20 November: The International Space Station

On this date in 1998 the first component of the International Space Station was launched. The component in question was Zarya, meaning Dawn, which was launched by Russia from Kazakhstan. The Americans launched their component, Unity, two weeks later. Here are 10 things you might not know about the International Space Station (ISS).

1. Sixteen nations helped to build it: The USA, the UK, Russia, Canada, Japan,  Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. It took 136 space flights on seven different types of space craft to get it built. It's the most expensive object ever built at an estimated cost of over $120 billion.
2. Since November 2000, the ISS has been continuously occupied. The crew is six people. 230 people have spent time on it (this is NASA's figure at time of writing, so possibly more) from 18 different countries.
3. How big is it? The living quarters are slightly bigger than a six bedroom house. There are sleeping quarters for each of the six crew, two bathrooms and a gym (which is necessary because astronauts need to work out for two hours a day to mitigate muscle loss from living in weightless conditions). There's also working space. The total length is 357 feet, only 3 feet shorter than an American football field. The solar panels which power the station are 240 feet long, about the same length as an Airbus A380. In terms of area - an acre. It's the largest manned object humans have ever put in space - 4 times bigger than Russia's Mir Space Station and 5 times bigger than Skylab.
4. Oxygen for the station comes from a process called electrolysis, which involves using electrical current to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The power for this comes from the solar panels, of course. Food and other supplies are regularly delivered by cargo spacecraft such as the Progress M-21M. The water on the ISS isn't for the squeamish. The urine of both crew members and lab animals is recycled into the water supply.
5. The person who has spent the most time on the ISS is Peggy Whitson at 665 days. This was over three different missions. In 2017 she returned from a 288 day stint during which she performed four spacewalks.
6. The ISS travels at five miles a second, which means it orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes. That's 16 orbits per day.
7. Up to six spacecraft can connect to the station at any one time and it takes as little as six hours to get there from Earth.
8. It's possible to see the ISS from Earth on a clear night. In fact, it's the third brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. It appears like a fast moving plane, and is shown on the Night Sky app for mobile phones. There's also a service run by NASA called Spot the Station which will send you a text telling you when the ISS is due to pass over your location.
9. There are 52 computers on board and eight miles of wiring.
10. All good things come to an end, and the ISS is no exception. The plan is to de-orbit it in 2024. The Russians are planning to re-use their components in a new space station.

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:

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19 November: Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was born on 19 November 1917. Here are some things you might not know about her.

1. Who was she? She was India's first, and to date only, female prime minister. She was sworn in on 24 January 1966.
2. She came from a political family. Her father was Jawaharlal Nehru, a leader of India's fight for independence from Britain. She was his only child.
3. She wasn't, however, related to Mahatma Gandhi. She took the name when she married Feroze Gandhi, who was no relation to Mahatma Gandhi either.
4. When Indira was five years old, she burned her favourite doll, because she found out it had been made in England.
5. By the age of 12, she'd already become a leader. She was part of a children's initiative for independence called the Vanar Sena (which means "Monkey Brigade"). This group eventually grew to 60,000 young people who made flags, put up posters and helped with mailings.
6. Her husband Feroze was Parsi, she was Hindu. They met while campaigning for India's independence. Their love match wasn't well received by the general public because of the difference in faith, and there was a lot of opposition. One person who did support the couple was Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote a public statement in support of their marriage.
7. She was good friends with Margaret Thatcher - no doubt they bonded over the fact that they were both female world leaders, still a rare thing in those days. They stayed in touch even when Indira Gandhi lost an election and wasn't in power for three years. Mrs Thatcher attended Mrs Gandhi's funeral, despite being warned of death threats. Mrs Thatcher described her as "not just a great statesman but a warm and caring person." Mrs Gandhi wasn't as popular with US president Richard Nixon, however. He was caught on tape describing her as "an old witch".
8. The nation of Bangladesh was created during her tenure, after the war with Pakistan in 1971, which India won decisively. Mrs Gandhi was the first world leader to recognise the new country.
9. Her career didn't always go smoothly. In 1971, she was charged with violating electoral law, and in 1975, the Indian High Court ruled that she should lose her seat and be banned from politics for six years. Her response was to declare a state of emergency which allowed her to put her opponents in prison and enact unpopular policies limiting personal freedom. One of the things she tried to do was control the birth rate in India by offering rewards to men who agreed to be sterilised. It also led to young men being sterilised against their will. In 1977, the emergency rule ended and their was an election. She lost. She formed a new party, however, and returned to power in a landslide victory in 1980.
10. In spite of that, there were still people who opposed her, particularly among the Sikhs after she ordered the Indian army to enter a Sikh temple and remove a Sikh terrorist who had taken refuge there. It was this which led to her assassination. Two of her bodyguards, who were Sikhs, shot her with their service weapons, in her garden, on 31 October 1984 as an act of revenge.

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

November 18: Mickey Mouse's Birthday

Mickey Mouse's Birthday - the date he made his official film debut in 1928, in Steamboat Willie. 10 things you might not know about Mickey Mouse:

1. Walt Disney was originally going to name him Mortimer, but his wife suggested Mickey as a better option. Lilian thought Mortimer sounded too posh and arrogant while Mickey sounded like a fun character people could relate to. His full name is Michael Theodore Mouse. However, he's not known as Mickey everywhere in the world - in China he's Mi Lao Shu, in Sweden he's Musse Pigg and in Italy he's Topolino.
2. Mickey Mouse was the first cartoon character to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1978.
3. He was created as a character for silent movies. He was also the first cartoon character to speak. The first words he uttered on screen were "Hot dogs!"
4. He wears white gloves so his hands can be distinguished from the rest of him, and his hand movements are more easily seen. Mickey only has four fingers, because Walt Disney thought five fingers were too much for such small hands, and made Mickey's hands look like a bunch of bananas. Not only that, it made the animation easier.
5. Charlie Chaplin and a mouse Walt Disney had as a pet when he was a child were the inspirations for the character of Mickey Mouse. Mickey Rooney claims to have been the inspiration behind the name.
6. Mickey Mouse watches were first made in 1931 and cost $2.95 each. By 1957, 25 million had been made. Walt Disney himself was presented with the 25 millionth.
7. While Minnie is Mickey's leading lady and co-star in many films, their relationship was never explicitly made clear on screen - but they are in fact married to each other (as were two of the voice actors who voiced them during the late 20th century, Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor).
8. Mickey Mouse has met every US President since Truman, apart from Lyndon B. Johnson. Barack Obama referred to Mickey as "the world leader who has bigger ears than me." Who knows, he could even be elected president one day, since it's a thing in America for people who don't like any of the options on the ballot paper to write in "Mickey Mouse" underneath and vote for him instead!
9. Images of Mickey Mouse are everywhere in the Disney theme parks. The image, a large circle with two smaller ones on top, is a recurring theme there, and visitors can try to spot "hidden Mickeys" in unexpected places.
10. Actors wanting to play Mickey Mouse at Disney theme parks must be between 4' 8" and 5' 2" tall, and must be able to reproduce Mickey's standard signature while wearing huge white gloves with four fingers.

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:

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Kindle

17 November: Rock Hudson

Actor Rock Hudson was born on this date in 1925. 10 things you might not know about Rock Hudson.

1. His real name was Roy Harold Scherer Jr. Later, when his father left and his mother remarried, he was adopted by his step-father and became Roy Fitzgerald. The name Rock Hudson was coined for him by his agent from the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River. Hudson actually hated the name.
2. His interest in acting was sparked by working as an usher in a cinema as a teenager.
3. When he left school, he joined the US Navy and served in the second world war as an aircraft mechanic in the Philippines. He was discharged in 1946.
4. He applied to drama school in California but was rejected. Talent scout Henry Willson took him on when Hudson sent him a photograph of himself.
5. His film debut was in a 1948 film called Fighter Squadron. Hudson had just one line in the film. It took him 38 takes to get it right. After that, he was coached in acting and other disciplines which might come in handy for a leading man - singing, dancing, horseback riding and fencing. He was good looking and photogenic, which probably helped a lot.
6. He starred in a number of B movies before his breakout film in 1954, Magnificent Obsession, with Jane Wyman.
7. Rumours abounded that Hudson was gay, not something that would help an actor's career in the 1950s. His agent did all he could to keep Hudson's personal life out of the spotlight. In 1955 Husdon married his agent's secretary, Phyllis Gates. She insisted it was a love match, not a way to cover up Hudson's homosexuality. She filed for divorce after three years citing mental cruelty. Neither married again, unless you believe the urban myth spread in the 1970s saying that Hudson had secretly married Jim Nabors. Same sex marriage wasn't legal then, and the two always appeared to be no more than friends in public.
8. His last film was a made for television movie called The Vegas Strip War in 1984. His final acting role was on the TV series Dynasty.
9. His life has been the subject of three plays and a 1990 TV film. There was also a parody of him in an episode of the Flintstones, an actor called Rock Quarry.
10. He died of AIDS at the age of 59, one of the first celebrities to be diagnosed with the disease.

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

16 November: The Clangers

50 years ago today, in 1969, the first episode of The Clangers was broadcast by the BBC. 10 things you might not know about The Clangers.

1. It was no coincidence that The Clangers first appeared on TV in the same year as the first Moon landing. The producers thought the exciting new world of space travel would attract viewers. While it aired after the event, when they were filming, it was still anybody's guess whether the USA or Russia would get to the Moon first; so the spaceman who visited the Moon in the show planted a special flag which incorporated the flags of both nations.
2. The Clangers were created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. The original Clanger puppets were all hand knitted by Joan Firmin, using 3km of wool.
3. They got their name from the sound the dustbin lid-like covers to their burrows made when they were opened.
4. A Clanger had appeared on TV two years earlier in an episode of Noggin the Nog, entitled Noggin and the Moonmouse in which a Clanger crash landed its spaceship into a horse trough. Local children helped it find the fuel it needed (vinegar and soap flakes) so it could take off and go home.
5. The Clangers' language is a series of whistles. While they may sound random, it is an actual language with each whistle representing a word, following a script. So Clangers can, and do, swear. In the 1970s, the BBC got upset when they realised what one Clanger had actually said: "Sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again!" It was by no means unknown for Clangers to tell one another to "Sod off."
6. It takes six animators a whole day to produce just 11 seconds of an episode.
7. The clothes the Clangers wear is like Roman armour and is intended to protect them from falling space debris. Each Clanger has an identifying symbol embroidered on the front of its armour.
8. The Clanger family consists of Granny, Major Clanger and his wife, Mother Clanger, and their two children, Small and Tiny. Also living on the planet are the Soup Dragon and her son Baby Soup Dragon, who provide the green soup which makes up most of the Clangers' diet. There are also three Froglets, orange aliens which travel around in a top hat, the Iron Chicken, a bird made from scrap metal which lives in a nest made from space junk which orbits the planet, and Sky Moos, flying blue cows which are always hungry.
9. The original series ran until 1972, with a special episode made for the General Election in 1974, in which the narrator tries to teach the Clangers about democracy. They are asked to vote between the Soup Dragon and a Froglet. The Soup Dragon wins on the policy of "No free soup for Froglets", but the Clangers dispute the result and the Soup Dragon decides to give Froglets free soup anyway. (Fairly accurate. People vote for policies excluding people who aren't like them; don't like the result and the winning party don't keep their promises.) The series was revived in 2015, narrated by Michael Palin.
10. The original Mother Clanger puppet was stolen from an exhibition in 1972 and is still missing. The original Soup Dragon has a darn in its hand after a mouse chewed it, trying to get at a Chocolate penny the Dragon was holding.

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

15 November: Sir William Herschel

Sir William Herschel, the German astronomer and composer was born on this date in 1738. He's most famous for discovering Uranus and its two moons, and studying nebulae. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in Hanover, Germany, one of ten children. He was called Friedrich Wilhelm, only using the names Frederick William after he moved to England.
2. His father, Isaac, played the oboe in the Hanover Military Band, and two of his sons, William and Jakob, followed in his footsteps. It was during a war with France that William and his brother were sent to England by his father to protect them.
3. His main occupation in England was that of musician. He played the Violin, harpsichord and organ as well as the oboe. He played with an orchestra in Sunderland, led a military band in Durham and composed a number of symphonies. Later he became the organist at a church in Halifax, and then at the Octagon Chapel in Bath.
4. As his interest in astronomy grew, he began building his own Telescopes. He was known to spend up to 16 hours a day grinding and polishing the lenses.
5. He found Uranus while searching for double stars. He stumbled upon an object that looked like a disc. At first, he thought it was a comet and continued observing it, eventually reporting his observations to the then Astronomer Royal.
6. He discovered over 2,400 nebulae and catalogued them. His system for classifying nebulae is still in use today.
7. When their father died, William invited his sister Caroline to join him in Bath. She became his assistant, spending many hours polishing the mirrors in his telescopes and copying out his observations notes. She became interested in astronomy herself and made significant discoveries of her own.
8. He believed in aliens. He believed there was life on the Moon and that it was probably similar to pastoral England. He believed there was probably life on the other planets, too, and even in the interior of the Sun.
9. While famous for his telescopes, Herschel made a significant discovery using a microscope, too - he established that Coral was not, as many scientists then believed, a plant, because it didn't have plant-like cell walls.
10. There is a long list of things named after William Herschel including craters on both the Moon and Mars, an Asteroid, a space observatory, a street in Paris and a pub in Slough, where he lived towards the end of his life. The symbol for the planet Uranus features an H, his initial, and the shape of Slough bus station is based on one of his experiments.

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

November 14: Claude Monet

Claude Monet, French impressionist, sometimes called the Father of French Impressionism, famous for his pictures of waterlilies and serene gardens, was born on this date in 1840. Here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. His mother encouraged his artistic talent, evident from a young age, but his father was less keen. He wanted young Claude to work in the family business, a grocery store. In order to be able to study art after his mother died, he left home to live with an aunt.
2. At 15, he was drawing caricatures of people in Le Havre, where he grew up and selling them for 10-20 francs each. He signed them O. Monet, because his first name was actually Oscar. Claude was his middle name.
3. He had a brief military career when drafted into the African Light Cavalry in Algeria. His father offered to pay to get him out of military service, but on the condition that he gave up painting. Monet refused - seven years national service was preferable to never painting again. However, a bout of typhoid after a year brought his army career to an end when his aunt paid for his discharge. Her condition was that he went to art school.
4. After this he went to art school, but hated it, as he was expected to produce formulaic art, and copy other people's pictures. His paintings were rarely accepted for the Academie's exhibitions. In the end, he was so depressed by this that he tried to commit suicide by throwing himself in the Seine. He survived, however, and found some other disgruntled art students to hang out with.
5. As it happened, this group included Renoir, Degas and Cezanne. They decided to organise their own exhibition in 1874. Not everyone liked their work. One critic descibed one of Monet's paintings as an unfinished sketch, or impression - and the term "Impressionists" was born.
6. Once his career took off and he was earning money, he invested a lot of it in creating a beautiful garden where he could paint. His famous paintings of waterlilies and a Japanese footbridge were views of his garden. He imported lilies from Egypt and South America. Not that he did the gardening himself - he hired six gardeners to look after the garden, including the task of paddling a boat into the pond every morning to clean the lily pads before he started painting them. The local council told him to get rid of the foreign plants in case they poisoned the water, but Monet refused to comply.
7. In later life, he suffered from cataracts to the extent that he was declared legally blind. Even though he put off having surgery, which was risky in those days, and complained that he could no longer see colours properly, it didn't stop him from painting. He'd memorised where each colour was on his palette and carried on. Critics maintained his impressionist style was more to do with him being unable to see than his talent. He eventually did have surgery and got tinted glasses to help him see colours. After the surgery, it's said that he could see ultraviolet light.
8. After the surgery, he destroyed a number of paintings he'd done while his vision was impaired. Even before that, it was by no means unknown for him to slash paintings he wasn't satisfied with. A 1908 exhibition of his work in Paris had to be postponed because he destroyed 15 of the paintings.
9. He married twice. His first wife was Camille. Monet painted her over 30 times, including on her deathbed when she tragically died at the age of 32. His second wife, Alice, was so jealous of Camille that she made Monet destroy all photos of and letters from her, so only one photo of her survives.
10. Monet died of lung cancer in 1926, at the age of 86. At his funeral, his friend Georges Clemenceau replaced the Black shroud on his coffin with a colourful, floral print, declaring, "No black for Monet!"

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