ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
APRIL 6, 1953 THREE hundred Scottish trades unionists and Labour Party members were told at their conference that they had neglected their wives — ‘minorities who are unable to organise themselves’. They instructed their executive to investigate how housewives could become entitled to a share of their husbands’ wages. One proposal was that employers should deduct a percentage from a man’s salary and send it to his wife. APRIL 6, 1961 A GOLf ball driven by President John f. Kennedy in florida bounced and hit a Secret Service man’s head. After a medical check-up — insisted upon by the President — the man returned to his duties.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MYLEENE KLASS, 40. The Norfolk-born singer and TV host began playing violin and piano aged four and found fame in 2001 as part of Hear’Say, the winners of ITV’s talent contest Popstars. She came second on I’m A Celebrity in 2006 — her popularity boosted by her showering in a skimpy bikini (right). She said: ‘If I had known that appearing in a bikini would have the effect it did, I’d have walked down Oxford Street in a bikini years ago.’ ROGER COOK, 75. The New Zealand-born investigative journalist, who hosted ITV’s The Cook Report, suffered three cracked ribs when hit with a metal bar by a rogue antiques dealer he was exposing in 1981 on Newsnight. On Radio 4, without the benefit of pictures, he’d give a running commentary on any attacks on him, once saying: ‘Mr Smith, what do you think you’re doing with that baseball bat?’
BORN ON THIS DAY
PAuL DANIELS (19382016). The 5ft 6in TV magician from Middlesbrough said his craft began as ‘an attractive antidote to my shyness’. Daniels claimed he’d had 300 conquests before marrying his assistant Debbie McGee (pictured with him) and once sold a toupee on eBay, saying it had ‘decorated the head of one of the greatest sex symbols of all time’. ANITA PALLENBERG (1942-2017). The German-Italian actress, model and Sixties It-girl was described by Vogue as ‘the quintessential rock star girlfriend’ for her affairs with Brian Jones and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. In the Nineties, after completing a fashion degree, her graduate show was hailed by critics as ‘a triumph of style over substance abuse’.
ON APRIL 6…
IN 1974, Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, with Waterloo. IN 2016, the first baby to have the DNA of three people was born in Mexico.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Placknuck (coined by Jonathan Swift in 1726) A) Careless. B) A fool. C) A strange person or animal. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED To win by a long chalk:
Meaning to win easily. Comes from the practice of chalking up points in a game.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
It Is better to live rich than to die rich. Samuel Johnson, writer (1709-1784)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do the french like to eat snails so much? they can’t stand fast food. Guess the Definition answer: C.