23 November

10 weird and wonderful events which happened on 23 November:

1. Born this date in 1888 was Harpo [Arthur Adolph] Marx, one of the Marx Brothers. He wore a curly wig, and never talked during performances (although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate), and he played the harp.
2. In 1963, the first episode of Doctor Who, the world’s longest running sci-fi TV series, was screened in Britain. The first Dr Who was played by William Hartnell, and Ann Ford was his first female companion. The producer, Sydney Newman, thought the Daleks, designed by Ray Cusick, were ‘bug-eyed monsters’ and totally wrong for the series. The first episode was interrupted and postponed because news of US President John Kennedy's Assassination broke.
3. In 1889, the first jukebox invented by Louis Glass appeared in San Francisco, at the Palais Royale Saloon. The contraption consisted of an Edison tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes, no loudspeakers, and a coin slot for each tube. A nickel purchased a couple of minutes of Music.
4. This date in 1998 was National Dunking Day. Scientist Len Fisher used the Washburn equation, which was originally designed to assess blotting paper, to calculate the maximum dunking times for various Biscuits: 8 seconds for a digestive, 3 seconds for a ginger nut.
5. In 1654, French mathematician Blaise Pascal narrowly escaped death at the Neuilly-sur-Seine bridge. His Horses plunged over the parapet and the carriage would have gone with them, but the reins broke and the coach was left hanging over the edge. Pascal and his friends emerged unscathed, but the philosopher, terrified by the nearness of death, fainted and remained unconscious for over two weeks. When he recovered, Pascal had a profound religious conversion. He abandoned his study of science, having realised that "the Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other aim than him."
6. In 1973 it rained ducks in Arkansas when hail knocked more than 100 ducks from the sky.
7. The first recorded strike for better working conditions and pay took place on this date in 1170 BC, in Egypt, by labourers working on a pyramid.
8. In 1852, the first Pillar Boxes were erected in St Helier, in the Channel Islands where, according to a Post Office surveyor sent over to inspect postal facilities, ‘there were no receiving offices for people in the distant parts of the town’. The surveyor later became famous as the novelist, Anthony Trollope.
9. In 1937, The Toronto Daily Star reported that an Inuit village had vanished. Fur trapper Joe LaBelle had contacted the police to report a chilling discovery. While running a trap line, LaBelle snow-shoed out to an isolated Eskimo village on the shores of Lake Anjikuni, only to discover the entire population – man, woman, and child—had vanished from their huts and storehouses. Inspector Pierre Menard of the RCMP confirmed the village had indeed been found abandoned under most strange circumstances. “In our search, we discovered undisturbed foodstuff, gear, and provisions but no sign of the villagers. Not a single footprint or track.” But the most disturbing discovery of all: the Eskimos’ ancestral graves were had been excavated and emptied.
10. In 2000, Rutherford Appleton Laboratories near Didcot set the world record for the smallest ever advert. A website address, guinnessworldrecords.com, in a font only slightly wider than a human hair was layered on evaporated gold onto film, mounted on a silicon band and fitted to a bee’s leg. (Is this website the bee’s knees?)

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

22 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 22 November:

1. This date in 1819 saw the birth of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist, whose works include Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, She wrote, "It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive."
2. On this date in 1718, Edward Teach, pirate, also known as Blackbeard, was killed off the North Carolina coast. Lt. Robert Maynard fought Blackbeard in close combat on the deck of his ship Jane. After killing Blackbeard, Maynard cut off the pirate's head and took it back to Virginia as proof he'd killed the most famous pirate of the day.
3. In 2000, a German tourist named Hermann Roag survived a fall from the window of his 8th floor hotel room in Lausanne, Switzerland with no more than a broken ankle; but on the way to hospital to be treated for that, he fell out of the ambulance and was run over and killed by a passing bus.
4. In 1990, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, having failed to win re-election of the Conservative Party leadership, resigned after being Prime Minister since 1979.
5. The first interracial kiss in TV history, on Star Trek between Capt. James T Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, was first broadcast on this date in 1968.
6. The Cutty Sark, a ship named after the short dress worn by a pretty witch in the Robert Burns poem Tam O’ Shanter, awas launched on this date in 1869. Cutty Sark was a record breaking tea clipper, and is now open to the public in dry dock at Greenwich.
7. In 2016, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake off Japan's Fukushima Prefecture injured 15 people, and triggered a 1 meter tsunami that caused a temporary power disruption at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant.
8. In 1986 Mike Tyson, aged 20, became the youngest ever world heavyweight boxing champion when he beat Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas in just two rounds.
9. In 2004, Ozzy Osbourne struggled with a burglar who escaped with jewellery worth about £2m from his Buckinghamshire mansion. Osbourne told reporters that he had the masked raider in a headlock as he tried to stop him.
10. In 1996, Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, held a ceremony to honour the 22 sets of triplets in the country’s armed forces – the North Korean armed forces claim to have more triplets than any other army in the world.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

21 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 21 November:

1. Voltaire (real name François-Marie Arouet), French writer and philosopher was born on this date in 1964. He wrote one of his most famous works, Candide in just 3 days when he was 65. The quote "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is attributed to him.
2. In 1820, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at the age of 13, had his first poem, The Battle of Lovell's Pond, published in the Portland, Maine, Gazette.
3. In 1906 An unnamed man was killed at a Glasgow distillery when 200,000 gallons of hot Whiskey burst from its vats.
4. 1995 Toy Story was released on this date in 1995. It was the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.
5. In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state of the original 13 to ratify the US Constitution.
6. In 1946, Harry Truman became the first US President to travel in a submerged Submarine.
7. In 1791, twenty convicts escaped from Sydney and set out to reach China – by land. Tricky, that.
8. In 1937, Thomas Morris skipped rope 22,806 times in two hours in Sydney, Australia. This was faster than three skips a second and was equivalent to walking about 12 miles.
9. Tweety Bird, aka Tweety Pie, made his debut in Tale of Two Kitties by Warner Bros on this date in 1942.
10. In 2006, Steve Milton of Eugene, Oregon, created the world's largest Rubber band ball, weighing 4594lb and using more than 175,000 rubber bands. It was certified as the world's largest by Guinness World Records officials at a weigh-in in Chicago.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

20 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 20 November:

1. In 1620, Peregrine White, the son of William and Susanna White, was born aboard the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay; he was the first child born to the Pilgrim Fathers.
2. In 2003, a man in Tegelen, Netherlands, called an ambulance, saying he felt ill. Paramedics arrived to find a double-glazed and extremely smelly house, dozens of pet birds, and the caller, already dead. The police blamed his death on a combination of bird Farts and ammonia from their droppings.
3. In 1947, Britain's future queen, Princess Elizabeth, married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey. The ceremony was broadcast worldwide in 42 different languages. The Princess's dress was designed by Norman Hartnell.
4. In 2005, Robbie Williams smashed a Guinness World Record by selling more than 1.6 million tickets for his 2006 World Tour in one day.
5. In 1998, a Russian rocket blasted the first component of the International Space Station into orbit 100 miles above the Earth.
6. President Woodrow Wilson was issued with a passport on this date in 1918. He was the first US President to have one.
7. The ten-shilling note was officially withdrawn by the Bank of England on this date in 1970.
8. In 1183, Saladin laid siege to Castle Kerak, but refused to bombard one part of the castle where a wedding was taking place.
9. In 1912, would be Bomber Carl Warr walked into Los Angeles city jail with 60 sticks of dynamite strapped to himself. An hour later, two detectives attacked Warr, who pulled the bomb's trigger. Nothing happened. The bomber begged police to kill him.
10. In 1969, in Australia, Zjane Azzar lay down on a mattress of 6-inch spikes and stayed there for a record 25 hours 9 minutes.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

19 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 19 November:

1. Born on this date in 1917 was Indira Gandhi. She was India's first and, to date, only female Prime Minister. She was a controversial leader and in 1975 her election to Parliament was declared void and a state of emergency was declared. She was assassinated by Sikh extremists. She said, "There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that Cows can be eaten."
2. In 1581, Russian Czar Ivan the Terrible killed his son, also named Ivan, during a fight which ensued after Ivan the Terrible beat his son’s pregnant wife for wearing inappropriate clothing.
3. A man in Indonesia came to a shocking end on this date in 2002. He was using a home-made stunning device to catch fish, having attached electric cables to a diesel engine and was trailing them in the Mentaya River in Kalimantan. He dipped his foot into the water, received an electric shock, fell in and drowned.
4. Alfred Tennyson was appointed poet laureate on this date in 1850. He held the office for longer than any other poet – nearly 42 years, and become the first poet to be granted a peerage.
5. In 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean made man's second landing on the Moon.
6. In 1996, Baywatch actress Pamela Anderson Lee filed for divorce from Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee after 23 months.
7. A festival was held on this date in 1923 to honour the merger of the Hungarian cities of Buda and Pest. The Budapest festival featured the premières of Dohnanyi's Festival Overture, Kodaly's Psalmus Hungaricus and Bartok's Dance Suite.
8. Virginia Tighe was hypnotised by Morey Bernstein on this date in 1952. Under hypnosis she claimed to have lived in 19th century Ireland as a woman named Bridie Murphy. Although neither she nor Bernstein had ever visited Ireland, investigators corroborated much of her story.
9. In 1994, a Rotterdam University study determined that over one in four members of the Dutch Parliament have smoked marijuana.
10. In 1999, every digit of the date was an odd number (19/11/1999). There won’t be another date like this until 01/01/3111.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

18 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 18 November: 

1. On this date in 1836, Sir William Schwenck "W.S." Gilbert, the lyricist half of the team of Gilbert and Sullivan was born.
2. In 1939, Margaret Atwood, Canadian writer whose books include The Handmaid's Tale, was born.
3. In 2001, King Mswati III of Swaziland married his 9th wife, who was just 17. He paid the traditional fine of 1 Cow for violating his own ban on sexual relations with young female subjects.
4. In 1928, the first successful sound-synchronised animated cartoon, Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey Mouse, premièred in New York. Mickey Mouse was drawn by animator Ub Iwerks, an associate of Walt Disney.
5. Mark Twain's first fictional piece, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County appeared in the last issue of the Saturday Press on this date in 1865.
6. The first loop-the-loop manoeuvre in an aeroplane was performed by Lincoln Beach over San Diego, California on this date in 1913.
7. In 1307, according to legend, William Tell was forced to shoot an apple placed on his son's head after refusing to obey the commands of the tyrannical Austrian Bailiff Gessler. Tell became a hero after successfully shooting the apple, and later killed Gessler himself.
8. In 1902, a cartoon appeared of President Theodore Roosevelt sparing the life of a bear cub and Brooklyn toy maker Morris Michton named the Teddy bear after him.
9. In 1998, Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow agreed to return a calico ghost shirt taken from a dead warrior at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
10. In 2005, the annual domino challenge was held by Weijers Domino Productions in Holland. 4,155,476 dominoes fell, beating the 2005 record of 3,992,397, but 153,340 of them were ruled void. Nevertheless, the 4,002,146 which officially fell, were enough to set a new record for the world's longest domino toppling.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book

17 November

10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 17 November:

1. Empress Catherine the Great, Peter the Great's wife, who'd had him deposed in order to rule herself, died of a stroke on this date in 1796, while sitting on the commode. She was 67.
2. In 1558, after the death of Queen Mary I, her half-sister, Elizabeth, 25, ascended to the throne. Elizabeth I is considered one of the greatest English monarchs. She turned England into a world power, encouraged voyages of discovery, and supported the arts.
3. The US Congress met for the first time on this date in 1800, after moving from Philadelphia. John Adams became the first President to move into the Executive Mansion, later renamed the White House.
4. In 1997, three businessmen spent a record £13,091 on a celebration dinner at Le Gavroche restaurant in London. The Wine alone cost £12,870.
5. It's been a good date for UFOs. In 1882, the Astronomer Royal witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object from the Greenwich Royal Observatory. He described it as a "strange celestial visitor – a circular object glowing Green". Then in 1896 in Sacramento, California, the first reports came in of sightings of huge mysterious airships, which would be seen all over the US for the next six months.
6. In 1869, the Suez Canal, which linked the Red Sea with the Mediterranean, was inaugurated.
7. In 1959, two Scottish airports, Prestwick and Renfrew, became the first to offer duty free goods in Britain.
8. In 1963, John Weightman, Headmaster of a Surrey Grammar School, banned all pupils from having Beatle haircuts saying, "this ridiculous style brings out the worst in boys physically. It makes them look like morons."
9. In 1880, the first three women to graduate in Britain received their Bachelor of Arts degrees at London University.
10. In Freiberg, Germany on this date in 1944, a quacking duck warned the citizens of an impending air raid. Later, a statue was erected in its honour.

New!!

A Superhero love story.

Sent away to school to get her away from undesirable company, Agnes finds herself homesick and lonely. A brief connection with Jason Warner leads to the teenage crush to end all teenage crushes. Jason is barely aware Agnes exists, but she plans her whole future around him.

It is only when they meet again as adults that the connection becomes mutual; but before it can develop, Jason makes a discovery which rocks his entire world. He needs time alone, away from everyone, including Agnes. When Jason is finally ready to go back to his old life, Agnes has moved on and he cannot find her.

Agnes is now a single parent to the remarkable Seraphina. The Power League want to harness Seraphina's powers for evil before the Freedom League become aware of her. Agnes has no idea her new colleague and friend is a supervillain with his own agenda, and his willingness to babysit is not as innocent as she thinks. As Incendio starts teaching Seraphina to use her powers, the Freedom League intervene. Little do they know that they have found one of their own.

Where to get it:

Paperback

E-book