ON THIS DAY
February 12, 2024
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 12, 1983
IRISH police are certain the £2 million ransom demand for Shergar is genuine. But they say calls to the home of trainer Jeremy Maxwell, culminating yesterday with a message that the £10 million Derby winner was dead, were a hoax. Det Chief Supt James Murphy last night warned he would act to stop any ransom being paid.
FEBRUARY 12, 1999
IT WAS all good clean fun and it became a Saturday night family favourite. But after seven years, Gladiators finally bit the dust yesterday. ITV announced the show had come to the ‘end of its lifespan’.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
STEVE BACKLEY, 55. The javelin thrower once held the world record and is the only British trackand-field athlete to win medals at three Olympics. He says that in Finland, where javelin is almost a national sport: ‘I cannot walk around the streets . . . I’m like David Beckham there.’
LORD (NICHOLAS) SOAMES, 76. The grandson of winston Churchill was Tory MP for Mid Sussex for 22 years before standing down in 2019. He was kicked out of the Conservative Party by Boris Johnson over his opposition to a no-deal Brexit before having the whip restored.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865). The 16th U.S. President, and tallest at 6ft 4in, led the country during the American Civil war, delivered the Gettysburg Address and abolished slavery before his assassination by a Confederate sympathiser. MARIE LLOYD (1870-1922). The music hall singer — born Matilda wood in London — sang tunes such as My Old Man (Said Follow The Van), delighting audiences with her cheeky routines. She died in debt (partly thanks to her generosity to others). As an obituary said: ‘what she had she scattered… among her friends, among lame dogs, among the orchestra that helped her through with her songs.’
ON FEBRUARY 12…
IN 2016, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill met in Cuba — the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches in nearly 1,000 years.
IN 1912, China’s last emperor Hsian-T’ung was forced to abdicate following a revolution, ending 2,000 years of imperial rule.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Boanthropy (coined 1864)
A) A frantic galloping movement made by cows when plagued with flies.
B) The delusion that one is bovine.
C) Genteel irony, polite mockery.
answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Midas touch: Midas, king of Phrygia, asked the gods that everything he touched be turned to gold. His request was granted, but as his food and his daughter became gold the moment he touched them, he asked the gods to remove the ‘gift’, whereupon he was ordered to bathe in the Pactolus. The river thereafter flowed over golden sands.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The two words “graffiti” and “art” should never be put together.
Brian Sewell, art critic (1931-2015)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a pineapple that plays the trumpet? a tooty fruity.
Guess The Definition answer: B.