ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JUNE 11, 1940
Bottles, stones and bricks were thrown, windows of restaurants, cafes, shops and houses were smashed, and a number of people were injured during anti-Italian riots all over Britain last night and early today [after Benito Mussolini declared war on Britain and France].
JUNE 11, 1979
More and more Britons are eating rice as a staple part of their diet. The growth of Indian and Pakistani restaurants accounts for much of the increase and nine out of ten housewives in the top AB social groups now cook with rice, compared with fewer than three-quarters in 1976.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
HUGH LAURIE, 60. The Golden Globe-winning star of Blackadder and The Night Manager was the highest-paid actor in U.S. TV drama in 2010, with his role in House earning him £255,000 an episode. He is also a singer and released Let Them Talk, one of the best-selling blues albums of all time. DAME BERYL GREY, 92. The former prima ballerina and president of english National Ballet was threatened with a knife by Rudolf Nureyev when she confronted him after he kicked one of her colleagues. The first english dancer to appear as a ballerina at the Bolshoi and the Kirov, she took the lead in Swan Lake at 14 after Margot Fonteyn pulled out due to illness.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JOHN CONSTABLE (1776-1837). The landscape painter, the son of a corn merchant, was so famous that his home county of Suffolk, which he frequently painted — most famously in The Hay Wain — became known as ‘Constable country’. His gloomy paintings have often been regarded as depictions of his dark mood after the death of his wife, but experts reckon he was just accurately recording the english weather at the time. Gene Wilder ( 19332016). The U.S. actor, born Jerome Silberman, starred in Blazing Saddles, young Frankenstein, The Producers and Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. He once said: ‘My quiet exterior used to be a mask for hysteria. After seven years of analysis, it just became a habit.’
ON JUNE 11…
IN 1959, the Hovercraft, dubbed a ‘manmade flying saucer’, was officially launched in the Solent, off england’s south coast. IN 1979, American actor John Wayne died, aged 72. IN 2010, the football World Cup opened in South Africa, a first for the continent.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Parson’s collar (1940s)
a) A halo around the moon. b) The froth on top of a glass of beer. c) A spade’s depth in digging. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Seven-year itch — referring to a married man’s wandering eye in his seventh year of marriage; coined in America in 1854, the phrase originally referred to scabies which was so hard to get rid of that those afflicted were stuck with it for the next seven years
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Art is not made to decorate rooms. It is an offensive weapon in the defence against the enemy Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist (1881-1973)
JOKE OF THE DAY
MUSIC is coming out of my printer... I think it’s jamming again. Guess the Definition answer: B.