ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MARCH 26, 1969
NEWLYWEDS John lennon and Yoko Ono went to bed yesterday in the Hilton Hotel, Amsterdam, and said they would remain there for a week — as ‘a demonstration for peace’. ‘It’s bloody difficult staying in bed for seven days when you are perfectly healthy,’ said the Beatle. ‘But we think it is a way of trying to influence peace . . . better than stripping naked.’
MARCH 26, 1992
COSMONAUT Sergei Krikalev came back to Earth yesterday after 313 days in space, wearing a uniform bearing insignia of the old USSR. When he blasted off with the first British woman to go into space, Helen Sharman, last May, he was set for five months on space station Mir. But as his country disintegrated, space programme cuts delayed his return.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KEIRA KNIGHTlEY, 36. The london-born star of Atonement, whose parents are an actor and a playwright, had an agent at six. But she hopes her two daughters don’t follow her example: ‘You should be going out and getting unbelievably drunk...That’s what that time of life is about and we should do that privately.’ Her ‘most embarrassing experience’ was auditioning for The Phantom Of The Opera. Its casting director said bluntly: ‘You really can’t sing, can you?’ JENNIFER GREY, 61. The U.S. actress shot to fame as ingenué ‘Baby’ Houseman in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, before having what she called ‘the nose job from hell’. She said: ‘I went in the operating theatre a celebrity and came out anonymous. I’ll always be this once-famous actress nobody recognises.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
RUDOlF DASSlER ( 1898- 1974). The German sportswear entrepreneur made shoes with brother Adolf before a feud saw Rudolf set up Puma and his sibling establish the rival Adidas. Only years after their deaths did the firms bury the hatchet in 2009 by playing a soccer match in their Bavarian home town for the Peace One Day organisation. lEONARD NIMOY (19312015). The U.S. actor found fame as Spock (right) in Star Trek, the first job that ‘ lasted longer than two weeks and [came with] a dressing room with my name painted on the door and not chalked on’. Upon his death at 83, the U.S. space agency paid tribute: ‘So many of us at NASA were inspired by Star Trek. Boldly go…’
ON MARCH 26 . . .
IN 1953, American Dr Jonas Salk announced a successful anti-polio vaccine test. IN 2005, labour’s James Callaghan, the only person to have been Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, died aged 92.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Cod (circa 19th century) A) A ‘sausage’ curl on a wig. B) A single ear of corn. C) To hoax or fool. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Kitchen cabinet:
Prime ministerial advisers whose wages are privately financed. It derives from Andrew Jackson the U.S. President in 1829 who replaced civil servants with his friends.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor.’ Alexander Pope, English poet (1688-1744)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I’vE always been scared of lifts. IT’s time I took steps to avoid them. Guess The Definition answer: C