ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MAY 18, 1955 A ‘ fLYIng saucer’ was seen by the headmaster and four boys over their school at Upwell, norfolk. ‘It looked like a large, semi-deflated balloon,’ said head Mr fell, ‘or like a giant jellyfish.’ MAY 18, 1966 LonDon’S Playboy Club held a Bunny Hunt yesterday and the ‘Bunny Mother’ said: ‘What we want are girls who are young and fresh and clean and don’t look as if they’ve been hanging around for a couple of years.’ There were a few girls like that, lured to the auditions by the hope of £35 a week and, as one put it, ‘a sort of glamorous job without any low morals coming into it’. MIRIAM MARgoLYES, 77. The actress ( right) played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films and was the voice of a sheepdog in Babe. She once said: ‘I’m surprised I haven’t been more successful. I’d have thought my particular brand of quirkiness, combined with sharp intelligence and a fine voice, would have yielded more. Maybe it’s because I’m fat.’ noBBY STILES, 76. The ex-Manchester United and England footballer has lived with Alzheimer’s for more than 15 years. His son Rob said last year: ‘There’s been a suspected link between football and Alzheimer’s for years. So many of his team-mates at United and England have had it.’ one 1966 World Cup winning team-mate Ray Wilson died this week after battling the disease. Another, Martin Peters, is also a sufferer. BERTRAnD RUSSELL (1872-1970). The English nobel prize-winning philosopher and mathematician was imprisoned as a pacifist during World War I. He was so good at keeping in touch with friends — including P. g. Wodehouse, T. S. Eliot and Lenin — that it was calculated he wrote one letter for every 30 hours of his life. Described as a ‘chronic womaniser’, he wed his fourth wife (almost 30 years his junior) aged 80. PERRY CoMo ( 19122001). The U.S. crooner ( right) and actor sold 50 million records, notching up hits with Papa Loves Mambo and Catch A falling Star. The sixth of 13th children, he started work as a barber known for bursting into song.
ON MAY 18 . . .
IN 1912, Bollywood was born, with the release of the first Indian film, the 22- minute silent movie Shree Pundalik. IN 1969, Apollo 10 was launched as a rehearsal for the first moon landing.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Coxcombical (coined 1716) A) foppish, conceited. B) Someone who lives off the work of others. C) Uncomfortable, uneasy. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Halcyon days — meaning a time of happiness and prosperity, it alludes to halcyon, the Ancient greek for a kingfisher; the ancient Scythians believed the female laid her eggs and incubated for a fortnight, before the winter solstice, during which time the sea was always unruffled. SluMS may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. Cyril Connolly, writer (1903-1974)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY is bread like the sun? It rises in the yeast and sets in the waist. Guess The Definition answer: A