ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 31, 1959
IT IS 1999. In the moon rocket on the suburban launchpad, you run a hand over your head. It’s bristly. Short hair is the thing for men and women ‘because of the need to wear special helmets’, according to hairdresser Mr J. McLaren Thompson. What about baldness? ‘There will be no bald men or women. Science will have provided a drug to stimulate hair growth.’
MARCH 31, 1969
THEY’RE bored in Basildon. So they’re holding wife-swapping parties. So says Mr Stanley Balls, a Liberal council candidate, pointing out that new towns had the highest divorce rate in the country. He said: ‘They start off as ordinary parties, but lead to sex. I have nothing against a kiss and a cuddle, but you have to draw the line.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAVID STEEL, 79. The leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until 1988, Lord Steel is best remembered by many for his tiny Spitting Image puppet, which sat in the pocket of SDP leader David Owen. Steel was upset by being portrayed as so small, saying: ‘It’s totally outrageous! I’m half an inch taller than Neil Kinnock!’ CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, 74. The U.S. actor, who won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter, says he buys few clothes: ‘Whenever I do a movie, all my clothing is from that set. They don’t give me anything — I steal.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DEBORAH CAVENDISH (1920-2014). The Duchess of Devonshire, the last of the six Mitford sisters, had tea with Hitler, was a fan of Elvis Presley and a close friend of JFK. She made Chatsworth House in Derbyshire one of the UK’s most profitable stately homes, setting up a gift shop, restaurant, cookery school and hotels. JOHN FOWLES (1926-2005). The Essexborn novelist is most famous for his novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, made into an acclaimed film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. Another of his books, The Magus, was turned into a film so poor that it became a Woody Allen joke: ‘If I had to live my life again, I’d do everything the same, except I wouldn’t see The Magus.’
ON MARCH 31...
IN 1917, the U.S. bought the Danish West Indies for $25 million and renamed them the virgin Islands.
IN 1990, riots broke out in London as more than 100,000 people protested against Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY
Earthscraper: a multi- storey, pyramidshaped edifice, constructed underground with its roof at ground level.
GUESS THE DEFINITION Burke (coined 1829)
A) To smother people in order to sell their bodies for dissection. B) A single black eye. C) A blow on the back of the neck with the edge of the open palm. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Bury the hatchet: To end an argument or conflict, after a Native American custom where a hatchet or tomahawk was buried in the ground to mark a declaration of peace.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THE great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. Lord Byron, British poet (1788-1824)
JOKE OF THE DAY
How do you count cows? With a cowculator. Word wizardry answer: A