25 February: Yes Minister

Yes Minister, the BBC political comedy written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn first aired on this date in 1980. 10 things you might not know:

1. The writers had advisors who worked within the government and many of the stories were based on things which really happened.

2. It was recorded in front of a live audience, something which the principal cast members hated because they often had to pause (sometimes in mid-sentence) to wait for the audience Laughter to die down.

3. Most of the episodes ended with the words, “Yes Minister”, spoken as the answer to a question posed by Minister Jim Hacker. There were only three exceptions to this rule: season one, episode three, The Economy Drive, season one, episode four, Big Brother, and season one, episode six, The Right to Know.

4. The opening titles were drawn by artist and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and the theme music was by Ronnie Hazlehurst, who based the tune on the chimes of Big Ben.

5. Jim Hacker’s political party is deliberately never revealed. His party emblem is clearly neither Conservative nor Labour, and his party's political colour is White. That said, Lynn later admitted they had always imagined him as a centre-minded Conservative.

6. Lady Appleby, Sir Humphrey's wife, is seen only once, briefly from behind (in an uncredited, non-speaking appearance) in "Big Brother", and her first name is never revealed.

7. The series opens in the wake of a general election in which the incumbent government has been defeated by the opposition party, to which Jim Hacker MP belongs. The Prime Minister offers Hacker the position of Minister of Administrative Affairs, which he accepts. Later, the party has a leadership crisis, and Hacker is unexpectedly made Prime Minister, hence the title of the sequel series, Yes, Prime Minister. Hacker is eventually elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Hacker of Islington.

8. There is a video game of the series, which was released in 1987 for Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and ZX Spectrum. The player takes on the role of Prime Minister Jim Hacker for one week as he navigates through meetings with Sir Humphrey, Bernard Woolley, and other government officials, making decisions about minor government policies which have an effect on his approval rating.

9. Real politicians liked it, a lot. In a 2006 poll, British MPs voted Yes Minister as the greatest political comedy of all time.

10. One real politician who was a big fan was Margaret Thatcher. In fact, she liked it so much that she wrote a sketch for the show herself with Press Secretary Bernard Ingham. It was recorded for the 1984 National Viewers and Listeners Awards with Mrs Thatcher taking the role of Prime Minister. The sketch featured Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne talking to the Prime Minister about her notion to abolish economists. Eddington and Hawthorne did not want to do it and were pressured into taking part.

See also Yes Minister Quotes

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

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25 February: Yes Minister Quotes

40 years ago in 1980, the sitcom Yes, Minister was first broadcast. To celerate here are 10 quotes from the show: 

1. It used to be said there were two kinds of chairs to go with two kinds of Minister: one sort folds up instantly; the other sort goes round and round in circles.
2. Well, "under consideration" means "we've lost the file"; "under active consideration" means "we're trying to find it".
3. Hacker: Humphrey, do you see it as part of your job to help ministers make fools of themselves? Sir Humphrey: Well, I never met one that needed any help.
4. Hacker: Why is it that ministers can't ever go anywhere without their briefs? Bernard: It's in case they get caught with their trousers down.
5. I gather he was as drunk as a lord. So, after a discreet interval, they'll probably make him one.
6. Sir Humphrey: How are things at the Campaign for the Freedom of Information, by the way? Sir Arnold: Sorry, I can't talk about that.
7. Sir Arnold: So, will our next Prime Minister be our eminent Chancellor or our distinguished Foreign Secretary? Sir Humphrey: That's what I wanted to ask you, which do you think it should be? Sir Arnold: Hmmm. Difficult, like asking which lunatic should run the asylum.
8. It would be different if the Government were a team, but in fact they're a loose confederation of warring tribes.
9. Underpaid? Backbench MPs, Darling? Being an MP is a vast subsidised ego trip. It's a job for which you need no qualifications, no compulsory hours of work, no performance standards. A warm room and subsidised meals for a bunch of self-opinionated windbags and busybodies who suddenly find people taking them seriously because they got letters "MP" after their names.
10. Man: In such an awful country, they cut people's hands off and women get stoned when they commit adultery. Sir Humphrey: Unlike Britain, where they commit adultery when they get stoned.

Settling the Score

Another collection of short stories, even more murder and mayhem with carol singers, an orchestra out for revenge, a sinister magic stone and a haunted mansion.

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A Tale of Two Sisters

During a battle with supervillains, a horrific accident leaves the Warner family with no option but to believe their youngest daughter, Jessica, is dead. It doesn't occur to them that the bad guys could, or would, save her.

Jessica wakes up with no memory of who she is or how she came to be on a space station with two bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic eye. She is told her family abandoned her and is sent back to Earth with a mission - to kill them. While Jessica wants to kill her family, along with the twin boys who once rejected her, she knows what the Alliance of Supervillains are asking her to do is a suicide mission. She decides to get her revenge in her own way.

As Jessica puts the first part of her revenge plan in motion, she finds herself with an agonising decision to make. Before she can decide, the Alliance come for her, determined to make her do their bidding. This time, it's the Alliance who leave her, crippled and at the mercy of the Warner family, who have no idea who the Alliance's Black Rose really is.

Jessica finds herself having to re-think her decisions in light of what she now learns about her family, the Alliance, the twins, and herself. It would appear the Alliance have left her with an unwanted and permanent reminder of her time with them. Or have they?

Jessica's older sister, Jill, knows her destiny is to be a doctor and specialise in bionics and genetic variant medicine. She is also hopelessly in love with Christopher, Crown Prince of Galorvia. Can their romance survive the lies Christopher told her when they were both at school, an unplanned pregnancy and Sophie, the wannabe princess who comes between them?

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January 15th: Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968.

1. Both his father and grandfather before him were Baptist ministers. Even so, it wasn't a foregone conclusion that he'd follow in their footsteps. King was an extremely gifted student, skipping a couple of grades and going to college at 15. He was on the verge of rejecting his faith altogether and becoming a doctor or a lawyer, but somewhere along the line he changed his mind, possibly die to the influence of the president of his college, Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian. King realised that the Bible had “many profound truths which one cannot escape” and became a minister after all.
2. His name at birth wasn't Martin, but Michael. His father was also called Michael at the time, but after a trip to Germany was so inspired by the life of Martin Luther that he changed his name to Martin Luther King, and also decided to change the name of his five year old son to Martin Luther King Jr.
3. King married Coretta Scott King in 1953. At that time, there were no hotels which would allow a black couple to use their honeymoon suites - so a friend of his who owned a funeral parlour let him spend his wedding night there instead.
4. He survived an assassination attempt in 1958. He was signing copies of his book, Stride Toward Freedom when a woman called Izola Ware Curry. She asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. - he said yes, and Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and stabbed him in the chest with a seven-inch letter opener. The tip of the blade was touching his aorta, and took hours of surgery to remove. Surgeons said that if King had so much as sneezed during that time, it would have punctured his aorta and killed him. In true Christian spirit, he forgave his attacker and bore her no ill will.
5. King served 29 prison sentences himself - mostly for civil disobedience, but also judges were especially harsh if he broke the rules even a tiny bit. He went to prison in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-miles an hour zone.
6. He encouraged others to be role models, most notably Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura in the original Star Trek series. She was considering leaving the show, but King persuaded her to carry on, because she was a black woman playing a major role and not the stereotypes usually played by black people at the time. She was playing a character who was equal to everyone she was working with. Nichols was convinced, and stayed in the role, where she was seen by a young Whoopi Goldberg who exclaimed, “Momma! There’s a black lady on TV, and she ain’t no maid!” Goldberg would later star in the Star Trek Next Generation series as well as numerous films. Astronaut Ronald McNair, the second black person in space, was also inspired by Nichols to believe it was possible for him to follow that career. Sadly, he died in the Challenger explosion.
7. In 1964, King won a Nobel Peace Prize, and was the youngest person at that time ever to win one, at the age of 35. While he's no longer the youngest recipient (Malala Yousafzai won it in 2014 at the age of 17) he is still the youngest male Peace Prize winner. King donated all his prize money to the Civil Rights Movement. That wasn't the only award he ever won. He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal and a Medal of Freedom. He also won a Grammy award in 1971 for Best Spoken Word Album for “Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam”. In 1963, he became the first African-American to be named Time magazine’s Man of the Year. Plus every major US city has a street named after him - over 700 streets in the USA bear his name.
8. Despite being a straight A student most of the time, he did get a C in his first year at seminary - for public speaking! One suspects the teacher concerned disagreed with what he said rather than him having any lack of talent.
9. King was a lifelong smoker, although he tried his best to hide the fact, because it was frowned upon in the church at the time, and also because he didn't want his children to take up the habit. He never smoked in front of them, and didn't like having his picture taken with a cigarette. He was shot while taking a smoking break on the balcony. One of his associates said later that he removed the cigarette butt and packet of cigarettes from King's pocket before the ambulance came for him, so people wouldn't know King had been smoking. An autopsy revealed that though King was only 39 years old when he died, his heart was more like that of a 60-year-old, probably due to stress.
10. King's mother was also shot dead, in 1974, at the age of 69. She was playing the organ in church at the time. Killer Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. claimed he had divine instructions to kill King’s father, who was in the congregation, he killed King’s mother instead because she was nearer. Chenault received a death sentence but it was later changed to life imprisonment, in part because the King family opposed capital punishment.

See also

10 Quotes from Martin Luther King 

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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.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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7 February

 10 weird and wonderful things which happened on 7 February:

Antarctica

1. Two well known authors had their birthdays on this date. Born in 1812, Charles Dickens, author of Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations; and in 1867 Laura Ingalls Wilder, US author, who wrote Little House on the Prairie.
2. On this date in 1971 Women won the right to vote in Switzerland. Yes, that recently.
3. In 1812 Lord Byron made his maiden speech in House of Lords, against the death penalty for rebellious labourers.
4. In 1821 John Davis became the first person known to have set foot on the continent of Antarctica.
5. In 1959 Robert Timm and John Cook set a flight duration record when they landed their Cessna in Las Vegas, Nevada; they'd taken off on 4 December 1958 and had remained airborne for 64 days, 22 hours 19 minutes and 5 seconds. While airborne they managed to cover a distance comparable to flying six times around the Earth. During the trip they were constantly refuelled in flight and swooped down to grab Water and food from a chase car which was following them them. How they managed to go to the toilet was not mentioned by my source.
6. The main group of the Dead Sea Scrolls was discovered this day in 1947, in caves on the West side of the Jordan River. They date to about 150 BC–AD 68. More were found on this same day in 1960.
7. In 1845 William Lloyd, drunk in the British Museum, bumped into the 25 BCE ‘‘Portland Vase’’, a cameo-glass masterpiece discovered in 1560, which once belonged to Augustus Caesar, causing it to smash into two hundred pieces. It was suspected he'd done it on purpose.
8. In 1991, the IRA fired three mortar bombs into Ten Downing Street, shattering glass in the room where Prime Minister John Major was meeting with members of his cabinet. No one was hurt, but the door was severely dented.
9. In 1575 at Much Marcle, Herefordshire, at 6pm, Marcle Hill started moving. Over the next three days, 26 acres of hill moved 400 yards, killing cattle and sheep, uprooting trees, destroying roads and a chapel at Little Kinnaston. No explanation has ever been found as to why it happened.
10. In 1989, it rained sardines over the Australian town of Ipswich, 30 miles from the sea. Scientists explained the odd occurrence as a violent storm causing updraughts which sucked the fish from the shallow Brisbane waters into the atmosphere.

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.

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4th February: Sri Lanka Independence Day

Sri Lanka Independence Day is today. Here are some things you may not know about Sri Lanka:

1. Sri Lanka means "resplendent island" in Sanskrit. It has been known by many other names. Until 1972, it was known as Ceylon; in ancient times travellers called the island by different names depending on where they had come from: Indian travellers called it Lanka or Sinhala, ancient Greeks called it Taprobane (the historical name for an island in the Indian Ocean) and Arabs referred to it as Serendib, which was the origin of the word "serendipity" meaning pleasant surprise, which Horace Walpole coined from the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, who were known for finding things by accident. It is nicknamed ‘pearl of the Indian Ocean’ and the ‘teardrop of India’.
2. Sri Lanka may have been inhabited for as long as 500,000 years, although the first written reference to it is in the Indian epic poem Ramayana. In it, Sri Lanka was created by the divine sculptor Vishwakarma for Kubera, the Lord of Wealth. He was overthrown by his step-brother, Ravana, who had built a flying machine. Hence the modern city of Wariyapola is sometimes referred to as Ravana's airport.
3. According to Hindu mythology, Sri Lanka was once connected to the Indian mainland by a land bridge, reportedly passable on foot up to 1480 AD, but all that is left of it now is a chain of limestone shoals.
4. Sri Lanka was the first Asian country to be ruled by a woman, Queen Anula, who reigned 47–42 BC, and more recently it had the first female prime minister in the world, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, first elected in 1960.
5. It was also the first country in the world to have a dedicated hospital, established in the 4th century in Mihintale.
6. Sri Lanka is the world’s largest Tea exporter, but tea was only introduced to it in 1867. Before that, it was famous for its Coffee, but when the coffee crop was wiped out by disease in the 1870s they switched to growing tea.
7. Cinnamon originated there; the Egyptians discovered it. Sri Lanka still produces 80-90% of the world's cinnamon supply.
8. When Queen Cleopatra sent her son Caesarion into hiding, he went to Sri Lanka.
9. The highest point is Pidurutalagala, reaching 2,524 metres (8,281 ft) above sea level. The longest river is the Mahaweli River, and the largest city is Colombo.
10. If a Sri Lankan shakes their head with a slight wiggle, they are actually saying "yes"

30 November: John Bunyan

On this date in 1628 John Bunyan was baptised. He’s best known for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. 10 facts about him:

1. His exact date of birth isn’t known, but we do know that his parents were called Thomas and Margaret, and that the family lived at Bunyan's End in the parish of Elstow, Bedfordshire.

2. His father was a tinker who travelled around the area mending pots and pans. His grandfather was a small trader who had at some point owned some land, which suggests that Bunyan’s assertion that his father's house was "of that rank that is meanest and most despised in the country" wasn’t strictly true.

3. Not much is known about his childhood. He went to a local school, though it’s not known which one, and also learned his father’s trade. His father also taught him to swear. He liked to read the popular books of the time, and suffered from nightmares.

4. He served in the Parliamentary army for three years in the early stages of the civil war. When he was 16, Parliament demanded that the town of Bedford must provide 225 soldiers, and Bunyan was one of them. There are few details about his service although he did write of one incident where a fellow soldier once took his place on watch and was shot in the head, which Bunyan interpreted as evidence that God was looking out for him. He also wrote that he fully indulged in “all manner of vice and ungodliness" while serving in the army.

5. His mother died in 1644, and during his military service, his father remarried and started a new family, so Bunyan moved from the family home to a cottage of his own where he took up his father’s trade again.

6. Soon after that, Bunyan got married. The date of his wedding isn’t known, and neither is his wife’s name. Bunyan’s writings only tell us that she was a pious woman and they weren’t well off: "not having so much household-stuff as a Dish or a Spoon betwixt us both". They did, however, own two books, which the new Mrs Bunyan had inherited from her father. These were Practice of Piety by Lewis Bayly and Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven by Arthur Dent (yes, really – there was a Puritan minister and writer called Arthur Dent who died in 1607. There is no information on whether Douglas Adams named his character after this guy though). The couple had four children. The eldest, Mary, was blind, and the others were called Elizabeth, Thomas and John.

7. One Sunday he listened to a sermon about the Sabbath and the consequences of breaking it. Later, he was on the village green playing a game involving hitting a ball with a stick, when he heard God speak to him, telling him that he was sinful and going to hell. He struggled for a time with his sinful state and even developed a fear of bell ringing, a hobby he’d once enjoyed. Now he feared if he so much as entered the bell tower the bell would fall on him or the steeple collapse. He joined a nonconformist church as a result of hearing people talking about it during his travels working as a tinker. It was here that he began preaching and wrote his first book.

8. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Bunyan was no longer free to preach and practice the nonconformist religion. It was now an offence to attend a religious meeting outside of the parish church with more than five people you weren’t related to. Not that it stopped him. He was preaching one day at a farm when he was arrested and sentenced to three months in prison which was extended to 12 years because he refused to promise to give up preaching outside the established church. During this time he made a little money to send home by making Shoelaces and writing tracts. His first wife had died, and he was now married to a woman called Elizabeth. He was occasionally allowed time out of prison which allowed him to continue preaching and father two children with Elizabeth. While he was in prison, he wrote a book called Grace Abounding and began work on Pilgrim’s Progress.

9. In 1672 the king issued a declaration of indulgence which suspended laws against nonconformists, and Bunyan was released. He was able to preach again and became a travelling preacher and earning the nickname “Bishop Bunyan”. There was a bit of a scandal though, when he allowed a member of his congregation, a young woman called Agnes Beaumont, to ride behind him on his horse. People, including the girl’s father, believed they were having an affair. Soon after her father died and Agnes was accused of poisoning him, but the coroner’s verdict was natural causes.

10. The Pilgrim’s Progress has been made into an Opera. The opera was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams and first performed at the Royal Opera House in 1951. It was revived in 2012 by the English National Opera.

Christmas is coming! 

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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2 September: The Yellow Rose of Texas

On this date in 1858, a songwriter known only as J.K. copyrighted the popular song, The Yellow Rose of Texas. 10 things you might not know about the song.

1. Most people will be familiar with the 1955 version of the song by Mitch Miller. It has also been recorded by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Bing Crosby and Pat Boone, to name but a few.
2. The song was part of the soundtrack for at least two films. The Elvis Presely version was in the 1964 film Viva Las Vegas. Mitch Miller's version was in the film Giant, starring James Dean.
3. Mitch Miller's record reached the number one spot in the US charts in 1955, the week James Dean died, knocking Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets off the top spot. It reached number one in Australia, too, and number two in the UK.
4. The earliest known version of the song was in Christy's Plantation Melodies, a book of songs published by Edwin Peace Christy in 1853.
5. While the lyrics we are familiar with seem innocent enough with talk of "the sweetest little rosebud" and so on, the early versions used terms which we would class as racist today, such as "darky" and "sweetest rose of colour". Perhaps not surprising given the fact that Christy was the founder of Christy's Minstrels, a blackface minstrel show.
6. Was the Yellow Rose of Texas a real person? According to legend, yes. And, according to legend, she played a part in helping Texas win independence from Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto. The story goes that she was Emily West, a beautiful and intelligent young woman of African American origin, an indentured servant who was captured by General Santa Anna, after the woman he'd been travelling with was forced to turn back because her carriage couldn't cross a swollen river. Santa Anna apparently didn't want to be without a woman and was somewhat smitten with Emily. It's said that Emily already had a boyfriend, a young African American man, and it's said he was inspired to write the song about her after their enforced separation.
7. Texas won the battle of San Jacinto in just 18 minutes, having caught Santa Anna literally with his pants down. Houston, spying on the Mexican camp, noticed that Santa Anna was, shall we say, distracted by Emily and Houston reckoned this would be a good time to launch a suprise attack.
8. There is an organisation called the Sons of the Knights of the Yellow Rose of Texas, which aims to keep Emily's memory alive. They wear tiny lapel pins in the shape of yellow roses. They claim that her ghost walks the site of the battle at night.
9. Confederate soldiers used the song as a marching tune during the American Civil war. It was first introduced in this way by General John Bell Hood, who changed the lyrics to make it more about soldiers and the war.
10. Texan women who are deemed to have served their communities in exceptional ways, such as charity work or contributions to preserving the history of Texas, or achievements related to improving the present and building the future, may be admitted to the Commission of the Yellow Rose of Texas.

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Obsidian's Ark

Teenage years bring no end of problems. Daniel Moran's include getting hold of computer games his parents don't think he should have; a full blown crush on the beautiful Suki from Zorostan; maintaining his status as a prefect and getting his homework done. He must also keep from his parents and sister the fact that he is a superhero with a sword from another world.

Trish wonders how to get science whizz Tom to notice her; how to persuade him that the best way to stand up to the school bully is to fight back. She doesn't want her friends, especially not Tom, to know she is a genetic variant with superpowers. Little does she know that Tom has secrets of his own.

Suki struggles to make friends at school when she cannot understand everyday cultural references, and they all suspect her of being a terrorist. She, too, has a secret, but is it what her classmates assume?

When Daniel stumbles upon a plot by an alliance of supervillains to plunge the world into war, he tries to alert the established superheroes, but none of them believe him. When the Prime Minister's only daughter, Yasmin Miller, is abducted, Daniel knows the villains' plan is underway. It seems humanity's only hope may be Daniel and the ragtag bunch of teenage superheroes he recruits. Can he pull together, not only his own team, but the older heroes as well, in a bid to save the Earth from a devastating war?

Themes: 

Superheroes; Coming of age; Leadership; Kidnap and rescue; Aliens; Friendship and rivalry; Terrorism; Secrets.

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9 November: Edward VII

9 November 1841 was the birthdate of King Edward VII, eldest son of Victoria and her prince consort, Albert. He was King of the United Kingdom from 1901 to 1910, which is known as the Edwardian period.

1. He was christened Albert Edward and was known as Bertie to his family. He was named after his father. His mother, Queen Victoria, wanted him to use Albert Edward as his regnal name, but when he came to the throne, he chose to be Edward VII because he did not wish to "undervalue the name of Albert" or diminish the status of his father. “The name should stand alone", he said.
2. Queen Victoria blamed her eldest son for Albert's early death. Edward had been carrying on with an actress, which his parents deemed most unsuitable behaviour for an heir to the throne. Albert, despite being ill at the time, travelled to see Edward to give him a telling off. When Albert died a couple of weeks later, Victoria blamed Edward. She even wrote to her daughter, "I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder."
3. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Although the couple got on well, it was a marriage arranged by the two families. They had six children. The eldest. Albert Victor, died of pneumonia as a young man, and the youngest, Alexander John, died when he was just a day old.
4. Edward lived somewhat of a playboy lifestyle. He enjoyed eating, drinking, gambling, shooting, watching Horse racing, sailing and, well, sex. He had a string of mistresses. His wife, it is believed, knew about his affairs and accepted them. The most famous of his mistresses was Lillie Langtry; but he was also known to socialise with Lady Randolph Churchill; Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick; actress  Sarah Bernhardt; Lady Susan Vane-Tempest; singer Hortense Schneider; prostitute Giulia Beneni ("La Barucci"); wealthy humanitarian Agnes Keyser and Alice Keppel. Edward was always as discreet as possible and nobody knows for sure exactly how far these relationships went, but gossip was rife. Edward never acknowledged any illegitimate children, although there was a rumour that Alice Keppel's daughter Sonia was Edward's, even though she looked like her father, George Keppel. Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, is Sonia Keppel's granddaughter.
5. Despite his rumoured affairs and extravagant lifestyle, the public loved Edward and copied the way he dressed. He made wearing tweed, Homburg hats and Norfolk jackets fashionable as well as the wearing of black ties at formal occasions (instead of the traditional white tie and tails). The tradition of men not buttoning the bottom Button of their waistcoats is said to have started with Edward, too, although in Edward's case it was a necessity rather than a fashion statement - his waist measured 48 inches (122 cm).
6. His eating habits, too, were widely copied, in particular his favourite Sunday lunch: roast beef and Potatoes with Horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding, still a popular Sunday lunch to this day. He drank Champagne and sometimes port, but he wasn't a heavy drinker. His vice was smoking – he smoked 20 cigarettes a day.
7. Through Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's other children, he was related to most of the royalty in the rest of Europe, and was nicknamed the 'Uncle of Europe'. As such, he would assist with foreign policy negotiations and he was the first British monarch to visit Russia.
8. Edward was 59 years old when he became King. He'd held the title of Prince of Wales for longer than any of his predecessors. His coronation was delayed for a few months because he went down with appendicitis. In those days, surgery as a cure for the condition was virtually unknown and a lot of people died from it. However, Sir Frederick Treves, with the support of Lord Lister, performed an operation on Edward which was radical for the time, and next day, Edward was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigar. Treves was made a baronet.
9. He reigned for ten years. Towards the end of his reign there was a constitutional crisis when the Conservative majority in the House of Lords refused to pass the "People's Budget" proposed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Edward, meanwhile was in France, and unknown to the public, was unwell, suffering from bronchitis. He was criticised for remaining in France at his holiday home during the crisis.
10. He died at the age of 68 in 1910, after suffering a number of heart attacks in one day but refusing to go to bed. "No, I shall not give in; I shall go on; I shall work to the end," he declared. His last words were "Yes, I have heard of it. I am very glad," when told his horse had won at Kempton Park. He was succeeded by his son who became George V.

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