ON THIS DAY
December 23, 2017
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
DECEMBER 23, 1942 THe Government last night announced that church bells may be rung on Christmas Day. The ban imposed on their ringing — except as a warning of enemy attack — is therefore waived to cover any period between 9am and noon on December 25. DECEMBER 23, 1965 MrS Barbara Castle, who does not drive, is Britain’s first woman Minister of Transport. After getting the job last night, Mrs Castle, 54, said: ‘I do not think I shall have time to try to pass a test... Any Minister of Transport is bound to be so unpopular that being a woman will not make any difference.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CArOL SMILLIe, 56. The Scottish TV presenter found fame on Changing rooms and Wheel Of Fortune. She runs a business selling women’s underwear ‘with a secret waterproof panel, for life’s little leaks’, but says she was ‘seething’ when This Morning’s Phillip Schofield wrongly ‘announced I was incontinent’. JO JOHnSOn, 46. The Tory MP and universities and science minister was given a government job before his older brother, Boris. Like Boris, the eton-educated former banker was a member of the Bullingdon Club. Boris’s biographer said Jo may end up beating Boris to no 10, adding: ‘We could be looking at the Milibands all over again.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
TArA Palmer-Tomkinson (1971-2017). The english socialite and It-girl, who died in February of natural causes, once boasted: ‘I have kissed Prince Charles every day since I was four’ (she was his goddaughter and her father was his ski instructor). She was once reportedly banned from Charles’s ski parties after flashing her breasts at Prince William. Her £400-a-day cocaine habit resulted in a nose reconstruction. She said: ‘every time I come out of a loo cubicle, people ask: “What’s she been doing in there?” ’ CHeT BAKer (1929-1988). Thanks to his good looks and talent, the American jazz trumpeter and singer was described as James Dean and Frank Sinatra ‘rolled into one’. Baker struggled with drug addiction and in the Sixties was jailed in Italy for 16 months. He died, aged 59, after falling from a hotel window in Amsterdam.
ON DECEMBER 23...
IN 1823, the poem A Visit From St nicholas, by Clement C. Moore, was published, consolidating the image of Father Christmas as ‘chubby and plump’ with a white beard.
IN 1947, the transistor was first demonstrated in new Jersey, U.S. The nobel-winning invention became key to the computer age.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION Steatopygic (coined 1912) A) Perspiring. B) Having a fat bottom. C) exhausted, worn out. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED
Men in grey suits: Men who have power without accountability. Comes from John Lennon who talked of the control of ‘men in suits’. Often used by the Press to describe those responsible for Margaret Thatcher’s downfall as Prime Minister. QUOTE FOR TODAY A READER lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. George R.R. Martin, U.S. author JOKE OF THE DAY WHAT did Adam say to his wife the day before Christmas? It’s Christmas, Eve! Guess The Definition answer: B.