23 January: Thriller

On this date in 1984, Michael Jackson’s Thriller single was released. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. Thriller is a disco-funk song set in the key of C# minor, with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute.

2. It was written by the English songwriter Rod Temperton, who had previously written Rock with You and Off the Wall for Michael Jackson Temperton wrote the lyrics within "a couple of hours". He wrote Vincent Price’s bit in the taxi on the way to the studio for the recording session.

3. When Temperton started writing the song, he called it Starlight, Starlight Love or Starlight Sun. Quincy Jones didn’t like the title title, so Temperton came up with Midnight Man. Then he got a better idea, and the rest is history.

4. Thriller was the last of seven US Top 10 hits from the Thriller album. It wasn’t originally going to be released as a single, because Epic Records saw it as a novelty song.

5. The video was directed by John Landis and premiered on MTV on December 2, 1983. In the video, Jackson becomes a zombie and performs a dance routine with a horde of the undead. It was the first music video to be inducted into the National Film Registry.

6. The words at the end were spoken by Vincent Price, who managed to record his part in two takes. However, despite Thriller being one of the best selling records of all time, Price as paid less than $1000 for his contribution, and when he tried to raise this with Michael Jackson, the singer refused to take his calls.

7. Price's rap includes the line "Must stand and face the hounds of hell." This was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

8. Jackson, who was a Jehovah's Witness at the time, insisted on a disclaimer at the beginning of the video reading: "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult."

9. The album and video versions differ. On the album, the song begins with a series of spooky sound effects.

10. In 2008, it reached #35 in the UK after 1,227 people gathered in Nottingham on Halloween to perform the dance dressed as zombies. It has been a staple of the UK charts at Halloween ever since.

21 January: Hercule Poirot

On this date in 1921, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot made his first appearance in the UK when the novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published. Poirot stars in 33 novels, 51 short stories and 1 original full-length play by Agatha Christie. 10 things you might not know about Hercule Poirot

1. His name was derived from two other fictional detectives of the time: Marie Belloc Lowndes' Hercule Popeau and Frank Howel Evans' Monsieur Poiret, a retired French police officer living in London. Christie admitted that she was also influenced by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

2. Hercule Poirot is a retired Belgian police officer turned private detective. In case you’ve ever wondered why a retired Belgian policeman is solving murders in English country houses, Christie created the character around the time of the first world war, when the invasion of Belgium was the reason for Britain getting involved. Large numbers of Belgian refugees came to England, of which Poirot was one.

3. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Poirot’s old friend Hastings describes him thus: "He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an Egg, and he always perched it a little on one side…The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police." He uses a special preparation called ‘Revivit’ to conceal his grey hair.

4. The Poirot family home is in Spa, Belgium, though some believe he was born in a village called Ellezelles in the Belgian province of Hainaut. Not much was ever revealed about his childhood, except he came from a large and not very wealthy family, and he had a younger sister called Yvonne.

5. He has a sensitive stomach and suffers from sea sickness and air sickness when flying.

6. He’d almost certainly be diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder today. He’s known to have refused to eat an irregularly shaped loaf of bread, and cannot bear the fact that hen’s eggs aren’t all the same size (“What symmetry can there be on the breakfast table?") He is also particular about his personal finances, preferring to keep a bank balance of 444 pounds, 4 shillings, and 4 pence.

7. Poirot has been portrayed many times on screen. Actors who have played him include: Charles Laughton (the first to play him on stage in 1928), Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, John Malkovich, Kenneth Branagh, Alfred Molina and Orson Welles.

8. When asked what her favourite Poirot novel was, Agatha Christie, after some deliberation, declared it was probably Murder on the Orient Express. However, Christie got thoroughly tired of writing about Poirot and described him as a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep". However, since he was extremely popular with her readers, she refused to kill him off.

9. ITV had no such scruples, and did kill him off, from complications of a heart condition at the end of Curtain: Poirot's Last Case. He died, incidentally, at Styles Court, the location of his first appearance back in 1921. He was the first fictional character to have an obituary published in the New York Times. The front page headline read 'Hercule Poirot is dead. Famed Belgium detective, Hercule Poirot, dies.'

10. Hercule Poirot's first spoken words were 'Mon ami, Hastings!' His last spoken words (addressed to Hastings) were, 'Cher ami!'

22 January: Ruddigore

The Premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore took place on this date in 1887. This is my personal favourite having participated in a production of it as a student. 10 things you might not know:

1. The full title is Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse.

2. It was the tenth of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas.

3. The opening night wasn’t a great success. The audience compared it unfavourably with The Mikado, which preceded it. Some people actually booed and others heckled: “Take off this rot!” and “Give us back The Mikado.”

4. At this point the title was spelled Ruddygore, which didn’t help. Prudish Victorians thought it sounded too much like “bloody” which to them was a heinous swear word. So an "i" was substituted for the "y".

5. Gilbert himself admitted later that he’d considered changing the title completely to Kensington Gore, or Robin and Richard were two Pretty Men. Sullivan and Carte persuaded him to leave the title alone and merely alter the spelling.

6. The plot concerns a line of baronets living under a curse. The first baronet burned a Witch and as she died, she cursed him and his line, to the effect that if the baronet did not commit a crime every day he would die in agony, thus forcing every inheritor of the title to become a villain. Until one heir, Ruthven, runs away and lives as a simple farmer called Robin Oakapple to avoid the curse and leave his younger brother saddled with it. Robin is making romantic advances to a girl named Rose Maybud, but just as he seems to be getting somewhere, he’s ratted out by a sailor, Richard, who knows the truth. He comes home from sea and takes a fancy to Rose himself.

7. Robin is forced to become the latest villainous Murgatroyd and is haunted by his ancestors whose paintings come to life to taunt him. His brother, meanwhile, is free to pursue his childhood sweetheart, Margaret, who went mad after he, as the bad baronet, dumped her. Ruthven figures out how to foil the curse. If he deliberately fails to commit a crime each day, it’s tantamount to suicide. Suicide is a crime, so job done. He can live a virtuous life, marry Rose and live happily ever after.

8. Gilbert ranked Ruddigore along with Yeomen of the Guard and Utopia, Limited as one of his three favourite Savoy operas.

9. There have been numerous references in literature. The novels Murder and Sullivan by Sara Hoskinson Frommer and Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood are both set during a production of Ruddigore. The Ghosts' High Noon by John Dickson Carr was named for the song in Act 2. Isaac Asimov refers to it as well in a story called Runaround, in which a robot sings another song from the score, There Grew a Little Flower.

10. Ruddigore is usually set in the Regency period, but there has been a production set in the 1940s, the golden age of cinema in which incorporates film genres of the time, such as hard-boiled detective dramas, film noir, screwball comedies, and movie musicals and incorporates dialogue from classic movies.

20 January: Pins

Today is the feast day of St Sebastian, patron of pin makers. 10 things you might not know about pins:

1. Saint Sebastian is the patron of pin makers because he was sentenced by Diocletian to die by being tied to a stake and shot with arrows. He’s also the patron saint of archers, as it happens. Although he was shot full of arrows and left for dead, the arrows didn’t kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and found he was still alive. She took him home and nursed him back to health.

2. Pins have been used since Paleolithic times. Pins made of thorns and bone have been discovered dating back to this time. The Sumerians used pins made from iron and bone, not only to pin clothes but also to hold the pages of books together.

3. A pinners guild was first established in London in 1356.

4. John Ireland Howe of Derby, Connecticut invented a pin making machine in 1832. The factory he set up could produce 72,000 pins per day by 1839.

5. A pin is usually just over an inch long.

6. There are 3 predominant pin head finishes: T shape, ball head, and flat head.

7. The maxim, 'See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck' isn’t really about pins at all, but pennies. The rhyme was to extol the virtues of thrift, and the lesser known second line is ‘see a pin and let it lie, bad luck you'll have all day.’

8. Pincushions first appeared in the middle ages. Up until then, pins and needles would be stored in containers made of bone, ivory or Silver. A common shape for a pincushion is that of a Tomato. This arose because putting a ripe tomato on the mantle of a new home ensured prosperity and warded off evil spirits. Which was a potential bummer for a superstitious person who moved house outside of tomato season. Hence they made fabric tomatoes and stuffed them with sawdust. It wasn’t long before the women of such households discovered they were great for sticking pins into.

9. The infamous Pendle witch trials in 1612 started over a row about pins. A young woman named Alizon Device had need of some pins but no money to buy any, so she found an elderly pin seller called John Law, and asked if he’d give her some pins for free. He refused, so she cursed him. It just so happened that Law collapsed soon after from an apparent stroke. Whether it was stress from the argument, or the nocebo effect (if someone believes in a curse, it works, the opposite of the placebo effect) we’ll never know but it was the trigger for a whole lot of women being accused of witchcraft and executed.

10. While on the subject of witchcraft, sticking pins in a poppet or voodoo doll in order to cause harm to another person is a common spell. It wasn’t the only use a witch might put pins to, however. She (or he, let’s not be sexist here) might put them in a witch bottle, along with other sharp objects like thorns, Needles and broken Glass and fill the bottle up with urine. If cursed by another witch, they could “fire” the bottle and send the curse back at its sender.

19 January: The Archers

Today is Archery day. Archery has been covered already, so today I’m going to present ten facts about the world’s longest running Radio drama, the British radio soap, The Archers.

1. It was first broadcast nationwide on 1 January 1951. The first lines spoken were by Dan and Doris: Dan: "And a happy new year to you all." Doris: "A very happy new year, Dan." Dan: "Thanks, mother. If it's as good as the last 'un I'll be satisfied." Prior to that, though, there was a pilot episode which was broadcast on the Midlands Home Service on 29 May 1950. Back then, it was promoted as "an everyday story of country folk".

2. The creator of the show was Godfrey Baseley, who had produced Dick Barton for the BBC. It was originally intended to be a dramatised public information programme to help farmers increase production when food was still rationed in the UK. To this day there is still a lot of detail about what is going on on a farm at the current time of year.

3. The theme tune is Barwick Green from Arthur Wood’s suite My Native Heath. In 1972, the Somerset folk group The Yetties recorded a version which now accompanies the Sunday omnibus edition. Incidentally, Billy Connolly once suggested that this tune should be the UK National Anthem.

4. One of the suggested names for the village in the show was Little Twittington, but Ambridge was chosen in the end. Ambridge is in the fictional county of Borsetshire. The local ale is called Shires, regional Cheese is Borsetshire Blue and the Borchester Beauty is a variety of Apple. The village even has its own fake history: the parish church, St Stephen's, dates back to AD540, dedicated to St Stephen in 1291; and is recorded in the Domesday Book as "The Prior of St Mary's, Worcester, holds Ambridge with one berewick." The main farms in The Archers are Brookfied Farm, Bridge Farm, Home Farm and Grange Farm, and the pub is called The Bull. Incidentally, there’s a clear case of Nominative Determinism here as there has been a cook there called Freda Fry.

5. It takes just eight days to record five weeks of episodes, with each 13 minute episode taking two hours to record. The recording takes place in Birmingham, which is 20 miles from Ambridge. Most of the cast read their lines, apart from Ryan Kelly, who plays milkman Jazzer McCreary. He is blind and so he learns his lines beforehand.

6. Some of the sound effects you might hear include rustling straw (a box of reel to reel tape); a farm gate closing (an ironing board being collapsed swiftly. Incidentally, they’ve been using the same one since the 1950s); a lamb being born (the sound effects person squelching their hand in a pot of Yogurt, then throwing a wet towel on to some old audio tape). To make the sound of a cup of Tea being poured, freshly boiled water is used, because cold water has a different density and makes a different sound. This is Britain after all, and listeners would be able to tell the difference!

7. Phil Archer, portrayed by Norman Painting, may be the character with the longest storyline. Originally involved as an agricultural storyline researcher for The Archers of Wimberton Farm, he turned his hand to acting and ended up in the Guinness Book of Records for playing the same role, without a break, for more than 50 years. This isn’t to say he didn’t want a break. He also wrote some of the scripts, 1,198 to be exact, between 1966 and 1982 under the pen name Bruno Milna. He tried several times to kill his character off but presumably some editor somewhere always vetoed it. He was a composer, too. He wrote Phil Archer's favourite hymn, Waiting for a Wonder, and played the organ on air when Phil was playing the organ.

8. The first Archers birth was on 16 February 1951, when Peggy Archer (now Woolley) gave birth to her son Tony. The first death was on 22 September 1955 when Grace Archer died after trying to save her Horses from a fire. 20 million people listened to that episode. BBC executives claimed it was pure coincidence that this episode was broadcast on the night ITV was launched. The first woman to be sent to jail in Ambridge was Susan Carter, on December 23, 1993 for harbouring her brother after an armed robbery. Some listeners actually appealed to the Home Secretary to help get her out. The first major disaster was in 1952 when a jet crashed into a lower field of Brookfield Farm. The first murder in Ambridge is yet to happen. It’s a much safer place to live than Midsomer, then.

9. Storylines are planned up to 20 years in advance. Yes, there are people out there who know what will happen in the Archers in 2044! That said, scriptwriters have the flexibility to re-write episodes at the last minute in response to real life events. The 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth, the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen Mother and the engagement of Prince William have all prompted last minute changes to the script.

10. Guest stars appearing as themselves have included Princess Margaret, Sir Bradley Wiggins, John Peel, Sir Terry Wogan, Britt Ekland, Dame Edna Everage, Alan Titchmarsh, and the Pet Shop Boys. Elvis, Madonna and Marilyn also appeared. They were the names of three peacocks who used to live at The Bull.

18 January: Lima, Peru

On this date in 1535, Francisco Pizarro founded Lima, Peru. 10 things you might not know about Peru’s capital city:

1. Lima is the fifth largest city in South America. It covers a total area of 2,672 square km (1,032 square miles) and has a population of around 10 million people.

2. The name comes from the Quecha word Limaq, which means "talker" or "speaker". There was once a famous oracle based in the area. The oracle was destroyed by the Spanish and replaced with a church, but the name persisted.

3. Pizzaro named his new city “The City of Kings” or “La Ciudad de Los Reyes”. This might have been because it was founded around the time of the Epiphany holiday (in the Julian Calendar) also known as Three Kings Day. Others claim that he actually named the city in honour of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and his mother, Joanna of Castile.

4. It is situated on a desert strip squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains. This means it is the second largest desert city in the world after Cairo in Egypt. 80% of the Water supply comes from the Rimac River, which runs across Lima, although without canals built by ancient civilizations water supply would potentially be even more of an issue. As it is, 8% of the population has no access to drinking water.

5. Lima never actually experiences heavy Rain – only drizzle.

6. It’s the only South American capital to be built overlooking the sea.

7. A huge wall was erected around the entire city in 1658 to defend Lima from pirates.

8. One of the world’s smallest churches can be found here. The 17^th century Chapel Our Lady of the Rosary – Nuestra Señora del Rosario is located in Rimac in downtown Lima and measures 4.8 metres (16 ft) wide, 11.8 metres (39 ft long) and 9.7 metres (32 ft) tall.

9. There is a museum in the city dedicated to the Spanish Inquisition. (Bet you weren’t expecting that!)

10. Black Vultures, or gallinazos as the locals call them, are very common here. The city authorities make use of the birds by fitting cameras to them in order to catch people who fly tip or dump illegally.

17 January: Muhammad Ali

This date in 1942 saw the birth of Muhammad Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay). 10 facts about him:

1. The boxer Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky and was originally named Cassius Clay after his father, who had in turn been named for a white abolitionist. The original Cassius Clay was a wealthy 19th-century planter and politician who published an anti-slavery newspaper. However, there was evidence that in spite of arguing against slavery, Clay kept slaves on his family estate. At least part of Ali’s reason for changing his name was to dissociate himself from that.

2. He got into boxing after his Bicycle was stolen as a child. The police officer he reported the crime to happened to be a boxing trainer, who suggested the boy took up boxing.

3. He was embroiled in a court case lasting for years because he refused to serve in the Vietnam War. By this time he had converted to Islam and refused on religious grounds. He was arrested and stripped of his boxing license and heavyweight title. On June 20, 1967, he was convicted of draft evasion and banned from fighting. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned his conviction in 1971.

4. During his suspension from boxing, Ali took up acting in New York for a brief time and starred in a Broadway show called Big Time Buck White. The play ran for five nights at the George Abbot Theatre in New York.

5. In 1976, Ali recorded The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay, an album made to warn children about consuming too much Sugar.

6. He was a writer and artist as well. Despite having dyslexia, he wrote several bestselling books about his career, including The Greatest: My Own Story and The Soul of a Butterfly. He’d compose verses with which to taunt his opponents in the ring and hence earned the nickname the ‘Louisville Lip’. In 1963, he recorded a spoken word album called I Am the Greatest. In 2021, 26 of his drawings and arts were placed on auction and sold for close to $1 Million.

7. He threw his Olympic gold medal in a river in 1960. Returning home from Rome, he was refused service in a diner because of his race, even though he was wearing the medal he’d won for representing his country at the time. He wrote in his autobiography that he was so angry about it that he threw the medal off a bridge into the Ohio River. He was given a replacement medal when he lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

8. He starred in a DC comic in 1978, in which he defeats Superman and saves the world.

9. In 1981, when a man threatened to jump from the ninth story of a building in L.A. Ali’s friend Howard Bingham called the boxer, who lived nearby. Ali successfully talked the man down from the ledge.

10. In 1984, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, which can result from head trauma. He was 42. He died in 2016 aged 74. His headstone reads "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room in heaven".