26 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 26 November:

1. Born this date in 1922 was Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts. He said “It seems beyond comprehension that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was.”
2. In 1938 Tina Turner (Annie Mae Bullock), US singer and actress was born. Her career has spanned more than 50 years. Turner started her music career as Ike and Tina Turner with a string of hits including River Deep, Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits and Proud Mary. She went on to forge a solo career, with hits including Let's Stay Together, What’s Love Got to Do With it, The Best and Private Dancer.
3. In 1862, on meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, President Abraham Lincoln commented: "So this is the little lady who made the big war."
4. In 1789, President George Washington proclaimed this date (a Thursday) to be the first national Thanksgiving Day holiday.
5. Members of the band Pink Floyd watched the launch of a joint Soviet-French space mission from Soviet Central Asia on this date in 1988. One of the cosmonauts had requested an advance copy of Pink Floyd's live album, The Delicate Sound of Thunder, to play during the flight.
6. In 1867, one Mrs Lily Maxwell of Manchester cast her vote in a parliamentary election. She had been placed on the electoral register by mistake and had to be escorted by a bodyguard to protect her from opponents to women's suffrage.
7. In 1988, Mrs Rita Lockett of Torquay spent £10,000 to repeat her daughter’s wedding two months after the event, because she didn't like the video made on the day. The couple went through the reception with all 200 wedding guests wearing the same outfits listening to the same speeches, this time with a professional video crew on hand.
8. In 1996, Gloria Garza Villanueva, a Mexican Tarot Card reader, was shot twice in the head because a customer didn’t like the future she'd predicted for him.
9. In 1703, England was hit by severe gales, known as the Great Storm. The first Eddystone Lighthouse was swept away, taking the man who built it, Henry Winstanley, with it. More than 8,000 died across the country and the Royal Navy lost 15 warships.
10. In 1993, Penn and Teller performed the world largest card trick on Late Show with David Letterman. The cards were steel, and so heavy that forklift trucks were used to shuffle them.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

25 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 25 November:

1. In 2000, a 66 year old Quebec woman lost her life after the Christmas Trees tied to the roof of her car fell off. She was run over by three cars as she attempted to pick them up.
2. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer first appeared on the music charts on this date in 1949. 80 different versions of the song have been recorded, with nearly 20,000,000 copies sold.
3. Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's longest running play, opened at the Ambassadors' Theatre in London on this date in 1952.
4. In 1896, William Marshall became the first person in Britain to receive a parking summons after leaving his car in Tokenhouse Yard in the City of London. The case was dismissed.
5. On this date in 2348 BC, according to Archbishop James Ussher's Old Testament chronology, the Great Deluge ("Noah's Flood") began.
6. In 1969, John Lennon returned his MBE to Queen Elizabeth, citing British involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra war, political support of the US position in Vietnam and the poor reception given to the Plastic Ono Band's Cold Turkey.
7. In 1779, Lord Lyttelton claimed to have a dream about the mother of three sisters he'd seduced, resulting in them committing suicide. She told him he would be dead in three days. Sure enough, he died of a stomach complaint, right on schedule.
8. In 1988 US and Soviet Chess grand masters Donaldson and Akhmilovskaya wed. Was it "Checkmate"?
9. In 1911, three men were hanged for murdering Sir Edmundbury Godfrey at Greenberry Hill. Their names were Green, Berry and Hill.
10. In 1998, Les Stewart from Mudjimba, Australia, finished typing all numbers from one to one million in words. He began in 1982 and used up seven manual typewriters, 1000 ink ribbons, 19,890 pages. It had taken him 16 years and seven months. When asked why he had undertaken this tedious task, Les said that he had little else to do since being classed as an invalid who could no longer work.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

24 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 24 November:

1. This date in 1942 saw the birth of Billy Connolly, Scottish comedian sometimes known by the nickname The Big Yin (The Big One).
2. In 1999, a member of a Christian cult in California died while practising the art of walking on water in his bath. He slipped on the soap and drowned.
3. In 1615, King Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria were married. Both bride and groom were aged 14. Louis was so nervous about his wedding night that his mother had to escort him to the new queen's bedroom after the ceremony.
4. In 1993, 14 bottles of Scotch Whiskey salvaged from the SS Politician, wrecked in 1941 and the inspiration of the book and film, Whisky Galore, were sold at auction for £11,462 at Christie's.
5. The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, by British naturalist Charles Darwin, was published in England on this date in 1859. Darwin's theory argued that species are the result of a gradual biological evolution in which nature encourages, through natural selection, the propagation of those species best suited to their environments.
6. In 1997, in Urbana Ohio, a plane took off without a pilot, flew 100 miles in two hours at up to 12,000 feet, then crash landed in a bean field. All because engineer Paul Sirks had restarted the engine without fitting chocks.
7. In 1999, all afternoon greyhound racing in Sunderland was cancelled due to a police investigation, because the greyhounds in trap 6 had won all eight races that morning.
8. In 1971, D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane and collected $200,000 in ransom money from threats he made to passengers and crew. He jumped from the jet in Washington State with the ransom, and was never found.
9. In 1978, a man in Pajala, northern Sweden, was convicted of smuggling a villa from Finland into Sweden. To avoid paying duty, the smuggler took the building piece by piece across the border, until customs officials’ suspicions were aroused by his daily appearance.
10. In 1997, Humphrey the cat retired from his position as Chief Mouser in Downing Street because of kidney problems. He was filmed alive and well at a secret location with current newspapers to dispel a rumour that Cherie Blair had had him killed.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

23 November

10 weird and wonderful events which happened on 23 November:

1. Born this date in 1888 was Harpo [Arthur Adolph] Marx, one of the Marx Brothers. He wore a curly wig, and never talked during performances (although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate), and he played the harp.
2. In 1963, the first episode of Doctor Who, the world’s longest running sci-fi TV series, was screened in Britain. The first Dr Who was played by William Hartnell, and Ann Ford was his first female companion. The producer, Sydney Newman, thought the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick, were ‘bug-eyed monsters’ and totally wrong for the series. The first episode was interrupted and postponed because news of US President John Kennedy's Assassination broke.
3. In 1889, the first jukebox invented by Louis Glass appeared in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon. The contraption consisted of an Edison tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes, no loudspeakers, and a coin slot for each tube. A nickel purchased a couple of minutes of Music.
4. This date in 1998 was National Dunking Day. Scientist Len Fisher used the Washburn equation, which was originally designed to assess blotting paper, to calculate the maximum dunking times for various Biscuits: 8 seconds for a digestive, 3 seconds for a ginger nut.
5. In 1654, French mathematician Blaise Pascal narrowly escaped death at the Neuilly-sur-Seine bridge. His Horses plunged over the parapet and the carriage would have gone with them, but the reins broke and the coach was left hanging over the edge. Pascal and his friends emerged unscathed, but the philosopher, terrified by the nearness of death, fainted and remained unconscious for over two weeks. When he recovered, Pascal had a profound religious conversion. He abandoned his study of science, having realised that "the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other aim than him."
6. In 1973 it rained ducks in Arkansas when hail knocked more than 100 ducks from the sky.
7. The first recorded strike for better working conditions and pay took place on this date in 1170 BC, in Egypt, by labourers working on a pyramid.
8. In 1852, the first Pillar Boxes were erected in St Helier, in the Channel Islands where, according to a Post Office surveyor sent over to inspect postal facilities, ‘there were no receiving offices for people in the distant parts of the town’. The surveyor later became famous as the novelist, Anthony Trollope.
9. In 1937, The Toronto Daily Star reported that an Inuit village had vanished. Fur trapper Joe LaBelle had contacted the police to report a chilling discovery. While running a trap line, LaBelle snow-shoed out to an isolated Eskimo village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni, only to discover the entire population – man, woman, and child—had vanished from their huts and storehouses. Inspector Pierre Menard of the RCMP confirmed the village had indeed been found abandoned under most strange circumstances. “In our search, we discovered undisturbed foodstuff, gear, and provisions but no sign of the villagers. Not a single footprint or track.” But the most disturbing discovery of all: the Eskimos’ ancestral graves were had been excavated and emptied.
10. In 2000, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories near Didcot set the world record for the smallest ever advert. A website address, guinnessworldrecords.com, in a font only slightly wider than a human hair was layered on evaporated gold onto film, mounted on a silicon band and fitted to a bee’s leg. (Is this website the bee’s knees?)

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

22 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 22 November:

1. This date in 1819 saw the birth of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist, whose works include Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, She wrote, "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive."
2. On this date in 1718, Edward Teach, pirate, also known as Blackbeard, was killed off the North Carolina coast. Lt. Robert Maynard fought Blackbeard in close combat on the deck of his ship Jane. After killing Blackbeard, Maynard cut off the pirate's head and took it back to Virginia as proof he'd killed the most famous pirate of the day.
3. In 2000, a German tourist named Hermann Roag survived a fall from the window of his 8th floor hotel room in Lausanne, Switzerland with no more than a broken ankle; but on the way to hospital to be treated for that, he fell out of the ambulance and was run over and killed by a passing bus.
4. In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win re-election of the Conservative Party leadership, resigned after being Prime Minister since 1979.
5. The first interracial kiss in TV history, on Star Trek between Capt. James T Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, was first broadcast on this date in 1968.
6. The Cutty Sark, a ship named after the short dress worn by a pretty witch in the Robert Burns poem Tam O’ Shanter, awas launched on this date in 1869. Cutty Sark was a record breaking tea clipper, and is now open to the public in dry dock at Greenwich.
7. In 2016, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake off Japan's Fukushima Prefecture injured 15 people, and triggered a 1 meter tsunami that caused a temporary power disruption at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant.
8. In 1986 Mike Tyson, aged 20, became the youngest ever world heavyweight boxing champion when he beat Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas in just two rounds.
9. In 2004, Ozzy Osbourne struggled with a burglar who escaped with jewellery worth about £2m from his Buckinghamshire mansion. Osbourne told reporters that he had the masked raider in a headlock as he tried to stop him.
10. In 1996, Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, held a ceremony to honour the 22 sets of triplets in the country’s armed forces – the North Korean armed forces claim to have more triplets than any other army in the world.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

21 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 21 November:

1. Voltaire (real name François-Marie Arouet), French writer and philosopher was born on this date in 1964. He wrote one of his most famous works, Candide in just 3 days when he was 65. The quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is attributed to him.
2. In 1820, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at the age of 13, had his first poem, The Battle of Lovell's Pond, published in the Portland, Maine, Gazette.
3. In 1906 An unnamed man was killed at a Glasgow distillery when 200,000 gallons of hot Whiskey burst from its vats.
4. 1995 Toy Story was released on this date in 1995. It was the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
5. In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state of the original 13 to ratify the US Constitution.
6. In 1946, Harry Truman became the first US President to travel in a submerged Submarine.
7. In 1791, twenty convicts escaped from Sydney and set out to reach China – by land. Tricky, that.
8. In 1937, Thomas Morris skipped rope 22,806 times in two hours in Sydney, Australia. This was faster than three skips a second and was equivalent to walking about 12 miles.
9. Tweety Bird, aka Tweety Pie, made his debut in Tale of Two Kitties by Warner Bros on this date in 1942.
10. In 2006, Steve Milton of Eugene, Oregon, created the world's largest Rubber band ball, weighing 4594lb and using more than 175,000 rubber bands. It was certified as the world's largest by Guinness World Records officials at a weigh-in in Chicago.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

20 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 20 November:

1. In 1620, Peregrine White, the son of William and Susanna White, was born aboard the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay; he was the first child born to the Pilgrim Fathers.
2. In 2003, a man in Tegelen, Netherlands, called an ambulance, saying he felt ill. Paramedics arrived to find a double-glazed and extremely smelly house, dozens of pet birds, and the caller, already dead. The police blamed his death on a combination of bird Farts and ammonia from their droppings.
3. In 1947, Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. The ceremony was broadcast worldwide in 42 different languages. The Princess's dress was designed by Norman Hartnell.
4. In 2005, Robbie Williams smashed a Guinness World Record by selling more than 1.6 million tickets for his 2006 World Tour in one day.
5. In 1998, a Russian rocket blasted the first component of the International Space Station into orbit 100 miles above the Earth.
6. President Woodrow Wilson was issued with a passport on this date in 1918. He was the first US President to have one.
7. The ten-shilling note was officially withdrawn by the Bank of England on this date in 1970.
8. In 1183, Saladin laid siege to Castle Kerak, but refused to bombard one part of the castle where a wedding was taking place.
9. In 1912, would be Bomber Carl Warr walked into Los Angeles city jail with 60 sticks of dynamite strapped to himself. An hour later, two detectives attacked Warr, who pulled the bomb's trigger. Nothing happened. The bomber begged police to kill him.
10. In 1969, in Australia, Zjane Azzar lay down on a mattress of 6-inch spikes and stayed there for a record 25 hours 9 minutes.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book