ON THIS DAY
MARCH 9, 1957
A FADED picture of a monkey that flew on 250 Battle of Britain operations was given to the Queen Mother last night. It was shown to her by 47-year-old Flight Lieutenant John Booth at a Guildhall reception. It showed his pet African monkey Minnie, who had been his mascot. He said: ‘When I was suddenly moved from my Manston aerodrome, she couldn’t come with me for a few days and died of a broken heart.’
MARCH 9, 1973
PAUL McCARTNEY was unrepentant after being fined £100 yesterday for growing five cannabis plants in a greenhouse at his Argyllshire farm. ‘I don’t think personally it is as dangerous as drink,’ he said. ‘It should be like homosexuality, legal among consenting adults.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MARTIN FRY, 62. The singer from Stockport is the frontman of ABC, who had hits with The Look Of Love and Poison Arrow. Diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he ‘went from doing Top Of The Pops to being in a cancer ward’. remembered for his gold lamé suit (right), he tired of it and tried to stuff it down a toilet in Tokyo in 1983. MAGGIE ADERIN-POCOCK, 52. The London- born astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore’s successor as presenter of The Sky At Night, says she got her passion for space from watching TV show The Clangers as a child. For its 50th anniversary episode, she said: ‘They included a little Maggie model. I was about the happiest I’ve ever been!’ She is dyslexic and has a degree in physics and a PhD in mechanical engineering.
BORN ON THIS DAY
YURI GAGARIN (19341968). The 5ft 2in Soviet cosmonaut (right) became the first human to travel into outer space in April 1961 at the age of 27. The son of a carpenter and milkmaid, he yelled poyekhali (‘here we go’) as the rocket blasted off. He died aged 34 during a training exercise after his parachutes failed to open. VICTORIA (VITA) SACKVILLE-WEST (1892-1962). The novelist, poet and gardener from Kent had an affair with Mrs Dalloway author Virginia Woolf while both were married. Their relationship inspired Woolf’s novel Orlando, and was the subject of the 2018 film Vita And Virginia. Vita also had a long relationship with Violet Keppel — great aunt of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
ON MARCH 9…
IN 1973, after the referendum votes were counted, it emerged that the majority of Northern Ireland voters had opted to remain in the UK.
IN 1987, the first series of French and Saunders began on BBC2.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Contumacious (coined c1590) a) Gregarious. b) replete, full. c) Insubordinate; wilfully disobedient.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED THE plot thickens:
Meaning it gets more intriguing, complicated and exciting; it comes from comes from George Villiers’s 1671 satirical play The rehearsal.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THE adjective “modern”, when applied to any branch of art, means “designed to evoke incomprehension, anger, boredom or laughter”.
Philip Larkin, English poet (1922-1985)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.
Guess The Definition answer: C.