October 20, 2022 ON THIS DAY
OCTOBER 20, 2005
SADDAM Hussein stood in a cage in a Baghdad court yesterday and spat contempt at justice. Defiant and dismissive, the deposed Iraqi dictator — accused of crimes against humanity and on trial for his life — refused to answer when asked to identify himself, insisting: ‘I am the president of Iraq.’ He positively bristled with indignation at the opening of the so-called ‘trial of the century’.
OCTOBER 20, 2000
MAN has wiped out a third of the natural world in the past 30 years and will soon have to start looking for a new planet to live on, warn wildlife campaigners. The devastation is so great that man will have used up all Earth’s natural resources by 2075, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JESS GlyNNE, 33. The singer- songwriter from london has had seven No 1 singles — including Hold
My Hand and I’ll Be There.
At 15, she applied to appear on The X Factor TV show but pulled out when she was told she couldn’t perform her own songs. SANDrA DICKINSoN, 74. The u.S.-born British actress ‘the uber-dizzy blonde with the Tweety Pie voice’, started out in a 1970 ad for Birds Eye burgers. Her second husband was former Doctor Who Peter Davison, with whom she has a daughter, Georgia — now the wife of another former Doctor Who, David Tennant.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JoyCE BroTHErS (1927-2013). The American psychologist pioneered the TV advice show, after winning quiz show The $64,000 Question, with her knowledge of boxing. Brothers also had cameos in Happy Days, Frasier and Baywatch.
SIr KEN MorrISoN (1931-2017). The Bradford-born billionaire former chief executive of Morrisons turned the marketstall business set up by his father into a FTSE 100 supermarket chain. After Morrisons’ takeover of Safeway, he became life president. At the AGM in 2014, Morrison, who spent his retirement cattle farming, told his successor: ‘I have 1,000 bullocks but, having listened to your presentation, you’ve got a lot more bullsh*t than me.’
ON OCTOBER 20 . . .
IN 1960, roy orbison was enjoying his first uK number one, with only
The lonely.
IN 2003, Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy was convicted of attacking a nightclub cleaner, but cleared of racially aggravated assault.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Lucubrate (c 1600)
A) To study laboriously at night
B) To disclose one’s feelings
C) To shine a light on. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED
Die hard: meaning to disappear or change very slowly; it derives from criminals who died resisting to the last on the Tyburn gallows in london.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone . . . but they’ve always worked for me. Hunter S. Thompson, U.S. writer (1937-2005)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT should you do if you’re addicted to seaweed? Sea kelp.
Guess The Definition answer: A Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD