19 December: Edith Piaf

Born on this date in 1915 was the French singer Edith Piaf. Here are some facts about her life.

1. Her real name was Édith Giovanna Gassion.
2. Her father was a street performer and acrobat from Normandy and her mother a café singer. There is a legend that Edith was born on a pavement in Paris, but her birth certificate gives a Paris hospital as her place of birth. Her mother abandoned her soon after she was born, leaving her in the care of her father. This pattern would repeat when, 17 years later, Edith had a daughter who she herself abandoned to the father's care. The daughter, Marcelle, died of meningitis at two. It is said Piaf slept with a man in order to pay for Marcelle's funeral.
3. Edith's father, too, abandoned her although not permanently. He enlisted to fight in World War I, leaving Edith with her grandmothers. Her paternal grandmother ran a brothel in Normandy, where the prostitutes who worked there helped take care of her.
4. She was blind between the ages of three and seven, thanks to a bout of keratitis, a painful eye inflammation. She was taken on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Edith always believed she was healed of her eye troubles by a miracle.
5. At 14, she was performing in the street with her father, but by 17 had struck out on her own, performing with a friend instead. She was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, who persuaded her to sing at his club. It was he who gave her her nickname, La Môme Piaf (Paris slang meaning "The Waif Sparrow" or "The Little Sparrow").
6. When Leplée was murdered a year later, Piaf was questioned as an accessory. Although acquitted, this didn't do her career much good. To rehabilitate her image, she recruited Raymond Asso, who changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf".
7. She was only four feet ten inches in height, (1.47 metres) and slightly built.
8. In the Second World War, she was accused of being a German collaborator, since the occupying forces had allowed her, even encouraged her, to carry on performing, and many of them went to hear her sing. She also sang at German prisoner of war camps. These performances, although sanctioned by the Germans, helped raise the captured soldiers’ morale. After the war, Oiaf and her friends claimed that she'd actually been a member of the French Resistance, and had helped a Jewish friend to escape.
9. The love of her life was said to be the boxer Marcel Cerdan, middleweight champion of the world, died in a plane crash in October 1949 while flying to meet her. She married Jacques Pills in 1952 (Marlene Dietrich was her matron of honour). However, the marriage only lasted four years before she divorced him and married Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser who was 20 years younger than she was.
10. She struggled with numerous health issues including alcohol and drug addictions, arthritis, insomnia, chronic stomach ulcers, a failing liver, and chronic pain from injuries sustained in three separate car accidents. She died of cancer aged just 47. Her last words were, “every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.” So many thousands of her fans turned out for her funeral that they caused a traffic jam in Paris.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

18 December: The Nutcracker Suite

On this date in 1892 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Christmas favourite The Nutcracker Suite premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia. 10 things you might not know about The Nutcracker Suite.

1. The ballet is based on a story called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman. The original story was quite dark and hardly suitable to become a children's Christmas classic. Alexandre Dumas wrote a lighter adaptation of it, and it's his version the ballet was based on.
2. Imperial Russian Ballet choreographer Marius Petipa wanted to produce a ballet based on the tale, and commissioned Tchaikovsky to write the music.
3. The plot is as follows: In the first act, the Stahlbaum family hold a Christmas party at which they decorate their Tree and exchange gifts. One of the guests is a council official and toymaker, Drosselmeyer, who brings gifts including dancing dolls and a nutcracker shaped like a little man. Most of the kids aren't interested much in the latter, but one of them, Clara, particularly likes it and is heartbroken when her brother Fritz breaks it. Clara gets up in the middle of the night to check on it, and as the clock strikes midnight, the toys come to life and the room is flooded by Mice, led by the Mouse King. They start to eat the Gingerbread soldiers and a battle begins, with the Nutcracker leading the soldiers. Clara joins in, throwing her slipper at the Mouse King which distracts him long enough for the Nutcracker to stab him. The Nutcracker is transformed into a handsome prince, who transports Clara to his forest kingdom.
4. The second act takes place in the Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. Sweets from around the world perform dances in honour of Clara. Performers include chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, candy canes from Russia, Danish shepherdesses, Mother Ginger and her children, flowers, and finally, the Sugar Plum Fairy herself and her Cavalier. After the performance, Clara and the prince ride away in a sleigh pulled by Reindeer.
5. The Nutcracker ballet premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on December 18, 1892. It was conducted by Riccardo Drigo. The dancers included Antoinetta Dell-Era as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Pavel Gerdt as her prince. Stanislava Belinskaya played Clara, Sergei Legat played the Nutcracker prince and Timofei Stukolkin played Uncle Drosselmeyer. The children were students of the Imperial Ballet School of St. Petersburg.
6. It wasn't the resounding success at first that one might expect. Critical reactions to the premiere were mixed. Some critics called it "astonishingly rich in detailed inspiration", but others disliked the fact that the children were played by actual children, that they didn't see the principal ballerina's Sugar Plum Fairy dance until almost the end, and used words like "ponderous" and "insipid". The musical score had been performed as a concert several months before the ballet's premiere, in March 1892. The critics had liked that much more than they did the ballet.
7. One reason the critics might have been cranky was because the ballet was a double bill with an opera, Iolanta. This meant the whole show went on until after midnight.
8. Tchaikovsky himself wasn’t happy with his score. He felt Marius Petipa's strict guidelines stifled his creativity so he didn't really enjoy writing it. Tchaikovsky thought his Sleeping Beauty was infinitely better.
9. The music introduced a new instrument to audiences - the celesta, a type of piano. Tchaikovsky used it as the “voice” of the Sugar Plum Fairy because of its clear tone. He also used children's toys as instruments in keeping with the tale as a children's story.
10. It was 42 years, in 1934, before the ballet was performed in full outside Russia, in England, although a short version had been performed in Budapest seven years earlier. It was another ten years before Americans got to see it, in San Francisco in 1944. It didn't reach New York until 1954. However, people in America had heard some of the music already, since Disney had used some of it in the animated film Fantasia.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

17 December: Christmas baubles

If you celebrate Christmas and have a tree, no doubt you'll be hanging some baubles on it. Here are ten things you might not know about the baubles you hang on your tree.

1. Baubles first appeared in Britain in 1848. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were photographed beside their Christmas Tree, decorated with, among other things, glass baubles.
2. Prince Albert had brought the tradition over from Germany. They were made in a town called Lauscha, in the mountains, which was already known for making things out of Glass, such as marbles, barometers and glass eyes. The demand for glass baubles Prince Albert sparked off meant the industry of making ornaments for Christmas trees and exporting them boomed.
3. The process of making such objects from glass actually originated in the 16^th century, pioneered by a man named Hans Greiner.
4. Artisans heated a glass tube over a flame, then inserted the tube into a clay mold, blowing the heated glass to expand into the shape of the mold. Silver nitrate would be added as the glass cooled. The original ornaments were only in the shape of fruits and nuts.
5. To this day, there is a Christmas market in the town which specialises in selling baubles.
6. In America, FW Woolworth became the main importer in 1880. The craze for these new tree decorations made him rich.
7. The inspiration for the very first baubles was blown birds' eggs, which could be painted and hung on a tree.
8. Today, baubles are far more likely to be made of plastic than glass, making them more affordable, but you can still get the glass ones, including very valuable antiques.
9. They're also more likely to have been made in America than in Germany nowadays as America became the main manufacturer after the second world war. This started when two companies called Corning Glass and Shiny Brite teamed up and started using the machines they usually used to make light bulbs to make baubles.
10. Former US President George W Bush had a talent for painting pictures of birds onto baubles.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

16 December: Jane Austen

On this date in 1775, Jane Austen was born. Here are 10 things you might not know about the English novelist.

1. Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire. Her father was a clergyman and she had six brothers and one sister, Cassandra. Two of her brothers reached high ranks in the navy. Another brother, George, didn't live with the family. He suffered from epilepsy and learning difficulties and may have been deaf. He was looked after by another family, paid for by the Austens. This may have been because, with seven siblings, plus boys boarding there to be tutored by their father, the Rectory may have been too much for him.
2. Jane was very close to her sister, Cassandra. As a child, she wrote stories about her. One of Austen’s first stories was called The Beautifull [sic] Cassandra, in which the heroine shoplifts a hat and punches a cook. When Cassandra was sent away to be tutored by a Mrs Ann Cawley, Jane went with her, even though she was only seven at the time.
3. While they were there, both Jane and Cassandra became very ill with “putrid sore throat” – probably diphtheria. Jane almost died, but Mrs Cawley didn't even let Mrs Austen know. It was Jane's cousin, Jane Cooper, another pupil, who wrote to Jane's mother with the news. Mrs Austen and her sister Mrs Cooper set off for Southampton to collect their daughters. The Austen sisters recovered under their mother’s care at home but tragically Mrs Cooper caught the infection and died soon afterwards at her home in Bath. Had Jane Cooper not alerted them, however, it's likely Jane Austen would have died.
4. Jane never married, but her life wasn't completely devoid of romance. She had a relationship with a man named Tom Lefroy, but the relationship ended because if he'd married Jane, a “nobody”, he would have lost his inheritance. There was holiday romance in Devon with an unnamed clergyman who died suddenly before he had the chance to propose. Jane did get one proposal, from the brother of some of her friends while she was staying with them. His name was Harris Bigg-Wither. Jane accepted at first – she'd known him a long time, he was well off and it might be her last chance to marry. However, she changed her mind overnight and turned him down in the morning. We don't know for sure why. Perhaps because he was, according to Jane's niece Caroline Austen, “very plain in person - awkward, and even uncouth in manner” or perhaps she just didn't fancy being Mrs Bigg-Wither! Quite likely, she decided she didn't love him, and, as she wrote in one of her letters, “nothing can be compared to the misery of being bound without Love.”
5. She named her characters after her people in her mother's family tree, mostly people connected with the Wentworth family of Yorkshire. Once she'd finished a novel, too, she didn't forget about the characters and had a good idea in her head how their lives panned out after the end of the book. For example, Kitty Bennet eventually married a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary ended up with a clerk who worked for her Uncle Philips. We know this from the memoir written by one of her nephews.
6. Jane is known for her association with the city of Bath. The family moved there when her father retired. Jane, as an unmarried daughter, would have had no say in this. She was simply expected to move with them, from the home she'd grown up in. It's often said that Jane hated Bath and was so depressed there that she stopped writing for a couple of years. Others speculate that wasn't the case at all, but that in the city, there was a much busier social scene and Jane didn't have time to write.
7. Knowledge about Jane's life is somewhat patchy. There's a lot of speculation and things we simply don't know. This is because her sister destroyed many of Jane's letters to her after she died, and cut chunks out of the ones she kept. Nobody knows why she did this. Again there is speculation that perhaps Jane wasn't the sweet, popular maiden aunt her family liked to remember, and her letters contained some acerbic comments about some family members. Subsequent generations destroyed still more of her letters.
8. She was known for being very good with her hands, excelling at sewing, making envelopes and a game called bilbocatch, which involved catching a ball in a cup. When Jane needed a break from writing, she'd play this game and was known to have caught the ball more than 100 times in succession.
9. Jane died at the age of 41 after a long illness. The cause of her death isn't known but modern doctors speculate it could have been Addison's disease or Hodgkin's lymphoma. She continued to work in spite of her illness, and dismissed her condition as "bile" and rheumatism. As her illness progressed, however, she experienced difficulty walking and lacked energy and was confined to bed. She is buried at Winchester Cathedral, mainly because she died nearby and her brother was a clergyman who could have arranged for her to be buried there. Her family didn't even think it was worth mentioning on her gravestone that she was a writer.
10. Jane Austen's novels are loved by many people, not only romantically inclined women. She had plenty of male fans, too, including at least two British Prime Ministers. Harold Macmillan read her novels and Winston Churchill even credited her with helping him win World War II. Rudyard Kipling and Sir Walter Scott were also big fans. However, others didn't like her – Mark Twain and DH Lawrence hated her books with a passion. ‘Everytime I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone,’ wrote Mark Twain.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

15 December: Muriel Rukeyser Quotes

Muriel Rukeyser, US poet, was born on 15 December 1913. Here are ten quotes.

1. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
2. If we look long enough and hard enough ... we will begin to see the connections that bind us together, and when we recognize those connections, we will begin to change the world.
3. Let us not fear the hidden. Or each other.
4. Whatever can happen to anyone can happen to me.
5. One writes in order to feel.
6. Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.
7. What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.
8. What three things can never be done? Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone.
9. Moment to moment, we can grow, if we can bring ourselves to meet the moment with our lives.
10. O for God's sake, they are connected underneath. #Islands.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

14 December: Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole

On this date in 1911 Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole 35 days before Captain Scott. Here are 10 things you might not know about his expedition.

1. First, a little about Roald Amundsen himself. He was born in Fredrikstad (around 80 km from Christiania (now Oslo)), Norway, in 1872. His father was a ship owner. He began studying medicine at Christiania University but dropped out to become a sailor. When not at sea, he'd go cross country Skiing.
2. His original plan wasn't to go to the South Pole at all. His lifelong ambition was to be the first to go to the North Pole. That was what his crew signed up for, and what the man who provided his ship expected him to do. However, when Amundsen heard someone else had got to the North Pole before him, he changed his plans.
3. He didn't tell anyone about the change except for his brother and his second in command. When his ship, the Fram, sailed in August 1910, most people aboard still thought they were going to the North Pole and must have wondered why they were headed south, to Madeira. It was only when they got there that they were told where they were actually going. He told them they were still going to the North Pole but were making a “detour” to the South Pole on the way. He did ask if they were willing to continue, and all of them agreed. Amunsen wrote, "Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes. The area around the North Pole—devil take it—had fascinated me since childhood, and now here I was at the South Pole. Could anything be more crazy?"
4. Why so much secrecy? A lot of the funding which had been secured had been given specifically for exploration in the Arctic, as had the ship. Amundsen obviously believed in the principle that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. He was also afraid the Norwegian parliament would stop him from going, in case it offended Britain, who were also planning an expedition to the pole. Even so, it became harder and harder to get the rest of the funds he needed. People had lost interest in an expedition to the North Pole, so Amundsen mortgaged his house. He was heavily in debt, and would have been financially ruined if the expedition had failed.
5. Who went with him? There was a party of 19, all of which Amundsen had personally selected, except for one, Hjalmar Johansen, who was included at the request of the owner of the ship. Johansen had failed to settle down after his last journey and had been drinking heavily. His former boss wanted him to have a last chance to prove himself. Amundsen reluctantly agreed, although Amundsen ultimately excluded Johansen from the party of five who went to the Pole, because he'd been "violently insubordinate". Only two of the party were not from Norway - the Russian oceanographer Alexander Kuchin and a Swedish engineer, Knut Sundbeck.
6. The expedition's doctor, Hjalmar Fredrik Gjertsen, had no medical experience other than a crash course in dentistry and surgery before they set off.
7. Amundsen was do desperate to beat Scott to the Pole that he set off from his base camp, Framheim, too soon, in September. The temperature was still too low - −56 °C (−69 °F). While the party could cope with that while on the move, it was impossible to sleep at night and the sled dogs had frostbitten paws. Amundsen made the decision to turn back. They set out again on 19 October 1911.
8. Amundsen took 100 sled Dogs with him. He believed sleds pulled by dogs would be the best means of transport across the terrain, and didn't understand why the British expedition weren't using them. Sadly, only eleven dogs survived. A number froze to death, and still more were eaten. Part of the thinking in using dogs was that, as well as pulling the sleds, they could be slaughtered for meat to feed both men and the remaining dogs. About 27 dogs suffered that fate, even though the sled drivers had grown fond of them and Amundsen wrote in his diary about the “depression and sadness in the air” when they reached the point where they had to kill the dogs.
9. They reached the Pole on 14 December 1911, while looking out for any signs that Scott had got there before them. For a moment, they thought he had when they spotted something dark in the Snow – but it turned out to be dog poo from one of their own dogs. On reaching the pole, the planted the Norwegian flag and pitched camp, a couple of kilometers from it, naming the camp Polheim, or “Home at the Pole”. They left the tent and flags behind, but they're now buried under all the snow that's fallen since and nobody knows where they are. The team made extensive calculations to make sure they'd got the position of the Pole absolutely right (after going to all that trouble, they didn't want to get it wrong). They left equipment and letters for Scott's party to find including a letter addressed to King Haakon which he asked Scott to deliver.
10. The Pole wasn't the only achievement. Johansen and two others were sent to King Edward VII Land to try and find the point where the land began, surprisingly tricky when both land and sea are covered by so much ice. They collected geological specimens and samples of mosses, and had a look around before returning to Framheim on 16 December. They were the first men to set foot on King Edward VII Land.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

13 December: Saint Lucy

Today is the feast day of St Lucy, also known as Saint Lucia of Syracruse. 10 things you didn't know about Saint Lucy.

1. All we know for certain about Saint Lucy is that she was born in 283 AD in Syracuse, Sicily, and was martyred during the persecution of Christians in the early fourth century.
2. She was, the church assumed, a brave young woman, and people wanted to know her story – since they didn't, people made things up and legends sprung up around her. In one such story she was helping Christians hide in the catacombs from the Roman Emperor Diocletian. In order to carry as many supplies to them as she could, she attached candles to a wreath on her head so she could have both hands free.
3. The story of her martyrdom is as follows. Lucy's mother, a non-Christian, had arranged for Lucy to marry a rich man. Lucy, of course, didn't want to. Despite not being a Christian, Lucy's mother went with her to pray at the tomb of Saint Agatha. While they were there, Lucy's mother was cured of a longstanding medical condition which was enough to convince her to convert to Christianity. As a Christian, Lucy's mother cancelled the marriage and let Lucy give her dowry to the poor. Her prospective bridegroom was somewhat miffed to say the least and reported her to the local governor for being a Christian.
4. When the guards came to carry her to a brothel where she'd be sentenced to forced prostitution, they couldn't lift her. They brought a team of oxen and tried to drag her but to no avail. In the end, the legend says, not even a thousand men and fifty oxen could move her.
5. Before her death, Lucy was tortured. The legend lists various tortures such as being burned alive, having a spear thrust through her throat to stop her prophesying doom for the governor and the emperor (which didn't work) and having her eyes gouged out (which is why she is often pictured holding a dish with two eyes on it). When her body was being prepared for burial, they discovered her eyes had been restored. There is an alternative version of the legend in which Lucy gouges her own eyes out, because a persistent pagan suitor admired them.
6. As well as eyes on a dish, she is often pictured holding a palm branch, which is a symbol of victory over evil.
7. As well as being patron of the blind, Lucy is also patron of martyrs, salesmen, writers, glaziers, labourers, peasants and saddlers. Places she is patron of include Perugia in Italy, Mtarfa in Malta, Syracuse, Italy, and the Philippines. She is invoked against hemorrhages, dysentery, epidemics, diseases of the eye, and throat infections.
8. According to Sigebert, a monk of Gembloux, Lucy's body lay in Sicily for 400 years until Faroald II, Duke of Spoleto, seized the island and transferred Lucy's remains to Abruzzo. It was later removed by Emperor Otho I in 972 to Metz and left in the church of St. Vincent. After that, nobody is quite sure what happened to it, but as with many saints, a number of places claim to have bits of her, including Rome, Naples, Verona, Lisbon, Milan, Germany, France and Sweden. Most of her body is still in Venice, although in 1981, her relics were stolen. Police recovered them on her feast day, five weeks after the robbery.
9. Her name means “light” which seems rather coincidental given the legends about her wearing candles on her head and losing her eyes. Add to that the fact that, in the Julian Calendar, the shortest day of the year would fall around her feast day on 13 December.
10. Another coincidence is that in Scandinavia, there was a pagan celebration known as Lussinatta, or Lussi Night, held on the same day. Lussi was a female witch or demon who would ride through the air with her followers, so it was a dangerous night to go out. Staying in wasn't necessarily safe, either, since Lussi could come down the chimney and kidnap naughty children. The whole household might be in for it if they hadn't completed certain tasks in preparation for Yule. Therefore, everyone had to stay awake and be vigilant (although in modern times, they tend to throw an all night party).

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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