17 April: Rudolph Name Day

Rudolph name day. It’s an ancient Germanic male first name, meaning "fame", "glory" "honour", "renown", and "wolf". 10 famous Rudolphs:

1. Rudolf I: first King of Germany from the House of Habsburg. The first of the count-kings of Germany, he reigned from 1273 until his death.
2. Rudolph Valentino: Italian silent film actor.
3. Rudolph Isley: American singer-songwriter and one of the founding members of The Isley Brothers.
4. Gerald Rudolph Ford: American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States
5. Rudolf Nureyev: Soviet-born dancer.
6. Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria: only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria. He was heir apparent to the imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1889, he died in a suicide pact with his mistress Mary Vetsera at the Mayerling hunting lodge. The ensuing scandal made international headlines.
7. Rudolf Hess: Deputy Führer in Nazi Germany, one of the leaders of Beer Hall Putsch, best known for his solo flight to Scotland.
8. Rudolph Hass: American developer of the Hass avocado, the source of 95% of California Avocados grown commercially today.
9. Rudolph "Rudy" Giuliani: American lawyer, businessman, former politician, and public speaker, Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
10. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: fictional character created by Robert L. May in 1939.

Character birthday

Soldier, a member of Combat Team Alpha. He is an android, so today is his activation date rather than birthday. He was developed in Japan as a weapon during World War II but later acquired by the millionaire Llew Powell who had Soldier re-programmed to be used as a sharp-shooter for his team.

16 April: John Millington Synge Quotes

John Millington Synge Irish playwright, was born on this date in 1871. 10 quotes from him:

1. Of the things which nourish the imagination, humour is one of the most needful, and it is dangerous to limit or destroy it.
2. A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drownded, for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't.
3. Words, particularly in a play, should have the texture of a crisp, autumn apple.
4. No man at all can be living forever and we must be satisfied.
5. There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.
6. A translation is no translation unless it will give you the music of a poem along with the words of it.
7. It is the timber of poetry that wears most surely, and there is no timber that has not strong roots among the clay and worms.
8. The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind.
9. What is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?
10. The drama, like the symphony, does not teach or prove anything.

Character birthday

Scud, a member of the Demolition Squad, a band of punk villains. He has no powers but is is big and strong. He isn’t especially intelligent and generally follows his leader’s commands without question. He gets his name from the Scud missile, as he doesn’t often hit anything, but when he does, he does a heck of a lot of damage.

15 April: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born on this date in 1452. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was the illegitimate son of Messer Piero Frosino di Antonio da Vinci, a respected notary and lawyer, and a young peasant woman named Caterina di Meo Lippi. Being born out of wedlock wasn’t too much of a stigma in those days, and in fact, may have worked in Leonardo’s favour, as a legitimate son would have been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and study to be a notary. As it was, Leonardo was able to follow his own interests.
2. Da Vinci isn’t his surname. It means “of Vinci” meaning he came from Vinci, a village near Florence.
3. He didn’t go to school. His father taught him some maths and Latin at home and then at 14 he was apprenticed to an artist in Florence where he would have learned what he needed to know about arts, crafts and sculpture.
4. He was a musician as well as an artist. He could sing and also play the lyre and the flute. He liked to listen to Music as he worked, and even did a bit of composing, as evidenced by some of his manuscripts containing his musical compositions.
5. At 24, he was accused of sodomy, potentially a capital office at the time. He was acquitted, but afterwards disappeared for two years. He came back to take on a commission at a chapel in Florence in 1478. It’s possible, then, that he was gay.
6. His writing was very difficult to read. Not only could he write and draw equally well with either hand, he often wrote from right to left, creating mirror image writing. The jury’s out on whether this was to keep his musings secret or because he was trying to avoid blots and smudges.
7. He didn’t write about his personal life, but he did enjoy word games and puns. Folio 44 of his Codex Arundel contains a long list of playful synonyms for a penis.
8. One of da Vinci’s jobs was to dissect human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. He made numerous drawings of human anatomy during this time, including the Heart and vascular system.
9. He was a vegetarian and would buy caged Birds from the market just so he could set them free.
10. He may have been responsible for painting by numbers. A paint company employee named Dan Robbins remembered reading somewhere that Leonardo would teach his apprentices to paint using number-sorted canvases, although there’s no actual proof that he did. It can be verified, however, that Robbins made millions out of selling the painting by numbers concept in the 1950s.

Character birthday

Zenith, aka Tristram Ogilvy. As a student he experimented with potions to give him superpowers, although he tried them out first on his sister rather than on himself. When she developed powers, he took the potion himself. He and his sister, Nadia, teamed up as supervillains, killing their grandfather in order to inherit his fortune, and went on to infiltrate chemical and pharmaceutical companies in order to steal secret formulas and sell them. His powers are speed and strength. His skills are a vast knowledge of chemistry.

14 April: Sir John Gielgud

Sir John Gielgud, the English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades was born on this date in 1904. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He was born in South Kensington, London, the third of four children. His parents were Frank Henry Gielgud and Kate Terry-Gielgud.
2. John was his middle name. His first name was actually Arthur.
3. His surname derives from Gelgaudiškis, a village in Lithuania.
4. At school, he was good at English, but hated maths. He took leading roles in school plays including Mark Antony in Julius Caesar and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.
5. Even though his mother was descended from a family of actors, the Terrys, his parents weren’t keen on him pursuing a career in theatre. In order to be allowed to take drama lessons he had to promise that if he couldn’t support himself with acting by the time he was 25, he’d look for a job in an office.
6. It didn’t look promising at first. The owner of the drama school he attended, Constance Benson, remarked on his first day that he “walked like a cat with rickets.” His first professional role was the Herald in Henry V at the Old Vic; he had one line and spoke it badly. The theatre kept him on but for the rest of the season he only got walk on parts with no lines.
7. However, he did get a scholarship to RADA where he could work on his technique. He gained in confidence until he got the part of Trofimov in Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, which he really enjoyed, and said of it, "It was the first time I ever went out on stage feeling that perhaps, after all, I could really be an actor." By this time, he was earning enough that he could leave home and get his own flat.
8. His first film was Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar, playing Cassius.
9. He wasn’t very interested in politics. He once attended a formal dinner where he asked a fellow guest, "Whereabouts are you living now?” to which the guest, whose name was Clement Attlee, replied, "Ten Downing Street".
10. Gielgud's partner, Martin Hensler, died in 1999. Gielgud’s health declined rapidly after that and he died the following year at the age of 96.

Character birthdays

Electric Blue, aka Judith Brent, a genetic variant with power over electricity. She has been a member of the Freedom League, G-Men and Ultra League in her time. At university she met Superwil and although they did spend time apart, they eventually married and had five children. Judith ran her own electronics business and was also known as the mother of the Warner Superhero Family. Her story is told in Eternal Flame.

Wolf, a member of The Raiders, from Classica, Infinitus. He came to our dimension through the wormhole which opened up after the Bird Island nuclear test. At the time, he had been stalking two wild wolves, which were also transported. He gained the power to communicate telepathically with the wolves and they with him; they helped him survive during his first days on Earth. In due course he met the rest of the Raiders and became part of the group. He was one of the four who began singing together and formed a band; and became romantically involved with Bluebird. Read about him in Over the Rainbow.

Eternal Flame

The Freedom League's numbers have dwindled to three - but leader Unicorn knows his team isn't finished yet. The turning point comes with Russell, a boy with bright red hair and a genetic variant ability to start fires. He's the first of an influx of new members who will take the League into the future. 

Judith and Wil are child prodigies - Judith in physics and electronics, and Wil in medicine. They have another thing in common - they are both genetic variants. And another thing - they both have fiery red hair. They are drawn to one another as their destinies intertwine, but the course of true love doesn't always run smoothly!

Richard is not a variant. He's an Olympic athlete who has picked up useful knowledge from his unusual friends to add to his own natural abilities. A chance encounter with a dying alien throws him into a Freedom League mission in which his skills are put to the ultimate test, along with theirs.

The Freedom League's arch-enemy, the super-villain Obsidian, wants his family fortune all to himself. One person stands in his way - his niece, Fiona. Fiona, devastated by a family tragedy and her failure to get in to her first choice university, is miserable and has few friends. When she realises her brother's death was no accident, and his killer is also after her, she fears it may be too late to gather allies around her and learn how to use her own genetic variant powers.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

Over the Rainbow

'We're not in Trinity anymore,' says Leonard Marx, quoting a line from an old Innovian  movie. The moon is different; the planes flying overhead are different. Nobody has any idea where they are or if it's possible to get home. 

In this strange new world, people from the highly technical Innovia and the less advanced Classica must co-operate in order to survive. In addition, travel through the inter-dimensional wormhole has given some people unusual and unexpected powers.

Innovia mourns the loss of its superhero, Power Blaster, last seen carrying a nuclear bomb to the upper atmosphere away from the inhabited Bird Island. They don't believe he could possibly have survived.  Power Blaster has survived, but is close to death and stranded in the new dimension. He is nursed back to health by a Classican woman, Elena. She has no idea who he is, only that she is falling in love with the handsome stranger.  

Shanna sets out to discover what happened to Nathan Tate, who didn't return from his hiking holiday, not knowing her life is about to be turned inside out and upside down. 

Meanwhile, Desi Troyes, the man responsible for the catastrophe, is at large on the new world, plotting how he can transfer his plans for world domination to the planet he now finds himself on - Earth. 

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

13 April: 103

Today is the 103^rd day of the year. 10 fun facts about the number 103:

1. The A103 is a road in London which runs from Lower Holloway to Hornsey and passes by the Arsenal stadium.
2. Using a standard dartboard, 103 is the lowest possible prime number that cannot be scored with two darts.
3. It’s also the smallest prime not found in the first thousand digits of Pi.
4. 103 is the emergency telephone number for an ambulance in Ukraine.
5. Australian poet Henry Lawson wrote a poem called One Hundred and Three, about his prison number.
6. US President Andrew Jackson fought 103 duels—most of them to defend his wife's honour.
7. Astronomer Charles Messier catalogued 103 objects in his list of nebulae.
8. In the movie, "Naked Gun 2 1/2," the number of the bus under which "Nordberg" becomes stuck is 103.
9. The world's largest tree is the General Sherman Tree, a sequoia in Sequoia National Park, California. Its trunk is roughly 103 feet in circumference.
10. In numerology the energy of 103 is pragmatic and self-reliant. It will explore new ways of doing things so long as they are realistic. It won’t touch anything it believes to be impractical. The 103 energy tends to do things the way it thinks best. Alternative points of view are noted and considered for their logic and workability. But emotional or "you should" opinions don't sway this energy. They tend to be loyal, intense, and dedicated to the job at hand.

Character birthday

Bree Trace, a hairdresser from Sprawling, Innovia, in the Infinitus dimension. At a low point in her life, she decided to end her life by jumping from the Gold Circle Bridge, but was saved by Powerblaster. Read about her in Secrets and Skies.

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Available from Amazon or Amazon Kindle

12 April: Hamsters

Today is Hamster day. 10 things you might not know about hamsters:

1. Hamsters belong to the family Cricetidae which means they are cousins to voles, Rats, Mice and lemmings. There are 24 species of hamster. Chances are if you have one as a pet it’s a golden or Syrian hamster but the Russian Dwarf Campbell and Roborovski breeds are also popular.
2. The word hamster comes from the German word “hamstern,” which means “hoard.” Because hoard is what they do. They store food in cheek pouches, called displostomes. They can store up to their own bodyweight in there, which makes their heads look twice or three times as big.
3. They can also fill their cheek pouches with air, so they can float in Water.
4. Hamsters have terrible eyesight and use their sense of smell to get around, rubbing their scent glands on things to help them navigate back home.
5. They can recognise sounds, including that of their owner’s voice when kept as pets. If a hamster owner uses their pet’s name often enough the hamster might even learn to come when called.
6. Hamsters in the wild are solitary and territorial, likely to fight other hamsters to the death. Hence it’s preferable just to keep the one pet one. Even in the mating season a female will throw the male out of her burrow once they’ve done the business.
7. Hamsters are banned in Hawaii because should a pet escape it would be easy for it to survive in the climate there and cause damage to crops.
8. Their teeth never stop growing, which is why if you keep one, you need to provide hamster chews and things for it to gnaw on.
9. Hamsters are coprophagic, that is, they eat their own poo. They do this to make sure they get all the nutrients out of their food.
10. Hamster racing is a thing. The hamster athletes are placed in hamster balls, which might be attached to tiny hamster racing cars, and they race down a straight 9 meter (30 ft) course.

Character birthday

Hermione Neale, a teacher at Rathbone Academy. She is also a Viper agent, charged with grooming/recruiting any young people from Viper families at the school. Yasmin Miller was one of these, and it was Neale who arranged for her to change her identity and disappear from public life. She appears in Who’s That Girl? And also briefly in Fire in Her Blood.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-Book

Fire in her Blood

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.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book

11 April: 101

Today is the 101^st day of the year. 10 fun facts abut the number 101:

1. 101 is the 26th prime number, and the smallest above 100.
2. 101 is used as slang for a beginners’ course in something or introduction to a body of knowledge. This comes from a numbering system for American universities which was first introduced by the University of Buffalo in 1929. The system was introduced so that students transferring from one college to another could easily be assigned to a class at their level.
3. It’s the atomic number of Mendelevium, a synthetic element with the symbol Md.
4. In Belgium, 101 is the police emergency number. In the UK, it’s the non-emergency number.
5. The Hundred and One Dalmatians is a 1956 children's novel by Dodie Smith about the kidnapping of a family of Dalmatian puppies, and a Disney film based on the book.
6. Talking of books, it’s common for non-fiction and self-help books to begin with 101, as in “101 ways to…” or “101 facts about…” as a marketing tool which suggests to the prospective buyer that they are getting a bit more information than there would be in a standard list of 100.
7. Taipei 101 was the tallest skyscraper in the world from 2004 to 2010. Located in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan, it is so called because it comprises 101 floors.
8. Room 101 is the torture chamber in George Orwell’s 1984 in which the prisoner is confronted with their worst fear. It lent its name to a British TV show in which celebrities talk about their pet hates and banish them to Room 101.
9. Sheena Easton and Alicia Keys have recorded songs entitled 101. It’s also the name of an album by Depeche Mode.
10. In the UK, the A101 road is the Rotherhithe Tunnel, a road tunnel under the River Thames in East London, connecting Limehouse in Tower Hamlets to Rotherhithe in Southwark.

Character Birthday

Adam Bond, a slightly geeky scientist and ordinary bloke from the Infinitus dimension. His power is that he is immune to everything and cannot be hurt. While natural laws such as gravity affect him (he’d fall down a hole in the ground, though wouldn’t be hurt) a gravity effect caused artificially by a device or a power would not. His power originates from wormhole travel between Bird Island and Earth. He is a member of the Earth Guard.