27 March: Aries Zodiac Sign

Aries is the current zodiac sign. Here are ten things you might not know about the zodiac sign of Aries.

1. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and therefore also the first Fire sign.
2. Aries is the Latin word for ram, the symbol of the sign. However, in ancient times, the constellation was represented by a farm worker. The Babylonians began to associate this with Dumuzi, a deity associated with shepherds, which later shifted to the ram we're familiar with today.
3. In Greek mythology Aries was a flying ram, known as the Chrysomallus. It rescued the Twins Phrixus and Helle, sons of King Athamas, from their jealous step-mother. Helle fell off the ram's back and drowned, but Phrixus made it to safety. His way of thanking the ram? He killed it as a sacrifice to Zeus and traded its fleece for the hand of a princess in marriage. This fleece was the golden fleece which was later stolen by Jason and the Argonauts.
4. Its equivalent in Indian astrology is the month of Mesa, or Mesha. In ancient Egypt it was associated with Amon-Ra, a god with a ram's head, who represented fertility and creativity.
5. The constellation of Aries is a relatively dim one with only four bright stars - Hamal, Sheratan, Mesarthim and 42 Arietis. The constellation also encompasses some pairs of interacting galaxies.
6. Aries is ruled by the planet Mars.
7. Its colours are Red, Yellow and White and its day of the week is Tuesday.
8. Birthstones for people born under this sign are diamonds, rubies, garnet and fire opal. Metals associated with the sign are Iron and steel. Plants are betony, bramble, poppy, thistle, wild thyme, Dandelion, Carnation and mustard.
9. Aries is said to rule over beginnings, ambition, anger, impulsiveness, optimism, energy, selfishness, courage and leadership, and in the body, the head and face.
10. People born under this sign are said to be ambitious and competitive, wanting to be first in everything. They are said to be energetic, enterprising, high-spirited, assertive and enthusiastic. They're idealistic and fiercely loyal, but lack patience and are quick to get angry. They may be intolerant. They like to start projects but don't always have the patience to finish them.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

26 March: Purple Day

Today is Purple Day, so here are 10 facts about the colour purple.

1. Purple is a secondary colour made by mixing Red and Blue. Its complementary colour is Yellow. It's not the same as violet - violet is a colour in its own right, at the end of the spectrum.
2. The word purple has been in use in the English language since 975AD. The word ultimately derives from a Greek word for a purple dye they used to make from mucus secreted by spiny dye-murex snail. This was called Tyrian dye and is mentioned in the Iliad. Unfortunately it can't be said that no snails were harmed in the process - thousands of them had to be removed from their shells and soaked before their mucus glands were removed and the juice removed. Left in sunlight the juice would change colour several times - White, yellow, Green, violet, red and finally purple. People making it had to know the right time to stop the process to get the colour they wanted.
3. Needless to say, this was expensive stuff, which is one reason why it has been associated with royalty and high-ranking offices. Alexander the Great was one king who wore clothes dyed with Tyrian purple. Charlemange was another - his coronation robe was made of material dyed in the stuff.
4. In the Bible, purple was one of the colours of cloth from which God decreed that curtains of the Tabernacle be made. In the New Testament, Jesus was dressed in purple in the hours before His death as part of the Roman soldiers' mockery of his claim to be King of the Jews.
5. In mythology, purple gets a few mentions. It was the colour Ajax's belt, the sheets on Odysseus's bed on his wedding night, and purple dye is used on the tails of the horses of Trojan warriors. The poet Sappho waxes lyrical about purple footwear made by dyers in the Greek kingdom of Lydia.
6. In China purple dye was made from a plant called purple gromwell, but it didn't stick to fabric very well so it was still an expensive colour to produce and still limited to royalty and rich people. Later on in China it represented impropriety.
7. It was the 19th century before purple dyes became accessible to common people, as a result of an experiment that went slightly wrong. In 1856 a young man named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic cure for malaria, but made a dye instead. The shade of it was called mauveine, which is where the word "mauve" comes from. Perkins developed an industrial process to produce the dye so that many more people could afford it.
8. The Jimi Hendrix song Purple Haze gets its name from a slang term for the state of mind people get when they are high on psychedelic drugs. It has also given its name to a strain of cannabis, which has purple buds. Purple appears in a few other song titles - Purple Rain, Deep Purple (also a band) and Purple People Eater, to name but a few.
9. Does anything rhyme with purple? There are a couple of rhyming words although they're both quite obscure. One is "curple", a Scottish word for a horse's rump or a part of a saddle, and "hirple" a word of Norse origin meaning to limp.
10. Only two national flags contain the colour purple and neither of these feature it as a major colour. Dominica's flag features a purple parrot and Nicaragua's flag features a Rainbow.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

25 March: Marigolds

Today's Plant of the day is the Marigold, Calendula officinalis, dedicated to Mary. Here are ten things you might not know about marigolds.

1. They're part of the Asteraceae family, which includes daisies, asters and Sunflowers.
2. Its scientific name, calendula, comes from the Latin for “little calendar”, “little clock” or possibly “little weather-glass”. The common name, marigold, refers to the Virgin Mary (Mary’s gold).
3. They have been used in religious rituals and ceremonies since time immemorial. The Greeks and Romans made crowns and garlands from them and in India and Nepal they are used to decorate statues of Hindu deities and as garlands for weddings and other ceremonies. In Mexico, they are the symbolic flower for the Day of the Dead celebrations.
4. The Aztecs believed that carrying them with you when carrying out a dangerous task offered protection, and that they could help heal critical injuries.
5. In the 12^th century an author called Mercer maintained your eyesight would improve if you so much as looked at a marigold plant. Doing so would also draw "evil humours” from your head.
6. Marigold has been used as a treatment for skin irritations and inflammation from varicose veins to sunburn.
7. According to superstition if marigold flowers open in the morning, it will rain later in the day.
8. Marigold is the birth flower for people born in October.
9. The flowers are edible and can be used in cooking as a substitute for tarragon.
10. Marigolds are known to repel many insects and gardeners sometimes plant them to keep insects at bay. Keeping them by doors and windows can help keep Mosquitoes away. One insect which loves them, however, is Butterflies.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

24 March: Bonnie and Clyde

24 March 1909 was the birthdate of bank robber Clyde Barrow, partner of Bonnie Parker. 10 things you might not know about Bonnie and Clyde.

1. It's not known for sure how they first met. Different members of Bonnie's family told different stories. Some say they met at a party while others say they met when Clyde visited a mutual friend. It does seem to be agreed, however, that they fell in love at first sight.
2. Clyde's first arrest was for failing to return a rental car; his second was for being in possession of a truckload of stolen Turkeys.
3. They are usually portrayed as specialising in robbing banks, but in fact, it was far more common for them to rob small shops and petrol stations. Barrow's gang carried out less than 15 bank robberies in total and Bonnie wasn't always even involved. Clyde would go in with a male accomplice while Bonnie's role, if she even had one, would be driving the getaway car. When Bonnie and Clyde were working alone, robbing banks was too high risk for relatively little return.
4. Both of them had very different career aspirations growing up. Clyde could play Guitar and taught himself to play the Saxophone, and might have been on track for a career in music had his older brother and his friends not lured him into a life of crime. Bonnie wanted to be a movie star and took part in talent shows, telling friends her name would be in lights some day.
5. They both limped. In Clyde's case it was as a result of a self-inflicted injury while in prison in the hope that he might be transferred to a less brutal jail. He cut off two of his toes with an axe (or possibly asked another inmate to do it). Six days later, he was released on parole. Not only did he walk with a limp but he couldn't wear shoes when driving. In Bonnie's case it was a car accident. Clyde was driving too fast and crashed into a barricade. Battery acid leaked out of the wrecked car onto Bonnie's leg, giving her third degree burns. Her injury affected her mobility to the extent that Clyde sometimes had to carry her.
6. Bonnie was married to another man. She'd married Roy Thornton when she was 16, having met him at school. She saw marriage as a way out of the dead end jobs she would otherwise have been destined for. Roy wasn't a good husband, though. He was a petty thief, who cheated on her and abused her. She described him as "a roaming husband with a roaming mind". He was sentenced to five years in prison and it was while he was in there that Bonnie and Clyde's own crime spree took place - Roy was still in prison when he heard of her death. The fact that she was a wanted criminal in her own right prevented Bonnie from seeking a divorce, and she was still wearing her Wedding ring when she died.
7. They were portrayed as ruthless killers and are known to hive killed about 12 people during their crime spree. However, despite being photographed holding a gun with a cigar in her mouth, surviving gang members said Bonnie had never fired a gun and didn't smoke - she was merely Clyde's willing accomplice. Even Clyde is said to have only killed when there was no other option, when the cops had them cornered. If at all possible, they'd let their hostages go. One story related that they kidnapped one cop but let him go along the road and even gave him money for his fare home before fleeing.
8. They both had tattoos. Bonnie had one on her right thigh, interlocking hearts with her name and her husband's. Clyde had "USN" tattooed on his left arm, because he'd intended to join the US Navy when he was a teen. However, he was rejected on medical grounds.
9. Bonnie wrote poetry. She'd been good at creative writing and poetry at school and returned to this hobby while serving a prison sentence for a failed hardware store robbery in 1932. She wrote ten poems and called the collection Poetry from Life's Other Side. One of the poems was called The Story of Suicide Sal, which told of a country girl following her boyfriend into a life of crime. Shortly before she died, she wrote another, called The Trail's End, which finished with the verse "Some day they'll go down together; And they'll bury them side by side, To a few it'll be grief- To the law a relief- But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde."
10. On 23 May 1934 their spree, and their lives, came to an end when a posse ambushed the couple in their stolen car in Louisiana. They pumped the car full of bullets, killing them both. Clyde's saxophone was in the car, which a judge insisted should be returned to its rightful owner, a Ruth Warren from Texas. Needless to say, she could no longer drive it and sold it to a man who toured fairgrounds giving lectures warning people about the consequences of crime. Today, it is on display in the lobby of a casino near Las Vegas. As Bonnie and Clyde lay dead in the car, souvenir hunters swarmed onto the scene. One tried to cut off Clyde's ear and another his finger but police intervened and stopped them. Someone did manage to cut off locks of Bonnie's hair and part of her dress, though. Despite Bonnie's poetic prediction that they'd be buried side by side, they lie in separate graves. Bonnie's mother, who disapproved of their relationship, made sure of that and had her buried in a different cemetery.

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny. 

23 March: Klingons

On this date in 1967  the first Star Trek episode with Klingons in, Errand of Mercy, first aired. 10 facts about Klingons.

1. Gene L. Coon is the screenwriter who created the Klingons. The name "Klingons" comes from a man who served in the Los Angeles Police Department at the same time as Gene Roddenberry - Wilbur Clingan.
2. Their homeworld is Qo'noS, referred to as Kronos by Star Fleet personnel. 
3. Their world appears Green from space. There is one large land mass surrounded by ocean. It has one moon, called Praxis.
4. In the original series, Klingons were essentially white actors with mustaches and skin darkened with shoe polish - it was a lower budget show back then. Only later did the ridged foreheads appear. The fans, however, wanted some plausible explanation as to why some Klingons looked different. That Klingons had different races was one theory. Another was that smooth foreheaded Klingons had been experimented on with human DNA while trying to produce augmented soldiers which caused a pandemic resulting in more human like features. When asked for an explanation, Lt. Worf merely says, "We do not discuss it with outsiders."
5. Their society and culture are based on violence and war, even down to their courtship rituals. They commonly use a weapon called a bat'leth, a curved blade.
6. Divorce Klingon style means slapping your spouse, reciting the words “N’Gos tlhogh cha!” (our marriage is done) and spitting in your spouse’s face.
7. In the Klingon creation myth, Adam and Eve destroyed their gods and “turned the heaven into ashes.”
8. Klingons like to eat food that’s still alive. A popular Klingon meal is gagh, a slimy serpent-worm dish, followed by warm blood wine.
9. Klingons have two pairs of kidneys, eight-chambered Hearts, a third lung and the ability to grow a new spine.
10. During the 1991 filming of the Star Trek: Next Generation episode of “Redemption,” Ronald Reagan visited the set and said, “I like the Klingons. They remind me of Congress.”

My Books 

(for more details and buying options Click Here)

The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.