ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JUNE 20, 1963 THE 14-year-old Prince of Wales was in a schoolboy agony of suspense last night — wondering if he was going to get a beating from the head of his school, Gordonstoun. His offence: buying a cherry brandy in a hotel bar in Stornoway, Outer Hebrides. Robert Chew, the school’s headmaster, said: ‘If he is guilty, the normal punishment is a beating or demotion.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
WENDY CRAIG, 83. The actress from County Durham made her name in TV sitcoms, most notably Butterflies, in which she played a housewife considering adultery. In real life, she did more than consider it. In 2004, Craig (pictured) told writer Sir John Mortimer he had fathered her son in the Sixties, when they were both married to other people. She became a Christian in 1984 after the death of her dog, Tallis. BRIAN WILSON, 75. The Beach Boys frontman believes his mental illness problems, which include being bipolar, were partly triggered by taking LSD in the Sixties. He also took heroin and cocaine for years, which he regrets. Wilson said in his autobiography last year that he hears threatening voices, including those of his father, Chuck Berry and Phil Spector. Paul McCartney hailed Wilson’s song God Only Knows as the greatest pop song ever written.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TERENCE YOUNG (19151994). The British filmmaker made his name directing three James Bond films: Dr No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball. Young brought in his Savile Row tailor and shirtmaker and insisted that Sean Connery (pictured in Dr No) slept in his suits to make him look less self-conscious while wearing them. JAY BLAKENEY (1929-2007). The romantic fiction author wrote 88 novels under the pen names Anne Weale and Andrea Blake. She sold her first novel to Mills & Boon at 24. Her book Antigua Kiss was the publisher’s first title to include a reference to oral sex.
ON JUNE 20...
IN 1837, an 18-year- old Princess Victoria was woken to be told that she had become queen after the death of William IV.
IN 1967, Muhammad Ali was sentenced to five years in prison for draft dodging — he stayed out of jail while an appeal was heard, and in 1971 his conviction was overturned.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY
Glass ball environment: U.S. intelligence jargon from the Iraq conflict in 2004, referring to clear skies that make it easy to collect reconnaissance images. GUESS THE DEFINITION Charientism (coined 1589) A) A thrusting out of the tongue in kissing. B) An insult so gracefully veiled that it seems unintended. C) A distemper in which sailors imagine the sea to be green fields and will throw themselves into it. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED In the limelight:
To be in the full glare of publicity, from early theatre spotlights which used a heated cylinder of lime.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car. Kenneth Tynan, English theatre critic (1927-1980)
JOKE OF THE DAY
COMMUNISM jokes aren’t funny unless everyone gets them. Guess the Definition answer: B.