ON THIS DAY
June 27, 2022
JUNE 27, 1974
IT ONLY took 15 minutes in an unglamorous Swiss courtroom yesterday to find a neat legal end to the ten-year marriage of richard Burton and Liz Taylor. An amicable settlement, said lawyers. For Burton, a share of their joint fortune of more than £ 12 million estimated at £1.5 million. For his wife, the rest — including their Gstaad chalet, a yacht, and many priceless gems.
JUNE 27, 2005
RICHARD WHITELEY, popular host of television’s Countdown programme, died in hospital last night. He was 61. The avuncular presenter of Channel 4’s wordsand-numbers game had been admitted to hospital last month with pneumonia. Until then, he had never missed a recording of Countdown in 23 years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MEERA SYAL, 61. The actress and novelist from Wolverhampton starred in sitcom Goodness Gracious Me and comedy chat show The Kumars At no. 42. Syal said actresses aged in ‘dog years — one of ours is seven of anybody else’s’. She said her most embarrassing moment was ‘being asked for an autograph in the middle of a smear test’.
TOMMY CANNON, 84. The comic from Lancashire was one half of Cannon and Ball — as straight man to the late Bobby Ball. The duo met while working as welders in the 1960s. Cannon said: ‘We used to do six songs with gags in between. After a while I realised the gags were going better than the songs.’ At the height of his fame he bought rochdale FC, and a cruise liner, but found he suffered from seasickness.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CATHERINE COOKSON (1906-1998). one of Britain’s most widely-read novelists left school at 13 and began writing in her 20s to deal with depression. She wrote more than 100 novels, many of which were adopted for TV, film and radio.
JUAN TRIPPE (1899-1981). The U.S. aviation pioneer founded pan American World Airways, the first airline to fly across the pacific and the Atlantic and to order the Boeing 747. The head of the Civil Aeronautics Board once said: ‘If anybody ever flies to the moon, the very next day Trippe will ask CAB to authorise regular service.’
ON JUNE 27 . . .
IN 2007, Gordon Brown
( right) became prime minister of the UK, after serving as chancellor under Tony Blair in the Labour government for ten years.
IN 1981, Michael Jackson had his first solo UK no 1 hit with one day In your Life — from his 1975 album Forever Michael.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: neophyte (c 1540s) A) An elf or goblin.
B) A beginner or novice.
C) A monk. answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
In Abraham’s bosom: meaning to be in heaven, the place of rest for the souls of the blessed; it comes from The Bible (Luke) in which Abraham was the Hebrew patriarch from whom all Jews traced their descent.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and his mother’s age. Benjamin Spock, U.S. paediatrician (1903-1998)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do ducks never go to the doctor’s? They’re all quacks.
Guess The Definition: B