October 14, 2022 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE OCTOBER 14, 1986
THE Queen tackled a 10-course Chinese banquet with chopsticks last night. She had practised at Buckingham Palace and it clearly paid off. She also spoke in the Great Hall of the People in Peking at her sense of wonder at being in China.
OCTOBER 14, 2005
HAROLD PINTER has become the first British playwright to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Swedish Academy will hand Pinter, whose works include The Caretaker and The Birthday Party, the £687,000 prize in december. It described him as a ‘modern classic’.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ROSE WYLIE, 88. The artist from Kent only started winning recognition in her 70s and won the John Moores Painting Prize, aged 80. One of her paintings was bought for US rap star Puff daddy by supermodel Naomi Campbell.
SIR CLIFF RICHARD, 82. The pop star, born Harry Rodger Webb in India, has had 14 number one singles and seven number one albums. In 1989, he became the first British artist to release 100 singles and is the only singer to have topped the UK singles chart in five consecutive decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Sir Cliff’s 2023 calendar is the second most popular on Amazon.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DOROTHY KINGSLEY (1909-1997). The US writer penned the screenplays for Kiss Me, Kate and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But she said: ‘I never think of myself as a real writer. I only wrote because I needed the money.’
LORD (JOEL) BARNETT (1923-2014). The Manchester-born labour politician was chief secretary to the Treasury under Chancellor denis Healey. He is best remembered for devising the Barnett formula, a system that still allocates public spending for the nations of the UK. It gives about 10p to Scotland, 5p to Wales and 3p to Northern Ireland for every pound spent in england.
ON OCTOBER 14 . . .
IN 1969, a warrant was issued in New Jersey for the arrest of Frank
Sinatra over his failure to answer questions about his connections with the Mafia.
IN 2012, Austrian
skydiver Felix Baumgartner went into freefall from 24 miles above earth to achieve the record for highest ever jump, breaking the sound barrier in the process.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Parson’s collar (c 1940s)
A) A halo around the moon B) Froth on a glass of beer C) A spade’s depth in digging. answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Give one the finger:
meaning to make a gesture with a raised middle finger to act as a sign of contempt; this is an American phrase and since 1976 this has been called the Rockefeller Gesture.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
People have no chance to grow up. a lifetime is not long enough.
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, English novelist (1884-1969)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT is a gardener’s favourite type of trousers?
Ones with turnips.
Guess The Definition answer: B.