8 July: Adele name day

Today is the name day, in Latvia, for people called Adele. Adele is a feminine given name meaning 'nobility'. here are 10 famous Adeles:

1. Adela of Champagne: Queen of France as the third wife of Louis VII. She was regent of France from 1190 to 1191 while her son Philip II participated in the Third Crusade.
2. Adele Adkins: professionally known just as Adele, English singer-songwriter whose hits include Someone Like You and Hello.
3. Adele Astaire: American dancer, stage actress, and singer, Fred Astaire's sister.
4. Adele Dunlap (1902–2017): American teacher who was the oldest living person in the USA at the time of her death.
5. Adèle Hugo: Youngest child of the French writer Victor Hugo. She developed schizophrenia as a young woman, which led to a romantic obsession with a British military officer who rejected her. Her story has been told in books and films, such as François Truffaut's 1975 film The Story of Adèle H.
6. Adele Rose: English television writer. She was the longest-serving scriptwriter on the soap opera Coronation Street, writing 457 scripts in 37 years. She was the first woman to write for the show. She also originated the series Byker Grove for teenagers.
7. Adele Emily Sandé: known as Emeli Sandé, Scottish singer-songwriter
8. Adele Verans: French ward of Mr. Rochester in the novel Jane Eyre.
9. Adele Stackhouse: Sookie's grandmother in True Blood.
10. Adele Ferguson: a character in the book Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

7 July: Marc Chagall

The artist Marc Chagall was born on this date in 1887. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in the current day country of Belarus, the eldest of nine children. His father worked in a herring warehouse and his mother ran a grocery shop. On the day he was born his village was attacked by the Cossacks. In the first moments after his birth, he was unresponsive and had to be pricked with needles and dunked in cold water to make him cry. He was given the name Movcha, or Moses.
2. His family were Hasidic Jews, who believed it was forbidden to make representations of God's creation, so as Chagall grew up, there was no art or creativity in his home. It wasn't until a school friend showed him a drawing that he saw any art, and was immediately entranced by it. He asked his friend how he'd learned to draw. His friend replied, "Go and find a book in the library, idiot, choose any picture you like, and just copy it". Chagall did exactly that, and the rest, as they say, is history.
3. Needless to say, his decision to become a painter wasn't met with great enthusiasm by his family. As well as the religious rules, as the eldest child he was expected to help out in the shop. His mother relented eventually and let him go to a local art school. One of his uncles, however, was so furious about him painting figures that he refused to shake his hand.
4. In the Russian Empire at the time, Jewish children were not allowed to attend regular schools, so Chagall's early education was at a Jewish school, but later his mother bribed the headmaster of the local high school so he could attend there.
5. At 19, he left his home town of Vitebsk for St. Petersburg where he attended the Imperial Society for the Protection of Fine Arts. He didn't have an easy time of it there. He had no money and would sometimes collapse from hunger. He didn't like studying classical art, and at one point spent a week in prison for the crime of being a Jew in the city without a special permit. Chagall enjoyed his time in prison because there, he could paint in peace. And presumably got regular meals as well.
6. By the age of 24, Chagall had found a patron willing to pay him an allowance which enabled him to move to Paris. Even so the allowance wasn't much so he had to live on half a herring a day. New clothes were out of the question, so he would paint naked so as not to ruin his clothes by getting paint on them. Despite all this, Chagall loved Paris.
7. In 1915 he married Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of the wealthiest family in his hometown. She was his muse, often appearing in his paintings. When she died in 1944, Chagall plunged into a deep depression and didn't paint for months, until his daughter persuaded him to go back to it.
8. Needless to say, Paris became an unsafe place for a Jewish artist come the 1930s. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the director of the Museum of Modern Art, made sure Chagall's name was on a list of European artists who needed asylum from Nazi persecution which meant he could relocate to New York with his family in 1941. He lived there for six years but never really settled. He was homesick for Paris and never bothered to learn English. “It took me thirty years to learn bad French, why should I try to learn English?” he said. His art became much darker during this time. Bella's death no doubt contributed to this. He eventually returned to Paris where he painted the ceiling of the Opéra Garnier in Paris at the age of 77. The painting features fourteen significant Opera composers and their work.
9. He wasn't just a painter. He also designed tapestries, ceramics, theatre sets, costumes and stained glass windows. His stained glass windows can be seen today in New York, France and Jerusalem.
10. He was also very shy. As a child he had a stutter and was prone to fainting, which he later explained as a fear of growing up. Even when he was a famous artist he shunned the spotlight. When people asked if he was the artist Marc Chagall, he would often deny it, and would point at someone else and say “Maybe that’s him.”

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

6 July: Frida Kahlo Quotes

The artist Frida Kahlo was born on this date in 1907. 10 quotes from her:

1. Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?
2. I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.
3. I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.
4. At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.
5. My painting carries with it the message of pain.
6. I think that little by little I’ll be able to solve my problems and survive.
7. Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.
8. You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.
9. To paint is the most terrific thing that there is, but to do it well is very difficult.
10. You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.

See also: Facts about Frida Kahlo

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

5 July: Sheep

On this date in 1996 Dolly, female domestic sheep the first mammal to be cloned, was born. 10 things you might not know about sheep:

1. They have a reputation for being stupid, but they're actually almost as intelligent as Pigs. Studies have found that they can navigate mazes and can recognise the faces of other sheep after two years. However, their ability to recognise each other falls down come shearing time. They don't recognise each other when they've been sheared and will fight for several days to re-establish the pecking order.
2. Sheep have rectangular pupils which grant them a 270 to 320 degree field of vision without turning their heads. By comparison, humans average about 155 degrees.
3. Sheep have an excellent sense of smell with additional scent glands in front of their eyes and on their feet.
4. Sheep are fussy about the vegetation they'll eat and like to pick out the best of it while grazing. To help them do this they have a groove in their upper lip called a philtrum which allows them to separate out the best food.
5. The ancient Egyptians believed sheep were sacred and had them mummified when they died.
6. Studies have found that sheep experience a wide range of emotions. They convey which emotion they are feeling using the position of their ears. There are even such things as optimistic and pessimistic sheep! They can not only tell what another sheep is feeling, but can recognise emotion in human faces and show preference for a smiling person over a frowning one.
7. The fleeces of domestic sheep will keep growing forever if not sheared. Letting them go too long without a haircut is actually bad for them. That doesn't mean they like being sheared, of course. In 2004, there was a Merino ram in New Zealand called Shrek, who ran away and hid in a cave for six years to avoid being sheared. When he was finally caught and sheared there was enough wool on him to make 20 men's suits. A sheep, depending on the breed, can produce between two and 30 pounds of wool a year. One pound of wool can make up to 10 miles of yarn.
8. There are gay sheep. While most species of animal will engage in homosexual behaviour in certain circumstances, such as when there are no individuals of the other gender around, about 8% of rams pair up with their own gender even when there are fertile ewes around, and it appears to be a lifelong preference.
9. If you come across a sheep lying on its back it is probably stuck and unable to right itself. This can happen, especially if the sheep is pregnant or has a heavy fleece. The farming term for this is a cast sheep. The sheep will probably be stressed and panicking and needs help, so if you see one in this predicament and aren't able to help it yourself, alert its owner.
10. Sheep prefer to drink running Water, rather than water from a trough, and prefer to run uphill when being threatened.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

4 July: Scarecrows:

A scarecrow is an effigy, usually shaped like a human being, placed in a field to scare away the birds which might otherwise eat the crops. The first Sunday in July is Build a Scarecrow Day, so here are ten facts about scarecrows you might not know.

1. The earliest scarecrows were made in ancient Egypt around 3,000 years ago to scare birds away from the Wheat fields beside the Nile.
2. They were also used in ancient Greece, where farmers would make them to look like Priapus, the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite. This was because of a myth that Priapus was an extremely ugly child who'd scare away the birds whenever he played in the vineyards.
3. In Medieval Britain, young boys were often employed as “bird scarers”, who were paid to wander around the fields throwing stones at birds. Farmers started making artificial scarecrows after the plague, when there was a shortage of young boys.
4. The first known usage of the word “scarecrow” in English literature was in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Since then, there have been numerous fictional scarecrows. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story called Feathertop, about a scarecrow which was brought to life by a Witch; both Marvel and DC have villains called Scarecrow, although they are completely different characters; Barbara Euphan Todd created the friendly scarecrow Worzel Gummidge in the 1930s and he later got his own TV show; but probably the most famous is the scarecrow in Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, played by Ray Bolger in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and by Michael Jackson in The Wiz, who goes in search of a Brain.
5. There are songs about scarecrows, too. Pink Floyd's debut album includes a track called Scarecrow, and XTC's album Oranges & Lemons includes a track called Scarecrow People who 'ain't got no brains' and 'ain't got no Hearts' and are the destiny of the human race as a result of wars and pollution.
6. The bird scaring function of a scarecrow isn't just because it looks vaguely like a person. They get dressed in cast off clothing for a reason – the clothes will have the smell of their former human owners lingering about them, so as far as the birds are concerned, they smell like humans, too. In Japan, they go a step further and hang meat and fish bones from their scarecrows which would scare away anything with a sense of smell!
7. Talking of Japan, there is a village there called Nagoro, which has a human population of 35, but a scarecrow population of over 350.
8. There are a number of old dialect words for scarecrows in different parts of Britain. Hay-man (England), Hodmedod (Berkshire), Murmet (Devon), Mommet (Somerset), Mawkin (Sussex), Bwbach (Wales), Gallybagger (Isle of Wight), Tattie Bogal (Isle of Skye); and in Scotland they are Bodach-rocais (which literally means "old man of the rooks").
9. The 1990s and 2000s saw a trend of towns and villages holding scarecrow festivals where householders and businesses display scarecrows in their gardens and shop windows. There may be a scarecrow trail and events to raise money for charity. One of the earliest was the Urchfont Scarecrow Festival which attracts up to 10,000 people every year. Or at least in years when there isn't a plague. Scarecrow festivals aren't unique to Britain, though. In Canada there are also scarecrow festivals, usually in the autumn and associated with Halloween. The scarecrows there have Pumpkins for heads. One of the latest places to jump on the scarecrow festival bandwagon is the Philippines. The world record for the largest number of scarecrows in one place is 3,812 at National Forest Adventure Farm in Staffordshire, on 7 August 2014.
10. If the thought of that many scarecrows in one place is giving you the heebie-jeebies then it may be that you suffer from Formidophobia, the irrational fear of scarecrows.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

3 July: Franz Kafka quotes:

Franz Kafka, the Czech writer, was born on this date in 1883. 10 quotes from him:

1. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
2. God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.
3. I am free and that is why I am lost.
4. The meaning of life is that it stops.
5. If you find someone who makes you smile, who checks up on you often to see if you're okay. Who watches out or you and wants the best for you. Who loves and respects you. Don't let them go. People like that are hard to find.
6. There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.
7. Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
8. A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a "brief."
9. In the fight between you and the world, back the world.
10. The true word leads; the untrue misleads.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.

2 July: The Middle

Today is the middle day of a non-leap year, so here are some quotes about middles:

1. There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead armadillos. Jim Hightower
2. A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle. Ian Fleming
3. Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. Margaret Thatcher
4. Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard? Paul Simon
5. At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. Nicolaus Copernicus
6. The enemy of society is middle class and the enemy of life is middle age. Orson Welles
7. Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars. Ben Stein
8. you'd better go first or you'd better go last. No one will remember what come in the middle. Lindsey Frydman
9. It's like the Bible says: The last shall be first and the first shall be last, and the rest will be stuck in the middle. James Hold
10. It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing. Marianne Moore

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.