ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JANUARY 12, 1966
TEN thousand casks of beer have had to be poured down the drain because a brewery’s new computer boobed over forecasting Christmas and New Year sales.
JANUARY 12, 1973
BRITAIN’s first 867 sitting-room students got their university degrees yesterday. The Open University was set up in 1969 by the Labour Government. Harold Wilson joked much later that ‘it was the only truly original idea I had’.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MELANIE CHISHOLM, 47. The singer-songwriter from Lancashire, better known as Mel C or sporty spice, has had more UK solo Top 40 singles (12) than any of the other spice Girls. Chisholm (pictured) lives up to her old nickname by competing in triathlons. By the end of the spice Girls’ time together, they all recorded their voice tracks separately. Last year she said she sees herself as a fashion trailblazer: ‘My daughter is now 11 and she and her friends are all dressing like sporty spice.’ DAVID MITCHELL, 52. The novelist from southport, known for bestsellers Cloud atlas (turned into a film starring Tom Hanks) and The Bone Clocks, has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. as a child he didn’t say a word until the age of five and has struggled with a stammer, saying: ‘I was scared of being nine because I couldn’t say “nine”, and I knew I’d be asked how old I was all the time.’ He is sometimes mixed up with comedian David Mitchell.
BORN ON THIS DAY
LaDY (Mary) Wilson (1916-2018). The poet wife of former Labour premier Harold Wilson was the only PM’s spouse to reach 100 (she died at 102). Her husband called the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the Common Market, but only after they voted did he learn Mary’s vote against had cancelled out his vote in favour. she said: ‘He was very sweet about it.’ Des O’CONNOR (1932-2020). The fourtimes wed entertainer grew up in poverty in east London and was an evacuee to Northampton. He had rickets and was badly hurt in a hit and run accident as a child, yet played football for Northampton Town reserves before his showbusiness career. He was often the butt of Morecambe and Wise’s jokes — yet he wrote many of them.
ON JANUARY 12. . .
IN 1966, the first episode of TV’s Batman — starring adam West (pictured) — was broadcast. IN 1990, following the collapse of several eastern european regimes, Romania became the first former Warsaw Pact country to outlaw the Communist Party.
WORD WIZARDRY
Guess the definition: Palanquin (c 1610) a) a poem written for someone’s birthday. B) a litter carried by porters. C) a poem written for someone’s birthday.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED Sacred cow:
a sometimes derogatory term for any institution or custom held to be immune from criticism. From the Hindu belief that cows are sacred and shouldn’t be slaughtered even in times of famine.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
False views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness. Charles Darwin, English natural historian (1809-82)
JOKE OF THE DAY
A FRIEND was showing off his bird puns. Then I realised toucan play that game. Guess The Definition answer: B.