8 October: Sausages

It’s Sausage month, so here are ten things you might not know about sausages:

1. They’ve been around a long time. Sausages were produced at least 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), and remnants of sausages have been found in Egyptian tombs.

2. They were popular in ancient Rome and were mentioned in stories and plays of the time. The earliest known mention of sausages is in a play by Aristophanes from the 5th century BC. The Sicilian playwright Epimarchus is said to have written a play called The Sausage, even earlier than that, but it was sadly lost. In The Odyssey, Homer compares Odysseus to a fat sausage.

3. The English word sausage comes from the Latin salsus, meaning “salted.” This is because sausages were an early way to preserve surplus food. The adjective “sausagey” was coined by DH Lawrence in 1921. Of course, the British sometimes refer to sausages as “bangers”. This dates back to WWII, when meat rationing meant there was more Water in sausages, leading to them exploding with a bang when cooked.

4. Sausage skins would be made from animal intestines. Some still are, but some manufacturers use edible collagen instead.

5. The longest sausage was created in Romania in 2014. It was 38.99 miles long.

6. Christianity initially posed a threat to the popularity of the sausage. Partly because many contained blood, which early Christians were forbidden to eat, and because they were associated with pagan and phallic festivals like Lupercalia. In the 4th century, the Catholic Church banned the eating of sausages for the latter reason. However, a black market sprang up so sausages didn’t go away.

7. There’s a sausage academy in Neumarkt, Germany, where students can earn a certificate in sausage studies. The curriculum includes the ideal lagers, mustards, and music to accompany different varieties of sausage.

8. The Cumberland sausage is traditionally made from a particular breed of Pig, the Cumberland, but that breed of pig has been extinct since the 1960s. Scientists tried in vain to recreate the Cumberland pig, and in 2008 a sow was born which had a 99.6% DNA match with the Cumberland. However, the sow turned out to be infertile, so the quest presumably continues.

9. It’s been estimated that about 5 million British people consume sausages every day, especially on Saturdays. The British Sausage Appreciation Society has more than 5,000 members.

10. German chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said: “To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.”

Character birthday

Vladimir Heinstock, leader of the violent revolution in Galorvia in which the monarchy was overthrown and the King and Queen slaughtered. He became the dictator of the country for around 20 years, forbidding contact with the outside world. Until the princesses Jade and Gloria returned after years of exile in England, and defeated him.

He appears in From A Jack To A King.

From A Jack To A King

A royal palace is burning. The King and Queen are dead. The only hopes for an ancient dynasty flee to England for their lives.

A boy runs from his mother and the people he believes want to mutilate him, and vanishes, seemingly forever.

Gary Winchcombe, the experimental "super-cop" pursues a notorious gang of bank robbers, and starts to discover that his friends and neighbours have secrets he never could have imagined.

Tod Reynard wants to turn his life around. When he meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jade, he knows she might just be the one to help him change his life for the better. He cannot possibly know just how much.

When Jade's twin sister Gloria is kidnapped, old rivalries must be put aside and new associations formed in order to save Gloria's life and restore the rightful order of things.

Available from: Amazon, Amazon Kindle

7 October: 280

Today is the 280^th day of the year so here are 10 fun facts about the number 280:

1. If 18 people sit around a round table they can shake hands with each other in 280 different ways without crossing arms.

2. Since 2017, the character limit for posts on Twitter has been 280. In that year the limit was doubled from 140.

3. In London the 280 bus runs between St George's Hospital and Belmont Station.

4. The year 280 was a leap year starting on Thursday, known at the time as the Year of the Consulship of Messalla and Gratus. In this year, Emperor Wu of the Jin dynasty completed the unification of China, and St George was born.

5. 280 Philia is a Main belt asteroid discovered by Johann Palisa in 1888. Philia is a Greek word for friendship and affection.

6. The Heinkel He 280 was the first turbojet-powered fighter aircraft in the world. It was inspired by Ernst Heinkel's research into high-speed flight.

7. The A280 is a road in West Sussex, England which runs between Findon and Angmering.

8. 280 Broadway is the address of the A.T. Stewart Dry Goods Store, the Marble Palace, and the Sun Building, located in a historic building located in the Civic Center district of Manhattan, New York City. It is notable as the first commercial building in the Italianate style in New York, and is considered to be one of the nation's first department stores.

9. In Roman numerals, 280 is written as CCLXXX and in Binary it's 100011000.

10. In numerology 280 resonates with independence, uniqueness, self-determination, coexistence, romance, diplomacy, business, establishing industry, wholeness, comprehensiveness, and all that is.

Character birthday

Princess Cynthis Manne-Trappe, a member of the royal family of Soaring, Classica, Infinitus. Cynthia was in love with Percy Nobottle, a member of another Soaring noble family. She persuaded her father to approach Percy's father with a view to arrange a marriage. Percy was an abject coward who was terrified of Cynthia from the moment they met. He ran away to avoid marrying her. At first, Cynthia thought he was going on a quest to prove he was worthy of her. She decided to follow him, because she couldn't bear to be parted from him. However, when she eventually caught up with him, it became clear to her he was a coward, and she fell out of love with him. However, by then, they were stranded in the Earth dimension and were forced to co-operate with one another to survive and ultimately find a way home.

6 October: Instagram

Instagram was released on this date in 2010. Here are 10 things you might not know about Instagram:

1. The first photograph to be posted on Instagram was a picture of a Dog belonging to one of the co-founders.

2. The name Instagram is a combination of the words “instant camera” and “telegram.”

3. Initially, it was just for sharing photographs, but it became possible to share a 15 second video in June 2013.

4. On any given day, 80 million photographs are shared on Instagram. That’s about 700 a second.

5. Instagram gets 1.2 billion likes every day.

6. Instagram is the 8th most visited website in the world.

7. I’d like to be able to tell you who the most followed person is, but every source I looked at gave a different answer. Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and footballer Cristiano Ronaldo were all alleged to be the most followed person. No doubt they all have been at some point but it changes so often it’s impossible to say, I guess. Same for the most followed brand, which could be National Geographic, or Nike, or some other flavour of the month entirely.

8. As for people sharing pictures of food, the most popular cuisines are Pizza, Sushi and steak.

9. On the day it launched as an iPhone app, Instagram gained 25,000 users, and had reached a million by December. The Android version did even better – it was downloaded over a million times in less than 12 hours after its release in April 2012.

10. In 2012, Ellie Goulding released a music video for her song Anything Could Happen, which consisted entirely of Instagram photographs representing words or lyrics from the song.

Character birthday

Maive Addleson, an employee of the Innovian Government in Infinitus. She began working for The Party after university and worked her way up to being the deputy team leader of the President's Campaign and Analysis Team.

She was known for having a crush on the superhero Power Blaster, despite never having met him, for which her colleagues ribbed her mercilessly. Eventually, she worked out Powerblaster’s true identity, and knowing he was spoken for, was able to move on and married a man named Gilbert.

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Available from Amazon or Amazon Kindle

5 October: Skin

This week is National skin care awareness week. Here are ten facts about skin:

1. The skin is the largest organ in the human body, making up about 15% of a person’s body weight (roughly 9kg for an average person).

2. Every square inch of skin has around 300 sweat glands.

3. Thickness of skin varies according to where it is on the body. The thickest skin is on the soles of your Feet (about 4mm) and the thinnest is around the Eyes and eyelids (.5mm).

4. Skin has three layers: the epidermis, the top layer, which is waterproof; the dermis, which is made up of connective tissue and contains Hair follicles and glands; and the hypodermis, or sub-cutaneous, which is mostly fat and connective tissue that supports the skin's structure and attaches it to muscles.

5. The adjective cutaneous means "of the skin" (from the Latin cutis 'skin').

6. Carotenoids, the Red, Orange and Yellow pigments found in fruit and vegetables of those colours, can make a person’s skin more attractive. In a study where women were asked to rate the attractiveness of a man’s face, those with the yellow-red glow from a diet rich in carotenoids were judged as more attractive regardless of other masculine features of the face.

7. New cells are created in the sub-cutaneous layer of the skin and take about four weeks to rise to the surface. Once they get there, they grow hard and are shed. Your skin renews itself every 28 days and sheds about 9 pounds of dead skin cells every year.

8. The skin of the legs have less oil producing glands than any other area of the body.

9. Skin colour is determined by cells called melanocytes, which secrete melanin; the more melanin in the cells, the darker the skin.

10. The average adult has nearly 21 square feet of skin containing over 11 miles of Blood vessels.

Character birthday

Sea Breeze, aka Alice Nash, a member of Combat Team Delta. She appears weak and fragile but her appearance belies a surprising strength and stamina. She is a martial artist of moderate ability. What is special about her is that she has super-human reaction times and can dodge just about everything.

4 October: National Vodka Day

Today is National vodka day. 10 things you might not know about vodka:

1. Vodka is made from just four ingredients: Water, Wheat, rye, and Barley, and is distilled multiple times to remove any impurities, hence it is considered the purest of all the spirits. It can also be made from Potatoes.

2. The origins of vodka aren’t clear, but it’s probably been around since the 8^th or 9^th century and originated in either Russia or Poland.

3. Back then, it was primarily used as a medicine and a disinfectant to clean wounds. It was mixed with herbs to make elixirs for anything from the common cold to cancer.

4. The word vodka means “little water” in Russian.

5. Buzz Aldrin is said to have smuggled a bottle of Smirnoff aboard Apollo 11 to drink on the Moon.

6. Vodka was once used as currency, as it was one of the few things not affected by inflation. Vodka was also used to buy goods and services, and it was even used to pay taxes.

7. There is even a city called Vodka in the Ural Mountains. It was so named because it was once the site of a major vodka distillery.

8. Vodka was actually banned in Russia between 1914 and 1917. Tsar Nicholas II banned vodka sales in 1914 in an effort to make sure soldiers were sober enough to fight in the war. However, people just switched to drinking moonshine instead. Vodka was made legal again after the Tsar was overthrown in 1917.

9. There are other uses for vodka besides drinking it. You can use it to clean your house thanks to its antibacterial and solvent properties. It’s also said to be good for the skin. Mix vodka with witch hazel and cider vinegar to make a soothing aftershave, add it to your bath or apply it directly to the skin to cleanse the pores.

10. Cocktails which contain vodka include: Black Russian, Bloody Mary, Blue Lagoon’ Cosmopolitan, Harvey Wallbanger, Long Island iced tea, Screwdriver, Sex on the beach, Sloe comfortable screw up against the wall and Tequila sunrise.

Character birthday

Gianni Fortelli, a member of the New York gangster family, the Fortellis. He is an expert in locks, secret doors and traps. While he uses these skills to help his family, he prefers not to fight, as he is a pacifist at heart. He will fight to defend himself or a loved one, but will not initiate conflict.

3 October: The Twist

As today is Chubby Checker’s birthday, here are 10 things you might not know about the Twist.

1. The word twist in relation to dancing actually dates back much further than the 1960s. It dates back to the nineteenth century when a similar pelvic dance move was brought to America by slaves from the Congo. The lyric "Now anybody can learn the knack, put your hands on your hips and bend your back; stand in one spot nice and tight, and twist around, twist around with all of your might" is from a hit song called Mess Around by Perry Bradford in 1912.

2. Chubby Checker’s song, The Twist, was a cover version of a song released in 1958 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to Teardrops on Your Letter.

3. The song was inspired by the dance craze, rather than the song creating the craze.

4. The original recording of The Twist topped the Billboard charts twice, in 1960 and in 1962.

5. Chubby Checker released several follow up tunes with a twist theme, including Let’s Twist Again. Other artists jumped on the bandwagon with songs like Peppermint Twist (Joey Dee and the Starliters) and Twist and Shout (The Beatles).

6. The Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken were all dances inspired by The Twist but none of them were ever as popular.

7. A world record was set in DeLand, Florida, on October 11, 2012, when Chubby Checker sang the song live and 4,000 people twisted along.

8. The dance gets a mention in the Amazing Spiderman issue number 2, where Jameson tells Peter Parker to buy "twist records" with his money.

9. The song was added to the National Recording Registry in the US Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.

10. Feel inspired to have a go? Here’s how it’s done. Stand with feet hip width apart. Grind the feet as if you’re extinguishing a cigarette on the floor and move the body as if you’re drying yourself with a Towel. the dance can be varied in speed, intensity, and vertical height as necessary.

Character birthday

EmeraldEyes, daughter of Neutraliser, arrived on Earth on this date, brought by her uncle in the hope that she can live a free life here as her mother did. She was enrolled in school where she maintained a human image and used the name Suki. Fellow student Daniel Moran (Sword Keeper) had a huge crush on her, and had also encountered her in alien form, but didn’t realise the alien he’d met and Suki were one and the same at first. She joined his group of genetic variants in her alien form to fight the Power League and Sinister Squad. This story is told in Obsidian’s Ark.

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?

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

2 October: Xenon

Born this date in 1852 was Sir William Ramsay, chemist who discovered xenon. Here are ten things you might not know about xenon:

1. Xenon is a noble gas with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54.

2. It’s colourless, odourless, and tasteless.

3. William Ramsay was working with another chemist, Morris Travers. It was 1898 and a wealthy industrialist called Ludwig Mond had given them a new liquid-air machine, which was intended to help extract Krypton from liquid air. When they’d got the krypton, the two chemists noticed there was a heavier gas there as well, which emitted a beautiful Blue glow in a vacuum tube.

4. Ramsay suggested the name xenon from the Greek word meaning foreigner or stranger.

5. For a long time, scientists didn’t think noble gases ever formed compounds with other elements. Xenon was the first noble gas found to do so, in 1962. While teaching at the University of British Columbia, Neil Bartlett produced the first known compound of a noble gas, xenon hexafluoroplatinate. By 1971, more than 80 xenon compounds had been found.

6. It is only found in trace amounts in the Earth’s atmosphere. Other noble gases are more abundant and scientists have wondered why it’s so rare. There is a theory now that the missing xenon may actually be in the Earth’s core.

7. Some mineral springs emit xenon.

8. Some vehicle headlights use xenon. If you see headlights that give off a soft blue glow, they are probably made with xenon.

9. Xenon has been used as a general anaesthetic, but it is more expensive than conventional anaesthetics.

10. Liquid xenon is an excellent solvent. It can dissolve hydrocarbons, biological molecules, and even Water.

Character birthday

Slime Girl, aka Myra O’Donnell. She is a genetic variant whose skin exudes a toxic slime. She was taken in by Ultra Grav and the G Men and lives in the Darrowburn Mansion. Power neutralisers didn’t work because the slime would quickly dissolve them. The only substance found which wasn’t dissolved by the slime was a type of rubber. Myra must wear a body suit made from this rubber which collects the slime in a container which she needs to empty several times a day. In a combat situation, she can direct a jet of the slime at an attacker.

Fire in her Blood

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.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book