ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 17, 1958
TEDDy Boys found guilty of insulting behaviour should have their suits impounded until they had paid the fines, said James Dance (Con., Bromsgrove) in the Commons. He also suggested the authorities should ‘cut off’ the Teddy Boys’ curls.
MAY 17, 1967
BRITISH hotels are letting down the tourist industry. They are short of beds — up to 12,500 short by 1970 — and reception staff are ‘off hand’ and can’t speak the languages of foreign guests. The criticisms are made in a report by the Hotel and Catering Economic Development Committee. Many foreigners, too, would prefer international cuisine to British dishes.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SIMOn FullER, 57. The creator of Pop Idol and American Idol managed the Spice Girls until they sacked him over the phone in 1997. Victoria Beckham re-hired him in 2003 and he became the manager of her husband David, too. Fuller reputedly told his band S Club 7: ‘I could put cardboard cut- outs of you on stage and it wouldn’t make any difference.’ EnyA, 56 (right). The Irish folk singer- songwriter has sold 75 million albums and is worth £90 million, but has never toured. In 2005, a stalker broke into the castle where she lives and tied up a maid. Enya hid in a panic room. Her neighbour, u2’s Bono, sent her a note joking: ‘I’d have come over and tackled the stalker, but there was something good on the telly.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DEnnIS POTTER ( 1935- 1994). The Gloucestershire-born, Bafta-winning TV playwright of Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective fell out with bosses at ITV and the BBC, calling Corporation chiefs ‘croak-voiced Daleks’. EDwARD JEnnER (1749-1823). English surgeon and scientist who developed the smallpox vaccination based on a commonly held view that milkmaids who contracted cowpox, a mild disease, never suffered smallpox, one of the world’s biggest killers. Smallpox vaccination was made compulsory in the uK 30 years after his death. By 1980, the disease was eradicated worldwide.
ON MAY 17 . . .
IN 1916, the Daylight Saving Act was passed so that evenings have more daylight and mornings less, following a campaign by builder william willett. Clocks went forward by an hour for the first time four days later.
IN 1978, the coffin containing the body of Charlie Chaplin was found buried in a Swiss field, 11 weeks after his grave was robbed.
WORD WIZARDRY NEW PHRASE OF THE DAY
On the bubble: At the decisive point between success or failure.
GUESS THE DEFINITION Yahoo (coined by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, 1726)
A) Spur on heel of a fighting cock. B) Shout of huntsmen at death of quarry. C) Crude or brutish person. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Off the cuff — impromptu; referring to the practice of writing impromptu notes on one’s shirt cuff before speaking in public.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
WE are all serving a life-sentence in the dungeon of self. Cyril Connolly, writer (1903-1974)
JOKE OF THE DAY
wHAT sound does a 747 make when it bounces? Boeing, Boeing, Boeing! Guess The Definition answer: C