ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE OCTOBER 13, 1960
THE UN General Assembly in New York broke up in disorder tonight after Russian premier Nikita Khrushchev took off a shoe, thumped his desk with it and started shouting during a speech by the Filipino delegate. The UN interpreter translated Khrushchev’s remarks as calling the delegate ‘a stooge of American Imperialism’.
OCTOBER 13, 1984
THE IRA’s attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher failed by just two minutes yesterday when the bomb — planted a week ago — devastated her Tory conference HQ hotel in Brighton. Moments earlier, she had been in a bathroom which was then destroyed by the explosion.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SACHA BARON COHEN, 49. The Londonborn comedian, actor and writer — who shot to fame as Ali G — courts controversy with his on-screen alter egos. While filming the 2009 film Brüno, he fled a hotel wearing only a G-string after the police were called. And while playing the Kazakh journalist Borat, he once admitted: ‘The FBI got so many complaints there was a terrorist travelling in an ice-cream van …that they started compiling a file on us.’ NANA MOUSKOURI, 86. The bespectacled singer from Crete has sold 300 million albums in 15 languages. Bob Dylan said she was one of his two favourite singers. In response to an entertainment manager who criticised her appearance, she said: ‘I do not look nice but I sing well.’ She became a member of the European Parliament in the 1990s.
BORN ON THIS DAY
KELLY PRESTON (19622020). The American actress ( right) starred in Jerry Maguire. She was engaged to Charlie Sheen before eloping to Paris to marry John Travolta. Both Scientologists, Preston and Travolta visited the Church’s HQ in West Sussex. When they tried to book McDonald’s in East Grinstead for their daughter’s birthday, the manager thought it was a prank — at first. WILFRED PICKLES (1904-1978). The actor, from West Yorkshire, presented the radio quiz Have A Go for 21 years. He was the first newsreader on the BBC Home Service to use an accent other than received pronunciation. According to the corporation: ‘This was not an early attempt at appealing more to the public, but actually a move to make it more difficult for Nazis to impersonate BBC broadcasters.’
ON OCTOBER 13…
IN 1958, the bear from darkest Peru made his first appearance, in A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (right). IN 2004, Welsh novelist Bernice Rubens, the first woman to win the Booker Prize, died aged 81.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Cucullate (18th century) A) To close an eye so as to aim at a target. B) To gasp convulsively. C) Resembling a cowl or hood. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED To take a dekko:
Meaning to glance at. It derives from the British Army’s colonial days in India. ‘Dekho’ is the imperative form in Hindi of the verb dekhna meaning ‘to look at’.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
IT is not enough to succeed. Others must fail Gore Vidal, American writer (1925-2012)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT should you do if your nose goes on strike? Picket. Guess The Definition answer: C.