ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
JANUARY 3, 1970
FIlM star Gina lollobrigida’s seven new fur coats, including a tiger-skin maxi, have ‘ horrified’ the World Wildlife Fund. An official said: ‘It must have taken ten tigers to make that tiger maxi — and there are only 600 tigers left in the world.’ last night Miss lollobrigida, 41, who is staying at the Savoy in london, said: ‘If I don’t buy the coats, somebody else will.’
JANUARY 3, 1976
ThE BBC again beat ITV in the battle for Christmas Day viewers, yesterday claiming a nine- to- one victory. Its top show, Morecambe & Wise, attracted nearly 28 million. Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em had 25.5 million and Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game took nearly 24.5 million.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SArAh AlExAnDEr, 49. The comedy actress has starred in Jonathan Creek, Coupling, Green Wing and Armstrong And Miller, and is a karate blue belt. Aged 29, Alexander dated 72year-old Gerald harper, star of 1979 film The lady Vanishes. She is now married to Shaun Of The Dead actor Peter Serafinowicz, 47, with whom she has two children. rOry STEWArT, 47. The Old Etonian exCabinet minister came fifth in last year’s Tory leadership contest. he was thrown out of the party by text for his stance on Brexit, just as he was named GQ politician of the year. now an independent candidate for mayor of london, he has denied he has been an MI6 spy. he reportedly once climbed out of a fifth-floor window to scramble into his office after locking himself out.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JOhn ThAW (1942-2002). The Manchester-born actor starred in Inspector Morse (pictured) and Kavanagh QC after The Sweeney. Abandoned by his mother at seven, he and his younger brother were left in the care of his lorry driver father, and ‘the lady upstairs [who] would make sure we were in bed’. The former market porter went to rada, and married actress Sheila hancock. JOhn rOnAlD rEUEl TOlKIEn (18921973). The Oxford professor — author of The hobbit and The lord Of The rings trilogy — loved Marx Brothers’ films and was a practical joker, once dressing as an AngloSaxon warrior and chasing ‘an astonished neighbour’ with an axe. The story goes that when Tolkien read out a new passage of The lord Of The rings to fellow writers in Oxford in the Fifties, his friend C.S. lewis muttered: ‘not another f****** elf.’
ON JANUARY 3…
IN 1496, leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tested a flying machine he had designed. IN 1990, Andrew lloyd Webber divorced his second wife, singer Sarah Brightman.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Bolus (coined c1595)
A) Smallest church bell. B) hangman’s noose. C) Food chewed but not swallowed.
ANSWER below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Pennies from heaven: Unanticipated gifts or other surprises. It came into wider usage thanks to the 1936 Bing Crosby film.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I ONLY know that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
Ernest Hemingway, U.S. writer (1899-1961)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WhAT did the right shoe say to the left shoe? You’re my solemate.
Guess The Definition answer: C.