18 September: Royal Opera House

On this date in 1809, the Royal Opera House in London opened. 10 things you might not know about it:

1. The building which opened in 1809 was the second of three theatres to stand on the site. The first opened in December 1732, having been commissioned by an actor/manager named John Rich. He was carried there on opening night by his actors and the first performance held there was Congreve's The Way of the World. The theatre then was primarily a playhouse. King Charles II gave it, along with Drury Lane, almost sole rights to present spoken drama in the capital.

2. In 1808 the theatre was destroyed by a Fire and a new one, designed by Robert Smirke, opened on 18 September 1809 with a performance of Macbeth followed by a musical entertainment called The Quaker. This building was also destroyed by a fire in 1856.

3. Work began on the third theatre, the nucleus of the Royal Opera House as it is today, in 1857. This one was designed by Edward Middleton Barry, opened in 1858. Barry wisely designed it as a fireproof building. It opened on 15 May 1858 with a performance of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots.

4. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, making it the third largest in London. It consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery.

5. It is the home of not only the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet, but it also has the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Opera Chorus. Both were established in 1946.

6. During the first world war, the theatre was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works for use as a furniture repository. During the second world war, the building was used as a dance hall.

7. A number of firsts took place in the various buildings during the site’s history, including: the first 'ballet d'action'. That is, a ballet which tells a story through dance. This was Pygmalion, performed in 1734; the first public performance on a Piano in England on 16 May, 1767. A Miss Bricker sang a song from Handel's Judith accompanied on a piano by Charles Dibdin. The first solo performance on a piano happened the following year on 2 June 1768, by Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian's youngest son; it was the first theatre to use limelight indoors for the first time in 1837.

8. There was also a famous last. A famous actress called Sarah Siddons gave her last performance at the Royal Opera House. She gave a 10-minute long farewell speech after her final performance, as Lady Macbeth in 1812.

9. E M Barry designed a building adjacent to the theatre called the Floral Hall (now called The Paul Hamlyn Hall). It was originally a flower market opened in 1860. It too succumbed to a fire in 1956 and was derelict for a time. It was acquired by the Opera House in 1977 and used as storage space. It is now the atrium for the theatre and houses a champagne bar, restaurant and other hospitality services. Its original facade was stored away and eventually bought by Borough Market for £1 and added to the market’s structure in 2003.

10. The covid plague did the Opera House no favours. In fact, it lost 60% of its income as a result of the restrictions. It was forced to sell the 1971 Portrait of Sir David Webster by David Hockney which had hung there for decades, in an auction at Christie’s. It sold for £12.8 million and allowed the institution to survive.

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17 September: Squid

This date in 2021 saw the release of the popular TV show Squid Game. For today I therefore present 10 facts about squid.

1. They are members of the order Cephalopoda and belong to a superorder called Decapodiformes. As the name suggests, they have ten limbs: eight short arms and two long tentacles.

2. Squids have three Hearts. Two hearts pump Blood to the gills, while the third heart is responsible for circulating blood throughout the body.

3. The smallest squid is the Southern pygmy squid (Idiosepius notoides); males grow only to about 1.6 cm (less than 3/4 inch) in length.

4. The largest are the giant squid and the colossal squid. These are the largest living invertebrates. Giant and colossal squids have been found which measure 13 metres (about 43 feet) long, but there are also unconfirmed reports of individuals measuring more than 20 metres (65 feet).

5. What they eat depends on the species but might include lantern fish, Oysters, Shrimp, Crabs and even other squid.

6. Squid are very intelligent, and sometimes work together to catch prey.

7. The fastest recorded speed of a squid is estimated to be around 25 miles per hour, making them the fastest swimming invertebrate. They move using a process called jet propulsion.

8. Some squid can change colour to avoid predators as a form of camouflage, or by lighting up using bioluminescence in order to distract them.

9. Most squids typically live for only 1 to 2 years. However, the colossal squid can live up to 5 years.

10. If a squid loses one of its arms or tentacles, it’s not the end of the world, for they are able to regenerate the lost limb.

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16 September: Andrew Bonar Law

Andrew Bonar Law, British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister was born on this date in 1858. 10 facts about him:

1. He was born in New Brunswick, Canada, the son of a Scottish clergyman named James Law.

2. His mother wanted to name him after Robert Murray M'Cheyne, a preacher she greatly admired. However, she already had a son called Robert so had to settle for naming him Andrew Bonar, after a biographer of M'Cheyne. His family and friends always called him Bonar, rather than Andrew.

3. His father had a smallholding to supplement his income. He worked there to help out until he was 12 when he went to live in Scotland with his late mother’s cousin and began work in the merchant bank the family owned.

4. He left school aged sixteen to work in the iron industry rather than attend university. By the time he was thirty, he was a wealthy man.

5. He liked to play Chess and would carry a chess set on his daily commute, challenging other commuters to a game. He even competed with internationally renowned chess masters.

6. He married Annie Pitcairn Robley, the daughter of a Glaswegian merchant, in 1891. Her death in 1909 hit Law hard; despite his relatively young age and prosperous career, he never remarried.

7. In 1900 he was elected Conservative MP for Glasgow Blackfriars. He lost his seat in the 1906 Liberal landslide General Election, but he returned to represent Dulwich following a by-election later that year.

8. During the first world war he worked closely with the Liberal Party as a coalition. He admired David Lloyd George enough to decline the job of Prime Minister in favour of him. Their coalition was re-elected by a landslide following the Armistice.

9. However, his admiration didn’t quite extend to allowing enough Conservatives to defect to Lloyd George’s proposed new party. Law made a speech at the Conservative Carlton Club which changed their minds and saved the Conservative party. When Lloyd George resigned the King invited Bonar Law to form a new administration in 1922.

10. He resigned in May 1923 due to ill health, and died of throat cancer 6 months later. He was the fourth shortest-serving prime minister of the United Kingdom (211 days in office).

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15 September: Chestnuts

In the French Revolutionary Calendar today is “Marron”, or Day of the Chestnut, so here are 10 things you might not know about chestnuts:

1. Sweet chestnuts belong to the genus Castanea, in the Beech family.

2. What did the Romans ever do for us? Plant sweet chestnut trees all over Europe, for one. They did so because chestnuts were an important part of their diet. They ground them into flour or coarse meal to make Bread, and Roman soldiers were fed a type of Porridge made from chestnuts before heading into battle.

3. In places where it was hard to grow grain and food was scarce, chestnuts became the staple food for poor people. In Honore de Balzac's novel Père Goriot, Vautrin states that Eugène de Rastignac's family is living off of chestnuts; this represents how poor Eugene's family is.

4. When you think of chestnuts, you probably think of roasted ones. Chestnuts roasting on an open Fire and all that. They can also be boiled, pureed, grilled, steamed, deep-fried, candied, ground into flour, churned into Ice cream or stirred into savoury Stuffing. In fact, an old Corsican wedding tradition says to prepare 22 different chestnut dishes for a couple’s big day.

5. Don’t, however, eat them raw. Chestnuts contain tannic acid, which can upset the stomach.

6. Chestnuts are the only nut which contains Vitamin C. In fact, a 30g serving providing 20% of our recommended daily intake. They’re also a great source of Potassium, as well as minerals such as Iron, Calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, Zinc and B vitamins.

7. The oldest and largest chestnut tree in the world is between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and, when it was measured in 1780, had a circumference of 190 feet. It is located on the eastern slope of Mount Etna, 8km from the crater. It’s known as “Castagno dei Cento Cavalli” or “The Hundred-Horse Chestnut”, not because it’s a Horse chestnut, but because a Queen and her entourage of a hundred knights took shelter under its branches during a storm.

8. The oft parodied poem, “Under a spreading chestnut-tree/the village smithy stands” was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When the tree mentioned in the poem was cut down, part of it was made into an armchair and presented to Longfellow by local schoolchildren.

9. Chestnuts are a recurring motif in In George Orwell's 1984, referenced in poems referring to nature, modern life, or the saying: 'that old chestnut'. Protagonist Winston Smith frequents a bar called the Chestnut Tree Café.

10. The French and Italians have two words for chestnut. An ordinary chestnut is called a châtaigne, whereas the best, sweetest chestnuts are called marrons. In England we know them as the Spanish chestnut.

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14 September: Passion flower

Today’s Plant of the day is the Passion flower. 10 passion flower facts:

1. Passion flowers belong to the genus Passiflora.

2. There are about 500 species of them with a wide range of variations in the flowers and leaves. They are mostly tendril-bearing vines, but some are shrubs or trees.

3. Most are native to Mexico, Central America, the United States and South America, but some are found in Southeast Asia and Oceania.

4. They are often grown in butterfly farms, as many species of Butterfly feed on them.

5. The plant has been used in medicines, to relieve anxiety, insomnia, pain, epilepsy and high blood pressure.

6. The Victorians loved them and created many cultivars and hybrids.

7. Spanish missionaries in the 15th and 16th centuries used them to illustrate aspects of the story of Christ’s crucifixion, and it was they who gave them the name passion flower, after the passion of Christ. The symbolism includes: The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles; The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ; The flower's radial filaments represent the crown of thorns.

8. Names for the flower in other languages reflect this: Spanish: espina de Cristo ('thorn of Christ'); and old German names include Christus-Krone ('Christ's crown'), Christus-Strauss ('Christ's bouquet') and Dorn-Krone ('crown of thorns').

9. Outside the Christian religion, the flowers are often known as “Clock flower/plant”. This is the case in Japan, Greece and Israel. In Hawaii, they focus on the tendrils and call the flower liliko, where the element “li” means a string for tying fabric together.

10. In India, it is known as Krishnakamala because its dark violet blue colour resembles Bhagwan Krishna.

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13 September: Scooby Doo

On this date in 1969 the first ever episode of Scooby Doo was shown on TV. 10 things you might not know about Scooby Doo:

1. Originally, the show was going to be about a band called The Mysteries 5 and Scooby was to be a sheepdog called Too Much who played the bongos. The human characters were going to be called Geoff, Mike, Kelly and Linda, with an extra character, Linda’s brother 'W.W'. Who's S-S-scared? was another possible title.

2. Scooby’s name was lifted from the Frank Sinatra song, Strangers in the Night after TV executive Fred Silverman heard the song being played on the PA during a flight. Though Sinatra actually sings “doobie,” not “Scooby.”

3. Shaggy’s real name is Norville Rogers. Scooby’s full name is Scoobert.

4. Scooby is a Great Dane with a speech impediment (pronounces all words as beginning with R) and is perpetually seven years old. His appearance was created by Iwao Takamoto. He consulted a Great Dane breeder who told him the important points of a Great Dane: straight back, straight legs, small chin. Takamoto turned this on its head and gave Scooby a hump back, bowed legs and a big chin.

5. The gang’s vehicle, the Mystery Machine, is a customised 1968 Chevrolet Sportvan.

6. The voice of Fred has been provided by voice actor Frank Welker in every Scooby series except A Pup Named Scooby Doo. Welker has has more than 850 acting credits, but Fred was his first at the age of 23.

7. Scooby is a triplet and his triplet brothers are called Skippy Doo and Dooby Doo. He also has a sister, who is the mother of Scrappy Doo, three other brothers and a cousin, Dixie Doo. He has an ancestor called Yankee Doodle Doo, and another called Great-Grandpa Scooby, who is a ghost.

8. The running gag about Velma always losing her glasses came about by accident. The voice actor who played her, Nicole Jaffe, also wore glasses and during an early recording session, lost them. The producers liked her utterances at the time so much that they kept them in.

9. Casey Kasem voiced Shaggy from 1969 to 1997, and left because he was asked to voice a Burger King commercial as Shaggy. Kasem was a vegan and thought Shaggy should be vegan as well.

10. The term "Don't have a Scooby" is recognised rhyming slang for "clue".

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12 September: Marie Name Day

Today is the name day for people called Marie. Marie is a variation of the feminine given name Maria. 10 famous Maries:

1. Marie Antoinette: Queen of France and Archduchess of Austria, who was decapitated by a guillotine during the French Revolution

2. Marie Curie: Polish physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific categories.

3. Marie Laveau: New Orleans voodoo practitioner

4. Marie Lloyd: English music hall singer, comedian and musical theatre actress. She was best known for her performances of songs such as "The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery", "My Old Man "

5. Marie Osmond: American singer, actress, television personality, author and businesswoman. As a singer, she has had several chart-topping country music songs such as "Paper Roses"

6. Marie Tussaud: commonly known as Madame Tussaud, French artist known for her wax sculptures and Madame Tussauds, the wax museum she founded in London.

7. Marie: name attributed to The X-Men character Rogue in the films X-Men, X2: X-Men United, and X-Men: The Last Stand

8. Marie Kondo: Japanese organising consultant, author, and TV presenter.

9. Marie of Romania: last queen of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I.

10. Marie Schrader: fictional character in the television series Breaking Bad.

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