Many years ago I thought of changing my name and sometimes now I wish I had done so. But for some reason, despite a great many people who do change their names and writers writing under pseudonyms, I thought I wouldn’t be the same person if I changed my name so I stuck to it and now I wonder just how many Glyn Joneses there are in the world and if it was a wise decision. What has brought this to mind yet again is a newspaper article sent from a friend in Australia all about a head gardener by the name of Glyn Jones. One in New South Wales has just been convicted of a money scam. I’m willing to bet a pound to a penny they are not the only Glyn Joneses in the nether regions. Wales of course is awash with Glyn Joneses and in England 25 professional Glyn Joneses use Linkedin which doesn’t take into account the rest. So even if I had thoughts of being top dog, this Glyn Jones, outstripping one and all, it really is a forlorn hope and I have had to include my middle name writing- there doesn’t, surprise surprise, seem to be another Glyn Idris Jones. Well there probably is but I haven’t found him. Looking down the list in Google however I came across Glyn Jones – Writer A King’s Story. It’s truly amazing what gets on the internet and although the site is fairly accurate (not complete mind you as far as acting credits are concerned) I appear to have written a couple of things I really know nothing about. I wonder if I should get them to add books and published plays. I’ll get on to it maybe.

Now here is something very interesting. An e-mail from a friend who lives in Spain and I copy it verbatim –

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.
Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass - hence, Brass Monkeys.
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled.
Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time, folks thought that was just a vulgar expression?
You must send this fabulous bit of historical knowledge to at least a few intellectual friends.

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