ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER 11, 1948
THE Variety Artistes’ Federation is making a protest to the Home Secretary against the law which prevents the imitation of bird calls on the stage on Sundays, but allows funny stories if the artist does not wear a hat.
SEPTEMBER 11, 1968
THE time of a church’s Sunday evening service has been changed — so the congregation can watch BBC serial The Forsyte Saga [which starred Susan Hampshire, pictured]. Episodes normally start at 7.25pm — too early for the churchgoers of Cirencester, Gloucestershire, to get home, so from September 22, the service will begin at 6pm.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MoBy, 53. The American pop star was born Richard Melville Hall but nicknamed Moby by his parents, after the whale in MobyDick — the book written by his great-greatgreat-great uncle, Herman Melville. Moby, a Christian vegan teetotaller, used to own Marlon Brando’s old house — a Hollywood castle dubbed Wolf’s Lair also once lived in by Debbie Reynolds and The Beatles. HARRy ConniCk Jr, 51. The American actor, musician, and talk show host has sold almost 30 million albums and won two Emmy awards and three Grammys. He began learning the piano at three, played publicly at five, and with the new orleans Symphony orchestra at nine. He was a protege of Frank Sinatra, who referred to him as ‘The kid’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
D.H. LAWRENCE ( 18851930). David Herbert Lawrence, the nottinghamshire-born author, once admitted he liked to climb mulberry trees in the nude as inspiration for his writing. He was briefly a teacher but was plagued by poor health — tuberculosis that would kill him aged 44. JESSICA MITFORD (1917-96). The English writer, one of the famous Mitford sisters, was nicknamed Decca at home and dubbed ‘Queen of the Muckrakers’ for her investigative journalism and gossipy writings. Mitford, who was a Communist for much of her life, broke both her arms before the age of ten while learning to ride horses.
ON SEPTEMBER 11…
IN 1978, British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox, aged 40. She had contracted the disease while working in a laboratory at Birmingham Medical School.
IN 2001, almost 3,000 people were killed when planes hijacked by members of al- Qaeda crashed in new york, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Abacot (1771) A) At right angles. B) Windward. C) An ancient cap worn by the kings of England. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Fiddler’s green: An early 19th century phrase referring to a sailor’s heaven where all decent seafarers end up; there are unlimited supplies of tobacco and rum and a fiddler who never stops playing.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
KEEP your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut afterwards. Benjamin Franklin, American statesman (1706-1790)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT happens if you rearrange the letters of ‘postmen’? They get really angry. Guess The Definition answer: C.