22 October: Deepak Chopra Quotes

Born on this dare in 1946 was spiritual author Deepak Chopra. Here are some quotes from him:

1. In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
2. The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.
3. Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given.
4. Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment.
5. Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it's realistic or not.
6. The greatest mystery of existence is existence itself.
7. Modern medicine, for all its advances, knows less than 10 percent of what your body knows instinctively.
8. There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.
9. Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.
10. No solution can ever be found by running in three different directions.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

21 October: Can Can Day

Today is Can-Can Day. In 1858 the Can-Can was first performed as Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld premièred in Paris.

1. No-one really knows the origins of the can-can, but one likely explanation is that it evolved from the quadrille, a social dance for four couples (which is, incedentally, an English dance).
2. It was heavily influenced by a popular entertainer of the 1820s, one Charles Mazurier, who was known for his acrobatics during dances. In the 1830s, it was being performed in dance halls under the name "chahut", which means "uproar".
3. It's thought the name can-can comes from the French verb "cancaner" meaning "to quack", because the dancers were known for wiggling their bottoms like a duck. "Cancan" was also French slang for gossip or scandal.
4. The can-can is nowadays associated with a line of female dancers, but in its early days, it was danced by men, as well. Originally, too, there would be one individual performer, rather than a chorus line.
5. It was the Americans who popularised the form of a group of women performing the can-can, in music halls. In the 1920s, this format was imported back to France.
6. In the 19th century, women wore pantalettes, underwear with an open crotch. There's no evidence that can-can dancers wore anything different; so it's not surprising the can-can was considered scandalous back then.
7. While people could be arrested for performing the can-can, and sermons were preached in church against it, there's no evidence that it was ever actually banned.
8. One of the most famous can-can dancers was Louise Weber, who started out at 16. Her early costumes were "borrowed" from her mother's laundry - rich ladies had sent them there to be washed. She was a muse of the artist Renoir and became the highest paid performer at the Moulin Rouge. She was nicknamed "La Goulue" meaning "the Glutton" because during her performances, she'd snatch up the drinks of members of the audience and down them in one. Another thing she'd do was remove gentlemen's hats by kicking them off.
9. The best known can-can music is by Jacques Offenbach, It was written as the gallop infernal for his opera, Orpheus in the Underworld. The dance also features inPoncielli's La Gioconda and Franz Lehar's operetta, The Merry Widow.
10. The dance has featured in a number of films, including Cancan, a 1955 film in which a cafe owner revives the cancan in his struggling cafe; Can-Can (in English the word is hyphenated, in French it is not) a 1960 film starring Frank Sinatra which included the song I love Paris; and more recently, the 2001 film Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman.

NEW!

Golden Thread

Terry Kennedy is inexplicably and inexorably drawn to the small town of Fiveswood as a place to live and work after university. He is sure he has never visited the town before, but when he arrives there, it seems oddly familiar.

Fiveswood has a rich and intriguing history. Local legends speak of giants, angels, wolves, a local Robin Hood, but most of all, a knight in golden armour. Fiveswood's history also has a dark side - mysterious deaths blamed on the plague, a ghostly black panther, and a landslide which buried the smugglers' caves.

Terry buys an apartment in The Heights, a house which has been empty for decades, since the previous owner disappeared. Now he has finally been declared dead, developers have moved in and turned it into six flats. Terry has the odd feeling he has lived in this enigmatic house before. But that is not all. Since childhood, Terry has had recurring, disturbing dreams which have been increasing in frequency so that now, he has them almost every night. To his dismay, the people from his nightmares are his new neighbours.

Except, that is, for Eleanor Millbrook. She is refreshingly unfamiliar. After Terry saves her from a mysterious attacker, they become close. However, Terry's nightmares encroach more and more on his waking life, until they lead him to a devastating discovery about who he really is.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

20 October: A Day

A-Day was 20 October 1944, the day the Leyte Island Operation (the invasion of Leyte) began. 10 facts about the letter A.

1. It derives from the Greek letter alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Still further back it has roots in Aleph, the first letter of the Phoenecian alphabet, which in turn probably derived from a picture of an ox's head in Egyptian hieroglyphs.
2. Alpha is still used to denote A in the NATO phonetic alphabet. The Morse Code for A is ".-".
3. There are two ways to write a lower case letter A. "a" or "a". The former is called a double-storey a and the latter a single storey.
4. There are at least seven different vowel sounds that the letter a can represent in the English language (eg as in Bad, Father, Square, Water, What etc).
5. It is the third most commonly used letter in the English language after e and t. In Spanish and French it is the second most commonly used letter.
6. In mathematical equations, a is usually used to represent a known quantity whereas the letters at the end of the alphabet, x,y, and z, are used to represent unkown ones.
7. The origin of the @ symbol, which contains a letter a, isn't known but most theories suggest it was first used as a kind of shorthand for "at" to save space in documents and ledgers. It has been used to represent a unit of weight in Spain and Portugal called the arroba, and to mean "at the rate of" in commercial documents. Today, of course, its most common use is as part of an e-mail address.
8. An upper case A inside a circle is the symbol for anarchy.
9. In 1968, artist Andy Warhol published a book called a, A Novel. Other literary uses of the letter include "A", a poem by Louis Zukofsky, A is for Aliba, and the first in Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mystery series. Matthew Arnold and Alexander Pope both used "A" as a pseudonym and Isaac Asimov used "Dr.A".
10. In music, several artists have named one of their albums "A", in cluding Agnetha Faltskog and Jethro Tull. Songs named "A" have been recorded by Rainbow and Barenaked Ladies. Vinyl singles had an A side, which was usually the hit, with a lesser known (or publicised) song on the B side. Some records were "double A-sides" in which both tracks would get publicity and plays on air.

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?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

19 October: Electricity Day

19 October is Electricity Day. Here are ten quotes about electricity.

1. If it weren't for electricity, we'd all be watching television by candlelight. George Gobal
2. Electricity is the power that causes all natural phenomena not known to be caused by something else. Ambrose Bierce
3. And God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected. Spike Milligan
4. Electricity is really just organised lightning. George Carlin
5. There is a force more powerful than steam and electricity: the will. Fernán Caballero
6. Love is like electricity sometimes; it may shock you anytime, yet you cannot live without it. Munia Khan
7. In 1850, William Gladstone asked Michael Faraday why electricity was valuable. Faraday answered, “One day sir, you may tax it.”
8. We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles. Thomas A. Edison
9. What is a soul? It's like electricity - we don't really know what it is, but it's a force that can light a room. Ray Charles
10. Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money. Earl Wilson

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?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

18 October: Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald, the presumed US assassin of President John F Kennedy, was born on this date in 1939. Some facts about him:

1. He was born in New Orleans on October 18 1939.
2. His father, Robert, was a marine who'd served in the first world war, and was a distant cousin of the Confederate general, Robert E Lee. He died of a heart attack before his son was born.
3. As a child he was of average intelligence and was bad at spelling, although he was good at reading. He also showed violent tendencies from a young age, being thrown out of his half brother's apartment for hitting his mother and threatening his brother's wife with a knife. He often skipped school and was assessed by a psychiatrist as having "schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies".
4. He was 5'8 in (1.73m) tall and weighed 135 pounds (61kg) and had hazel eyes and brown hair. Because he was slightly built, he got the nickname Ozzie Rabbit. He also got called "Osvaldovitch" because of his interest in Russia.
5. He left school at 17 to join the marines. He never graduated. He was under age when he joined and his half brother had to sign papers as his legal guardian. It was in the marines that he learned how to shoot and at one point scored highly enough to be designated a "sharpshooter".
6. While in the Marines, he decided to teach himself Russian. At the age of 20, he travelled to Russia on a tourist visa and told his guide he was a communist and wanted to become a Soviet citizen. He was turned down, and to avoid being escourted onto a plane home, he shot himself in the wrist. This got him detained in hospital under psychiatric observation. When he was let go, he tried for citizenship again, hinting that, as a former Marine, he might have some useful information. This time, he was allowed to stay and was sent to Minsk to work in an electronics factory. It was only when he'd acquired a wife (Marina) and a child (June) that he applied to go back to the US, where Oswald was said to be disappointed by the lack of attention he got from the press on his return.
7. He'd tried to assassinate somebody before Kennedy. The person in question was a right-wing army officer called Edwin Walker. Oswald kept a book of plans for killing Walker which included photos of Walker's house. He fired shots into Walker's house, but missed him. It was only after the Kennedy assassination that the bullets were matched to Oswald's gun.
8. He wasn't arrested for shooting Kennedy, but for shooting a police officer called J.D. Tippit. It was only later that the he was charged for killing Kennedy as well.
9. According to people who knew him, Oswald didn't passionately hate JFK. In fact, he actually agreed with him on some issues, like civil rights. However, he was angry about the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and did hate the American system, of which Kennedy was a symbol.
10. According to James Leavelle, the police officer who escorted Oswald from his cell the day he was shot, Oswald didn't believe anyone would bother to shoot him. He laughed off a suggestion by Leavelle that he hoped anyone who tried to shoot him was "as good a shot as you are" so they'd not hit Leavelle by mistake. Oswald accused him of being melodramatic.

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?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

17 October: Hair, the Musical

On this date in 1967, the rock musical Hair opened in New York. 10 things you might not know about the show:

1. Hair was written by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, and the music was composed by Galt MacDermot.
2. The name for the show was inspired by a painting by pop artist Jim Dine, of a comb with a few strands of hair.
3. A number of stars appeared in Hair before they were famous, including Diane Keaton, Peter Gallagher and Meat Loaf. Another was Melba Moore, who at first, when asked if she'd like to do Hair on Broadway, refused because she thought she was being offered a job as a hairdresser.
4. For the London production, a young David Bowie auditioned four times, but didn't get a part. Elaine Paige and Paul Nicholas, however, did star in the London production. So did Richard O'Brien and Tim Curry, who went on to write The Rocky Horror Show.
5. The characters in the show are a "tribe" of political activist hippies who've grown their hair long in defiance of conservative values. They want peace, love and sexual freedom. The protagonist, Claude Berger, however, faces a battle with his parents, who want him to fight in Vietnam. Which would also mean, of course, that he'd have to cut his hair.
6. One of the things the show was famous for was its nude scene - based on something which really happened in Central Park, New York. However, the first two productions didn't have the nude scene because the theatres it was playing in didn't permit it. Only when it opened in Broadway did the nude scene feature.
7. Songs from the show became big hits. They include Aquarius, Let the Sunshine In, I Got Life and Good Morning Starshine.
8. Songs from the show have been recorded by numerous artists including Diana Ross, Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Brightman and Petula Clark. Despite the controversial nature of some of the themes (eg sex and drugs) a song from Hair was even performed on Sesame Street when Bob McGrath sang Good Morning Starshine in a 1969 episode.
9. At one point during the show's Broadway run, there were 19 different productions running in different parts of the world.
10. The London production ran for 1,997 performances, and only closed when the theatre roof collapsed. On Broadway, it ran for 1,750.

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?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle

16 October: Dictionary Day

Today is Dictionary Day, which is celebrated on the birthday of Noah Webster, publisher of Webster's Dictionary. Here are 10 things you might not know about dictionaries.

1. The first dictionary was called Table Alphabeticall, compiled by Robert Cawdrey and published in 1604. It contained no words beginning with J, K, U, W, X or Y. There have been well over 500 different dictionaries published since then, including slang dictionaries, dialect dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries and reverse dictionaries (where you look up the meaning to find the word).
2. The dictionary on your bookshelf contains most everyday words, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, dictionaries only included words deemed difficult. These tended to be words which, during the Renaissaance, were added to English from other languages.
3. In order to write his dictionary, and properly research his sources, Noah Webster learned 26 languages, including Old English and Sanskrit.
4. The sample sentences, included in dictionaries to illustrate the usage of a word, make great writing prompts, according to illustrator Jez Burrows. He has produced a number of short stories by connecting together some of these sentences.
5. There are about 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It is usually bound in 25 volumes.
6. Someone has to write all the definitions and collect all the quotations. Among the many people who have done this for the OED are JRR Tolkien who went on to write Lord of the Rings, and William Chester Minor, a former army surgeon who was being held in Broadmoor after killing a man. Tolkien was responsible for defining words beginning with W.
7. A number of words have several different meanings. The word to have the most different meanings was "set" for a long time, but it has been recently overtaken by "run".
8. The typescript for the first edition of the OED, if laid end to end, would reach from London to Manchester.
9. How does a word get into a dictionary? The criteria for inclusion is that the word has been in common use by people of diverse backgrounds. There is a long process of collecting sources for origins of the words, definitions, quotations and so on. Lexicographers, the people who compile dictionaries, don't usually decide what should go in and what shouldn't (although there have been dictionaries which excluded certain words or meanings for moral reasons).
10. Not all the words in every dictionary are genuine. Mistakes and typos creep into dictionaries just as in any other book. "Phantomnation" was one example of a word which doesn't exist, but should have appeared as "phantom-nation". Some fake words are included on purpose, so the publishers will know if another publisher is just copying their dictionary. Esquivalience is an example of such a word. It was defined as "the willful avoidance of one's official responsibilities." However, if enough people start using it...

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?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

Available from:

Amazon

Amazon Kindle