21 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 21 February:

1. This date in 1875 saw the birth of Jeanne Louise Calment, the world's longest living person who died at a confirmed age of 122 years and 164 days. At 14, she met Van Gogh in her father's shop, describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable," and attended the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885. When she was 114, she appeared briefly in a film called Vincent and Me as herself, making her the oldest actress ever. She also released a rap record called Mistress of Time. Asked what the secret of her long life was, she said, "I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret." On her 122nd birthday in 1997, she said “God must have forgotten me”. However, her words may have served to remind Him as she only lived another 164 days.
2. Another birth on this date was the French writer Anais Nin in 1903. She is the one who wrote: "And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
3. In 2002, Joseph Stoyer, aged 51, had an unfortunate accident with a mug of Coffee. He stepped out of his front door in Seaford, Long Island, slipped and fell. The mug shattered and a 4in (10cm) shard went through his carotid artery, causing him to bleed to death.
4. It was on this date in 1953 that F. Crick and J. Watson discovered the structure of the DNA molecule.
5. Another scientific discovery occurred on this date in 2013, when a study found that Bumble Bees can sense electric fields around flowers.
6. The "Yorkshire Ripper", Peter Sutcliffe, murderer of 13 women, was finally captured on this date in 1981.
7. In 1964, the UK flew 24,000 rolls of Beatle Wallpaper to the US.
8. In 1983, Donald Davis ran a mile backwards in 6 m 7.1s.
9. In 1816 Captain Edmund Gardner, of the whaler Winslow, was mauled by a whale he had harpooned. Cue the tiny violins. He lived another 59 years despite his injuries.
10. Born this date in 1910 was Douglas Bader, WWII fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. He fought despite having lost both legs in a pre-war flying accident. He attributed his success to three basic rules: 1) If you had the height, you controlled the battle. 2) If you came out of the sun, the enemy could not see you. 3) If you held your fire until you were very close, you seldom missed. He said, “Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind, you'll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.”

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

20 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 20 February:

1. On this date in 1966, Cecilia Cummins was born. She was the youngest of the five children of Carolyn and Ralph. Cecilia had four older siblings who were born on 20 February: Catherine in 1952; Carol in 1953; Charles in 1956; and Claudia in 1961. The odds against five single siblings sharing the same birth date are 17,797,577,730 to one.
2. In 1924, the world’s heaviest Twins, weighing in at 27lb 12oz, were born in Arkansas.
3. In 1999, the body of Michael Sunday Ejume, aged 26, an experienced skydiver, was found in woods with a gunshot wound to the chest after he parachuted from 14,000ft (4,267m) in Georgia. His body. A receipt for a 9mm handgun, bought the day before the jump, was found in Ejume's apartment, suggesting he'd shot himself on the way down. The gun was not found, but as Detective Danny Logan said, "From that altitude, it would probably go a foot deep in the ground."
4. An example of the butterfly effect? On this date in 1817, at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, a promising young actor named Junius Brutus Booth, played Othello to Edmund Kean’s Iago to see which of the two was the nation’s finest actor. Booth lost, and being a bit of a sore loser, cleared off to America in a huff. In due course, he had a family there, and his sons became leading actors. The younger of the two was John Wilkes Booth, who would assassinate Abraham Lincoln.
5. In 1949, the first International Pancake Race was held in Liberal, Kansas. This annual event, which takes place each year on Shrove Tuesday, is a race between the women of Liberal and the women of Olney, Bucks, England. Wearing dresses and aprons, and scarves on their heads, the women run a 415 yard, "S" shaped course. Each woman carries a pancake in a skillet and must toss the pancake three times during the course of the race. The fastest pancake racer is Sheila Turner from Liberal, who ran the race in 58.5 seconds in 1975.
6. In 1962, astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7. The residents of Perth, Australia greeted him by switching their house lights on in unison.
7. In 1998 Tara Lipinski, aged 15, of the US won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, becoming the youngest gold medallist in Winter Olympics history.
8. A sighting of Spring Heeled Jack occurred on this date in 1838 in Limehouse, east London. Lucy Scales and her sister Margaret were walking home from their brother's house at around 8:30PM, when Spring Heeled Jack reportedly jumped out in front of Lucy and spat blue fire into her face. Written accounts of the incident stated that Lucy was ‘blinded’, although whether it was temporary, permanent or simply a figure of speech is not known. After the attack, witnesses claimed that Spring Heeled Jack jumped from the ground to the roof of a house and made his escape.
9. The world was supposed to end on this date in 1524 according to Johannes Stoffler, who predicted that a great flood would submerge the Earth. It didn't.
10. In 2002, at two minutes past eight in the evening, the time was 20:02, 20/02, 2002. This type of symmetrical moment has only ever happened once before. The last occasion was at 10:01am on January 10, 1001. It won't happen again until 9:12pm on December 21st 2112, the date and time will read 21:12 21/12 2112.

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

19 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 19 February:

1. In 1985, the first episode of the soap opera EastEnders aired on the BBC.
2. This date in 1969 saw the first test flight of a Boeing 747 Jumbo jet.
3. Another Jumbo jet related first. In 1977, the Space Shuttle Enterprise made its first Test flight on top of one.
4. In 1984, an Olympic first when two brothers won Gold and Silver medals in the same event: Phil and Steve Mahre in the Slalom.
5. In 1982, Ozzy Osbourne was arrested in San Antonio, Texas for urinating on the Alamo. He was wearing a dress at the time, because his wife Sharon had hidden all his clothes in what was obviously a vain attempt to stop him from going outside. Osbourne claimed he thought it was just a pile of rubble, which couldn't have gone down well with the Texas authorities. He was banned from playing in San Antonio, Texas for life, although the ban was eventually lifted in 1992.
6. The Women's Institute was founded in Ontario, Canada on this date in 1897, by Mrs Adelaide Hoodless.
7. In 1988, two men set off on a horseback journey from the southern tip of South America to the Arctic Circle, which would take them five and a half years, arriving at their destination in September 1993.
8. In 1990, the computer graphics tool Photoshop was first released.
9. In 2005, Miriam Tegels won the title of the fastest knitter in the world. Miriam proved she could knit 257 stitches in 3 minutes.
10. In 2001, a postcard arrived for a Miss Wardrop in Aberdeen from a friend in Queensland, Australia. Not so unusual, you might be thinking, but it was possibly the longest postal delay ever, since the card had been posted in 1889.

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

18 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 18 February:

Pluto and satellites

1. 1516 Queen Mary I Queen of England and Ireland, was born in Greenwich Palace on this date in 1516. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and the original Bloody Mary. She had almost 300 religious dissenters burned at the stake, hence her nickname.
2. In 2003, Kieran Duggal, aged 53, from Balham, southwest London, leaned forward to unlock his front door with a key tied round his neck. He slipped and became tangled, accidentally throttling himself.
3. In 1929 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the names of the winners of its first Academy Awards. On this occasion there was no glitzy award ceremony. The list of winners simply appeared on the back page of its Bulletin.
4. In 1930, a cow named Ellie Farm Ollie became the first Cow in the US to fly in a plane (and be milked in flight). Her milk was sealed in paper containers and dropped by parachute over St. Louis, MO.
5. On the same day, also in the US, Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto.
6. The US issued a patent (#D324,117) to Celess Antoine of Forestville, Maryland on this date in 1992, for the Dog Umbrella, a transparent, ventilated body cover which could be attached to a dog's back to keep it dry in the rain.
7. In 1979, Snow fell in the Sahara Desert for the only time in recorded history.
8. In 2014, violinist Vanessa Mae competed for Thailand in the Giant Slalom at the Winter Olympics in Sochi. She was only the second ever Thai Winter Olympian. She came last.
9. The sighting of a sea serpent was reported off the coast of Florida by Captain Adams and his crew aboard the Lucy and Nancy, on this date in 1849.
10. The shaman of the Gealeke Xhosa tribe in South Africa, a 14 year old girl called Nongqawuse, claimed she'd had a vision of tribal ancestors looking up at her from the waters of the Gxara River. She interpreted this as the ancestors being angry with the tribe, and to win back their favour, they must slaughter all its livestock on this date in 1857. They believed her and did as they were told, but it didn't seem the ancestors were all that impressed, as the action resulted in the entire tribe starving to death.

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

17 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 17 February:

1. In 1999, a 50 year old Egyptian government worker named Adel Nasim Gerges finally won the promotion he'd been waiting on for eight years. He was so surprised to see his name posted among thousands of others on the noticeboard, however, that he had a heart attack on the spot and died.
2. In 1938 at the Dominion Theatre, London, the first public experimental demonstration of a Baird colour television took place. A short programme consisting of fashion plates and a cartoon was transmitted from Crystal Palace onto a 12 ft x 9 ft screen.
3. On this date in 1876, the first sardines were canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine at the Wolff and Reesing Cannery.
4. In 1963 Alison Hargreaves, British mountaineer, was born. Her accomplishments included being the first woman to scale Mount Everest unassisted in 1995, and all the great north faces of the Alps in a single season—a first for any climber. She died in a violent storm while climbing K2.
5. In 1924, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 100 yard freestyle in Miami, Florida. His time was just over 52 seconds. Breaking swimming records is not what he is most famous for, however. He would later star in Tarzan movies.
6. A Football match was scheduled to take place in Cairo, Egypt, on this date in 1974. The organisers had decided to change the venue to a smaller one so that spectators could watch the match in comfort. However, they forgot to communicate to the ticket sellers that there were less seats and so there were twice as many spectators as seats. 49 people died and 50 were injured in the resulting stampede for places to sit.
7. In 1883, Mr A Ashwell of Herne Hill, south London, patented Vacant/Engaged signs for toilet doors.
8. Lord Carnarvon and his team opened the inner chamber of the tomb of Tutenkhamen on this date in 1923.
9. Some traditions believe that it was on this date, year unspecified, that the Great Flood began, with Noah and the animals escaping in the Ark.
10. Hindus believe that on this date in 3102 BC the world entered the Kali Yuga, or Evil Age, the last of four great epochs, which would last 432,000 years. Then, the world would be destroyed and a new cycle would begin.

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle

16 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 16 February:

1. On this date in 1999, a man bled to death in New Delhi after his wife stabbed him for demanding a second cup of Tea which she was not ready to serve.
2. Prohibition ended in the US on this date in 1933 as the 18th amendment was repealed.
3. In 600, Pope Gregory the Great issued a papal decree declaring that "God Bless You" is the proper response when somebody sneezes.
4. In 1568 the Spanish Inquisition passed a death sentence on an entire country, the Netherlands, for heresy.
5. In 1887 25,000 prisoners in India were released to celebrate Queen Victoria's jubilee.
6. In 1998, in Great Falls, Montana, a truck driver was ticketed for doing 104 miles an hour in a 45 mile zone. His excuse? He'd just washed his truck and was trying to dry it off.
7. In 1959, failed Baseball player Fidel Castro, 30, was sworn in as dictator of Cuba.
8. In 2017, hundreds of restaurants and other businesses in US cities had to close when activists called on immigrants to stay home from work, avoid shopping or eating out, and skip classes for #ADayWithoutImmigrants, to protest about Donald Trump's immigration reforms and highlight the immigrant community's contributions to the United States. Pity the UK didn't do this as well, then perhaps we wouldn't be stuck with such a draconian Brex-sh*t.
9. In 1980, the world's longest traffic jam occurred outside Lyons, France, stretching 109.3 miles. Though any day now, this record could be broken by held up lorries in Kent thanks to Brex-Sh*t.
10. In 1995, Oil of Ulay New Skin Discovery and Max Factor Active Response Cream was withdrawn from sale after reports of blurred vision. I'm wondering if that was an intentional ploy which was rumbled – blur people's visions so they can't see the wrinkles???

A superhero love story:

The Power of Love

Willow believes in crystal healing, cosmic  ordering  and the significance of chance  encounters. She believes there's a spiritual  explanation for everything. Except she struggles to find a reason why she can turn herself into  mist and create a wave of energy which can slam a would-be mugger into a wall. Or why the love of  her life left her for a mysterious woman in sunglasses, who then disappeared without trace.  

A chance encounter with Firebolt, leader of the Freedom League superhero team, in a Glastonbury coffee shop, does turn out to be significant. He offers her a new start and the chance to use her powers for good.

Servant is a Christian who has joined the Freedom League in order to use his teleporting power to serve God. He and Willow clash from the start, yet they are drawn inexorably to one another.

When Willow leaves the team abruptly for reasons unknown, Servant knows he must put her out of his mind and find a nice Christian girl to settle down with. He is about to propose to devout and straight-laced Ruth, when Willow returns and turns his entire world upside down.

Available from Amazon:

Paperback

Kindle