7 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 7 March:

1. On this date in an unspecified year, a man in Bonn, Germany, Karl Welker, battered his wife to death when she announced she was leaving him. The twist in the tale is that he'd recently been voted Husband of the Year, and the murder weapon was his winner’s trophy.
2. On this date in 1971, women in Switzerland achieved the right to vote and hold federal office.
3. The first Jazz record was released in the USA this date in 1917. It was The Dixie Jazz Band One Step by Nick LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
4. In 1976, a likeness of Elton John was put on display at London's Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. He was the first rock figure to be given the honour since The Beatles in 1964.
5. In 1897, Dr. John Kellogg served the world's first Corn flakes to his patients at a mental hospital in Battle Creek, MI. However, Dr Kellogg's reason for serving them wasn't a tasty breakfast. He was so anti-sex that he never even did it with his wife, and all their children were adopted. He advocated a bland diet so as not to encourage sexual passions. He gave his patients cornflakes because he thought he'd found a great food for preventing masturbation.
6. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received Patent No. 174,465 for the telephone.
7. In 1530, Henry VIII's request for a divorce was turned down by the Pope. Henry then declared himself the supreme head of England's church and granted himself a divorce. From his wife and from Rome.
8. Prejudice against women drivers has been around for a while. On this date in 1908, Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith stood before the city council and declared "women are not physically fit to operate automobiles".
9. Thomas Hardy met his future wife Emma Lavinia Gifford at the rectory in St Juliot, North Cornwall on this date in 1870. He'd gone there to conduct some church restoration work. After her death in 1912, Hardy turned his desk calendar to this date and left it there until he died in 1928. The calendar is now part of a permanent exhibition of Hardy material in the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, and still shows the same date.
10. In 2018, the oldest known message in a bottle was found in Australia. It was confirmed to be almost 132 years old.

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

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Kindle

6 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 6 March:

Davy Crockett

1. This date in 1475 was the birth date of Michelangelo (real name di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni), the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer who painted the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. It took him four years, mostly lying on his back. He also sculpted Pieta and the statue of David in marble. "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free," he said.
2. On the 521^st anniversary of his birth, in 1992, computer users braced for a "virus" known as "Michelangelo," set to trigger on March 6, but only scattered cases of lost files were reported.
3. In 1836, the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces led by Mexican General Antonio Santa Anna after a 13 day siege. Davy Crockett, aged 49, aka King of the Wild Frontier, was killed along with James Bowie and all the other 185 defenders.
4. On this date in 1999 a 64 year old Japanese woman called Ritsuko Yamada killed herself by ingesting "industrial quantities" of Toilet paper, causing death by asphyxiation. She was in prison at the time, suspected of strangling her husband, Takashi, aged 60.
5. In 1930 the first individually packaged frozen foods went on sale in Springfield, Mass. Clarence Birdseye had been inspired to preserve food this way after watching Canadians thawing and eating naturally frozen fish.
6. In 1938, Thomas Garson of Chicago, Illinois ate twenty-two Hamburgers and two quarts of Ice cream in twenty-five minutes to win a bet.
7. This date in 1987 was the date of the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster. 189 people died when water rushed through the open bow doors of the British ferry, causing it to capsize off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.
8. In 1946, the British food ministry issued a recipe for squirrel pie.
9. It may be known as the Motor City now, but on this date in 1896 when Charles Brady King drove the first "Horseless Carriage" down one of Detroit's main streets and it broke down, onlookers advised him to "get a Horse".
10. In 1999, a couple were discovered making love in a freezer in a 24 hour branch of Sainsbury’s. When the security guard asked what they were doing, they replied, “chilling out”.

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

5 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 5 March:

Henry II

1. King Henry II, the first Plantagenet king of England was born on this date in 1133. He established trial by jury in England, and banned Football, believing people were playing it too much and neglecting more important sports such as archery.
2. In 1839, Charlotte Bronte wrote to the Reverend Henry Nussey declining his proposal of marriage, on the grounds that: "I am not the serious, grave, cool-hearted individual you suppose; you would think me romantic and eccentric."
3. In 1989, Michael Anderson Godwin, serving a life sentence for murder after having his death sentence commuted, ended up on an electric chair anyway, by accident or design I don't know. He was sitting on a stainless steel toilet in his cell, bit into headphone wires connected to his television. He was immediately electrocuted.
4. In 2001, two celebrities got done for speeding. Princess Anne received a £400 fine and 5 penalty points for doing 93mph on dual carriageway, while Geri Halliwell received a 42 day ban and £400 fine for doing twice the speed limit.
5. In 2015, Harrison Ford crash-landed his single-engine World War II-era training plane at the Penmar Golf Course, in Venice, Los Angeles, California, just west of the Santa Monica Airport.
6. In 1966, the Kray Twins, Reginald and Ronald, were sentenced to 30 years in prison.
7. In 1868, the Stapler was patented in Birmingham, England by C.H. Gould.
8. In 1985, E.A. "Bud" Olson and his partner Phil Bonzio purchased Bud the pig from Jefferey Roemisch of Hermleigh, Texas for $56,000.00. This made Bud the most expensive Pig in the world.
9. In 2005, Nev Hyman spent $39,535.00 on a 40 foot long surfboard, the longest in the world. Then, at Snapper Rocks, Australia, 47 people got on the board and surfed, smashing the previous record of 14 people on a surfboard.
10. In 2014, an Egyptian papyrus dating back 1,800 years, which had been discovered 100 years previously and was completely illegible, was exposed to infrared sensors, revealing the content to be a letter from a soldier to his family. 

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

4 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 4 March:

The Forth Bridge

1. A number of US Presidents were inaugurated on this day. In 1793 George Washington was sworn in for a second term as president of the United States. His inauguration speech was the shortest ever at just 133 words. The longest inauguration speech (8,443 words) was given by William Henry Harrison, the ninth US President, on this date in 1841. Spending so long speaking did him no good. He caught pneumonia and died a month later. In 1849 Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn-in because this date fell on a Sunday far too holy a day to do political stuff, so Senator David Rice Atchison acted as President for one day. In 1925 Calvin Coolidge's inauguration was the first to be broadcast on radio. It was on this day in 1933 that President Franklin D Roosevelt uttered the famous quote, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" as part of his inauguration speech.
2. In 1960, Leonard Warren, a 48 year old American opera singer, belted out Morir? Tremenda Casa, and then collapsed and died from a stroke. The translation of the title of his final song is To die? A wondrous thing.
3. It was on this date in 1966 that John Lennon's comment that The Beatles were 'more popular than Jesus Christ' was published in The London Evening Standard. Christian groups in the US were outraged resulting in some states burning Beatles records in protest.
4. More musical mayhem occurred on this date in 2003 when Sian Davies, aged 23, from Porth in Wales was fined £1,000 plus court costs and had all her amplifiers and speakers plus 135 CDs and cassette tapes seized after complaints she was playing her music too loudly. She'd been playing a Cliff Richard single, ironically titled Peace in Our Time. A spokesman for the Cliff Richard Organisation said he was delighted to hear that somebody in their early 20s was a Cliff fan, but added that Cliff wouldn't want anyone to cause a nuisance by playing his records.
5. In 1890, the then Prince of Wales opened the longest bridge in Britain, the 1,710 ft Forth railway bridge in Scotland.
6. In 2007, the most expensive car accident in the world occurred. A Surrey man took his brother’s Bugatti Veyron out for a spin, clocking up 100mph on a rainy day with predictable results. He skidded, collided with a van and ended up in a clump of trees. The car was a write-off and the insurance bill was £800,000 not including the damage to the van. Luckily no one was seriously injured in the accident, although we are not told what happened to the driver after his brother got hold of him.
7. In 1928, 199 runners set off from Los Angeles along Route 66 in hopes of winning the $25,000.00 grand prized offered in the Great American Foot Race to Madison Square Garden, New York, 3,422 miles away. 84 days later, Andy Payne, aged 20, was declared the winner.
8. It fell off the back of a lorry, honest, Officer: In 1981, Joey Coyle was arrested at a New York airport with $105,000 stuffed in his boots. This followed a six day spending spree after he'd found $1.2 million which had fallen out of an armoured vehicle. He was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity. In 1993 a movie, Money for Nothing, was based on this event.
9. In 2000, Damien Nash became the millionth person to visit the Millennium Dome in London.
10. In 2005 Wookiepedia, The Star Wars Wiki, was founded.

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

3 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 3 March:

1. This date in 1847 saw the birth of Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish inventor who invented the telephone at the age of 29. He worked as a speech therapist to the deaf and fell in love with one of his students, Mabel Hubbard, who inspired him to concentrate his research on sound and its transmission.
2. In 1988, a driver in California was killed when his car spun off the road and plunged 37 feet. He wasn't wearing a seat belt, but his Teddy bear had been safely strapped into the passenger seat. The bear survived undamaged.
3. In 1875, Georges Bizet's opera, Carmen premièred in Paris. The audience hated it and jeered Bizet as he fled from the theatre.
4. On this date in 1957, the head of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago, Samuel Cardinal Strich, banned rock and roll from Catholic schools and youth clubs in his district. He cited the "tribal rhythms" and "encouragement to behave in a hedonistic manner."
5. In 1995, an unsuccessful actor named Jonathan Hartman decided that he'd make sure he had a starring role after his death. He bequeathed his Skull to the RSC to be used as Yorick.
6. In 2001, Rachel Kerr of Newcastle, England was backpacking in Sydney when she became homesick for food from home, so she ordered a Curry from her local Indian takeaway for a world record delivery of 10,850 miles. It took 4 days to reach her.
7. World’s longest Cricket match began on this date in 1939. It was between South Africa and England in Durban, South Africa and lasted until March 14, 1939. It might have gone on even longer had the England team not had to catch a boat home on the 15th. After play on the 14th the match was declared a draw and both teams went home.
8. In Brisbane in 1995, John Forno was fined for riding a skateboard while drunk.
9. In 1876, flakes of meat fell over an area 100 yards long and 50 yards wide in Kentucky, near the home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen Crouch. The sky was cloudless at the time and there was no wind. The flakes were from 1 to 4 inches square and looked like fresh beef. However, Mr and Mrs Crouch must have tasted it as they declared it was either venison or mutton.
10. For a second in 1933, it was 3:33:33 on 3/3/33. 

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

2 March

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 2 March:

Dr Seuss

1. This date in 1904 saw the birth of Theodore Geisel, better known as "Dr Seuss". He got his pen name by adding "Dr." to his middle name. He wrote Cat In The Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Xmas, Fox On Socks, and many others.
2. In 1883, H. G. Wells hit back at critics who said his poetry had no meter. He said: "Meters are used for gas, not the outpourings of the human heart."
3. In 2001, 43 year old Archie Tyler was clearing debris from a drainpipe in a nearly empty reservoir basin in New York state, standing in about 2-3ft (60-90cm) of water. When he removed the debris a vortex was created, causing Tyler to lose his footing, get sucked into the 20in (50cm) wide drainage pipe and drown. "It's very similar to what happens when you drain a bathtub," commented Environmental Protection Commissioner Joel Miele.
4. King Kong, starring Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot, and Robert Armstrong premièred in New York on this date in 1933.
5. In 2012, a meta-analysis of 42 previous studies concluded that Chocolate may actually be good for the heart.
6. In 1965, a man named John Reeves, strolling in the woods near his Florida home, stumbled upon a landed spacecraft and a robot. The robot paused long enough to take his picture before getting back into the craft and vanishing into the sky. Reeves discovered two sheets of paper covered in alien writing at the scene. The US Air Force, however, pronounced the incident a hoax.
7. In 1643, Lichfield Cathedral was attacked by Parliamentarians, led by one Lord Brooke, who prayed before the battle that he would die if the cause was unjust. He was struck down by a volley of gunfire almost immediately. This happened on St Chad’s Day, in St Chad’s Cathedral.
8. In 1725, a night watchman found a human head by the Thames. It was displayed on a pole until someone recognised it as belonging to a Mr. Hayes. His wife Catherine and her two lodgers were arrested for murder. One accomplice was hanged, the other died in prison before the execution. Catherine was sentenced to be strangled and burnt. The executioner failed to strangle her, so she was burnt alive.
9. In 1791, the first Semaphore signal was sent by the optical telegraph machine in Paris.
10. In 1995, Jack Lehu, at the age of 82, became the world’s oldest bungee jumper.

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle