22 August: Chennai (Madras)

Madras Day commemorates the founding of the city which is now known as Chennai. 10 facts about it:

1. The city started life as a small fishing village called Madraspatnam, from which its old name, Madras, is thought to be derived. The city was officially renamed Chennai in 1996.

2. The name Chennai was derived from the name of Chennappa Nayaka, a general under Venkata Raya of the Vijayanagara Empire from whom the British East India Company acquired the town in 1639.

3. Chennai is the capital city of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.

4. The population in 2022 was 11,981,478 making it the 30^th most populous city in the world.

5. Madras, as it was then known, was the only city in India to be attacked during World War One. A German light cruiser shelled an oil depot as it raided shipping lanes in the Bay of Bengal.

6. Chennai is home to the longest natural urban beach in India and the second-longest natural urban beach in the world. Marina Beach is 13km (8 miles) long, and 437 metres (1,434 ft) wide.

7. Chennai is a major hub of car manufacturing which has earned it the nickname “The Detroit of India”.

8. Incorporated in 1688, the Greater Chennai Corporation is the oldest municipal corporation in India and the second oldest in the world after London.

9. Chennai Central prison is the oldest jail in India.

10. Chennai is the only place in India to have a Lighthouse within its city limits.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

21 August: Messages in bottles

On this date in 2015 a bottle with a letter inside by British marine biologist George Parker Bidder III was discovered by a woman on holiday in Germany. The bottle dating from 1906, if confirmed, would be the world's oldest message in a bottle found to date.

1. The first documents messages in bottles were said to have been released in 310BC by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, as part of a scientific experiment. He wanted to prove his theory that the Atlantic Ocean flowed into the Mediterranean.

2. In the days before modern communication, writing a message and putting it in a bottle was often the only way passengers and crew of a sinking ship could communicate with the world. It probably wouldn’t result in a rescue, so it was often a desperate attempt to express their love and final words to people at home in the slim hope someone would find it one day. Messages in bottles did sometimes throw light on what had happened to a missing vessel. A bottle sent from the SS Naronic in 1893, found three years later in England, confirmed that the ship had sunk after hitting an Iceberg.

3. There have been occasions when sending a bottled message has resulted in rescue, examples being some South American refugees abandoned at sea in 2005, and an Italian ship captured by Somali pirates in 2011.

4. In Elizabethan times, opening a bottle with a message in it could have got you in big trouble. Queen Elizabeth I allegedly believed that spies used this method to communicate with one another. She is said to have created an official position of "Uncorker of Ocean Bottles". Anyone other than the holder of that title could face the death penalty for opening a bottled message.

5. Messages in bottles were common enough in the Victorian and Edwardian periods that newspapers had regular columns devoted to them. If you’re interested in the kind of things these messages said, there’s a book you can get which is a compilation of them. It’s called Messages from the Sea and the author is Paul Brown.

6. It has even been suggested that Christopher Columbus released one on his way home from discovering America. During a severe storm which he thought his ship might not survive, he allegedly wrote a message on parchment to Queen Isabella, about what he’d found in the New World. He wrapped it in waxed cloth, put it in a barrel and threw it overboard. The message was never found, but Columbus made it home and presumably gave the information to the Queen in person.

7. It was estimated in 2009 that since the mid-1900s, six million bottled messages had been released. Oceanographers studying currents account for 500,000 of them.

8. Nowadays, of course, you’d think twice about releasing a message in a bottle because of environmental concerns, so you might consider using something biodegradable like the poet in the Japanese medieval epic The Tale of the Heike who inscribed his message on planks of wood.

9. Aside from science and messages to loved ones, messages in bottles have been used by people looking for pen pals, by evangelists to spread the word of God and by governments wanting to spread propaganda. The term has been used as well to describe messages sent into outer space such as on the Voyager probes.

10. Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe both wrote stories about messages in bottles, as did Nicholas Sparks in more recent times. Message in a Bottle has also been used as an episode title in Star Trek Voyager and Stargate SG1, and both The Police and Taylor Swift have recorded songs with that title.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

20 August: Selenium

Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, was born on this date in 1779. He is credited with identifying the chemical element selenium. 10 things you might not know about selenium:

1. Its chemical symbol is Se and its atomic number is 34.

2. Berzellius discovered it in reddish deposits in the Lead chambers at his sulphuric acid plant at Gripsholm in Sweden. At first he thought it was a compound of arsenic, but later noticed that this stuff smelled like Horseradish when burned, and arsenic doesn’t. An element that does is tellurium, so Berzellius then assumed it was a compound of that. But wait. He couldn’t find any tellurium deposits in his mine, so he realised this must be something new.

3. Telluriam was named after the Earth, so given its similarity to this element, Berzellius decided to name it after the Moon. Selenium gets its name from the Greek word “selene”, which means “moon”. Selene was the Greek goddess of the moon.

4. Its melting point is 494 K (221 °C, 430 °F), and its boiling point is 958K​(685 °C, 1265 °F).

5. Although large amounts of selenium are toxic, it is necessary for cellular function in animals in trace amounts.

6. Plants vary in terms of how much selenium they need, from requiring fairly large amounts to not needing it at all.

7. The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of selenium for teenagers and adults is 55 μg/day. The richest dietary source is Brazil nuts. It’s also found in meat, nuts, cereals and Mushrooms.

8. The chief commercial uses for selenium today are glassmaking and pigments.

9. Historically it was used as an electrical conductor, although today it has largely been replaced by Silicon.

10. Alexander Graham Bell used selenium in his photophone developed in 1879.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

19 August: Basil Brush

Ivan Owen, actor best known as the voice of Basil Brush was born on this date in 1927. Here are ten things you might not know about Basil Brush.

1. Ivan Owen shunned publicity for himself in order to make the Basil Brush character more believable. He was the voice of Basil Brush until he died in 2000. Basil is now voiced by Michael Winsor, who also stays in the background.

2. The original Basil Brush glove puppet was designed by Peter Firmin in 1962. He took great pride in creating the Fox's magnificent tail, which led to his name, and which is known to be Basil’s most prized possession.

3. Basil’s first TV appearance was in a series called The Three Scampies, about an out of work circus act comprising Basil, human performer Howard Williams and a Hedgehog called Spike McPike.

4. Basil went on to become a supporting act for the magician David Nixon and in due course was given his own show which ran for 12 years from 1968 to 1980.

5. Basil’s voice was modelled on that of the actor Terry Thomas.

6. Basil’s human stooges on his show were Rodney Bewes, Derek Fowlds, Roy North, Howard Williams, who was in the original Three Scampies; and finally Billy Boyle. Big stars in the world of music, such as Cilla Black and Petula Clark, would also appear on the show and perform a duet with Basil as well as their solo performances. Because of the huge audience commanded by Basil, singers vied to appear on the show.

7. Basil supports Leicester City Football Club, which he refers to as "the foxes".

8. In 1987 he gave a private performance at Kensington Palace at Prince William’s fifth birthday party.

9. He often appears in panto or as a guest in other shows. In 2003 he appeared in the French & Saunders sketch Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan for Comic Relief Red Nose Day. He played Dobby the House Elf.

10. He’s a highly intelligent fox who has appeared in several quiz shows, including The Weakest Link (which he won), Pointless Celebrities, QI and The Chase, in which he earned £8,000 in his Cash Builder, and won his head-to-head Chase with Jenny "The Vixen" Ryan.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

18 August: The Festival of Hungry Ghosts

The Festival of Hungry Ghosts, or Ghost Day is a Buddhist/Taoist festival which takes place on the 15th night of the seventh month, which, in 2024, falls on 18 August. 10 things you might not know about the festival:

1. It is celebrated in China, India, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia, Singapore and Thailand.

2. It is part of Ghost Month, which is celebrated throughout the seventh month of the lunar calendar.

3. On this day, the gates of Heaven and Hell are said to open, allowing the dead to visit the living. Some of them are hungry, and some are jealous of the living.

4. The origin of the festival lies with a monk who discovered that his mother had died and become a hungry ghost because of sins she had committed during her life. The monk asked the Buddha what he needed to do to save her, and was told to make offerings of food and clothes every year on this date. It eventually worked and his mother got to be reincarnated.

5. Hence a big part of the Festival of Hungry Ghosts is making offerings to ancestors. These are often food items brought to temples or left by the side of the road. People might also burn items made from joss paper, which is said to be of value in the afterlife. The burning of models of luxury goods or joss paper banknotes provides the ghosts with anything they may desire on the other side.

6. Families will get together for a special meal and will lay places for people in the family who have died as if they were still living.

7. In some places there are theatrical performances and concerts put on especially for the ghosts, at night, as the ghosts are more active then. The volume is cranked up because ghosts are attracted to the sound. The living can attend as well, but they must leave the front row of seats empty for the ghosts.

8. Shops may be closed in order to keep the streets empty for the ghosts, and households burn incense at night outside the front door to ward of the jealous ghosts. Children and pregnant women are encouraged to stay indoors as the ghosts are especially fond of them.

9. Two weeks after the festival, at the end of Ghost Month, lanterns shaped like lotuses are lit and set afloat in rivers to guide all the wandering ghosts back to the afterlife.

10. There are a number of things you mustn’t do at this time. Don’t buy a car or a house, because this might make a ghost jealous of you and provoke it to attack you. Don’t wear Red or Black clothing. Don’t touch or step over the offerings left at the roadside. If you do so accidentally, you must apologise immediately and the ghost will forgive you. Do not look under the altar because there could be ghosts under there feasting. Don’t leave laundry out overnight as the ghosts could put on your clothes in order to get in your house. Avoid Swimming, because ghosts who died by drowning might be after a living person to take their place. Don’t touch anyone on the head or shoulder as this makes them more vulnerable to the ghosts. Finally, if you detect an unusual aroma or hear someone call your name, don’t respond as it could be a trap set by a ghost.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

17 August: Custard

Today is Vanilla Custard Day. 10 facts about custard:

1. Custard is made from Eggs mixed with liquids, usually Milk or cream, and thickened using a low heat.

2. Making custard can be a delicate operation as even a slightly too high temperature can cause curdling. The perfect temperature is around 80⁰C (180⁰F) and it should never be allowed to boil.

3. In France, custard is known as crème anglaise.

4. There are different types of custard. It might be a thin sauce to be poured over something or the thicker more solid stuff used in pastries. The latter is known as crème pâtissière.

5. The word custard derives from the French word croustade, which originally referred to the crust of a tart.

6. Custard tarts were a popular snack in the Middle Ages.

7. Some custards in the Elizabethan era used Marigold (calendula) to give the custard its Yellow colour.

8. Due to the fact that it is a very fine organic powder, custard powder is explosive.

9. Custard probably most often brings to mind sweets and desserts but savoury custard is a thing, too. What is quiche made from, after all? Custard royale is a thick custard cut into decorative shapes and used to garnish soup, stew or broth. In Germany, this type of savoury custard is often used to garnish traditional wedding soup.

10. Custard is what’s known as a non-Newtonian liquid. This means it doesn’t behave as you’d expect a liquid to behave. Applying a sudden force to it makes it solidify. This is why it’s theoretically possible to walk across a swimming pool filled with custard.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle

16 August: Bricks

Today is the feast day of St Stephen (Istvan) of Hungary, Patron saint of bricklayers. 10 things you didn’t know about bricks:

1. Bricks have been used for building for a very long time. The oldest known bricks were made from mud and left to dry in the sun. Bricks dating before 7500 BC, were found at Tell Aswad, in the upper Tigris region and in southeast Anatolia.

2. The firing of bricks was first done in China around 4,400BC. Those bricks were used to make floors.

3. The Romans used mobile kilns for making bricks so they could build brick buildings wherever they went. Their bricks would be stamped with the symbol of the legion which made them.

4. Bricks vary in colour according to the content of the Clay used to make them and the temperature they are fired at. Red bricks are red because of the Iron content. The darker red they are, the higher the firing temperature. White or Yellow bricks have a higher lime content.

5. Using bricks limits how high a building can be, which is why Skyscrapers are made of concrete. The Monadnock Building, built in 1896 in Chicago, needed extra thick walls to maintain the structural integrity of its 17 storeys. The world’s tallest brick structure is the Karmeliter church in Vienna, Austria at 333 feet tall.

6. At the end of the 19th century, the Hudson River region of New York State was the world's largest brick manufacturing region. There were 130 brickyards lining the shores of the Hudson River from Mechanicsville to Haverstraw and employing 8,000 people. At its peak, about 1 billion bricks were produced every year.

7. In England the standard size for a brick is 9 x 4+1⁄2 x 3 inches. This size was regulated by law in 1625. Generally the size of a brick is determined by the ability of a bricklayer to pick it up in one hand.

8. Not all bricks are clay. Fly ash bricks are made from the waste material produced by coal-fired power plants, an environmentally friendly option since they are made from recycled materials.

9. Bricks are energy efficient because they hold sunlight throughout the day and release that energy after the sun goes down.

10. The indentation on the surface of a brick is called a frog. Nobody knows why it’s called a frog, or even what it is for. There is debate among bricklayers as to whether bricks should be laid frog up or frog down.

The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.

The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.

Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.

Get it in paperback

Get it for your kindle