ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER 23, 1968 MONKEE Davy Jones poured a glass of water over a TV interviewer who asked him: ‘When will you try something like music?’ The interviewer in turn then emptied a glass over Jones, but was thrown out of the hotel in Brisbane, Australia. SEPTEMBER 23, 1980 OPEN warfare exploded among the Middle East oilfields yesterday as jets from Iraq and Iran pounded each other’s airfields. [The brutal war would last eight years.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
BARONESS (Floella) Benjamin, 70. The Trinidadborn former presenter of children’s TV shows such as play School and play Away came to Britain in 1960 and found it to be ‘cold, unwelcoming, violent and bleak’. Her mother had three jobs, including supervising the laundry at fee-paying Dulwich College in London. Lady Benjamin (pictured), who became a Liberal Democrat baroness in 2010, says the school now has a plaque to mark her opening of a new wing. CHERIE BLAIR, 65. In 2010, the Bury-born barrister sold the autograph of her husband Tony Blair on eBay for £10 to undermine the market, as she was cross people were trying to sell the ex-pM’s signature. As soon as someone bought it, she refunded the money to make the point.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MICKEY ROONEY (1920-2014). The 5ft 2in Hollywood star married eight times. First wife Ava Gardner (pictured with Rooney), who was 5ft 5in, left him declaring: ‘you know, Mick, I’m goddamned tired of living with a midget.’ He said later: ‘I tried to make up for being short by adopting the voice of a much bigger man, by spending more money than I made, by dating tall, beautiful women.’ BILL STONE (1900-2009). The last surviving man to have served in the Royal Navy during both world wars died aged 108. Stone joined up aged 18. During World War II, he was sent to Dunkirk on minesweeper HMS Salamander, which saved more than 1,000 British lives. He described it as ‘the worst experience of my life’. He said his longevity was partly thanks to a prayer his wife taught him: ‘Lord, keep us safe this night, secure from all our fears, and may angels guard us while we sleep till morning light appears.’
ON SEPTEMBER 23…
IN 1939, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, died at the age of 83, a year after fleeing to London to escape the Nazis.
IN 2000, at the Sydney Olympics, Steve Redgrave became the first Briton to win gold at five successive Games and the most successful male rower in Olympic history.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Costive (late 14th century) A) Friendly. B) Miserly. C) Wild and unmanageable. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Boogie on down: To dance or travel a short distance quickly and with enthusiasm. From dancing to boogie music, a form of U.S. rock music popular in the late 1960s.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
SOME men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. Joseph Heller, U.S. novelist (1923-1999)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT kind of award did the dentist receive? A little plaque. Guess The Definition answer: B.