and relieve pain or treat a condition. Others show no signs of any disease. Perhaps those people suffered from painful conditions whch didn't leave any evidence in their bones. There is, however, a theory that trepanning was done to people as a ritual, perhaps to let spirits in or out of their bodies.
10. In 2013, a woman suffering from a condition in which her skull bones thickened so much they were compressing her brain, had her entire cranium replaced by a 3D printed polymer implant.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle