ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 16, 1965
BEATLE John Lennon, usually chauffeurdriven in his Rolls-Royce, drove his other car, a white Mini, home from the Ministry of Transport test centre at Weybridge, Surrey, after passing his driving test at the first attempt.
FEBRUARY 16, 2004
SCARLETT Johansson is queen of the Baftas. The 19-year- old American was named best actress for Lost In Translation. She even beat herself to the award — she was nominated in the same category for Girl With A Pearl Earring.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
AMANDA HOLDEN, 53. The Hampshire-born actress, TV and radio presenter has been a Britain’s Got Talent judge since 2007. She released her first single in 2020 to raise money for NHS charities after she died for 40 seconds after giving birth to her second daughter Hollie and fell into a fourday coma. CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON, 60. The Lancashire-born actor was Bafta-nominated for the
BBC’s Our Friends in the north. He played Fagin in the BBC’s Dodger and the ninth Doctor Who.
He left after just one series, saying: ‘I didn’t enjoy the environment and the culture that we, the cast and crew, had to work in.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
KIM JONG IL (1942-2011). After the second supreme leader of north Korea came to power, an estimated two million people died from a severe famine. When he died, aged 69, the state news agency said his people were ‘engulfed in indescribable sadness’. A CIA profile was less complimentary, calling him a ‘malignant narcissist’.
OTIS BLACKWELL (1931-2002). The U.S. songwriter penned up to 1,000 songs — including the classics Fever and Great Balls Of Fire. His work was recorded by Elvis Presley to Dolly Parton and he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He made a fortune but said: ‘I’ve spent a lot foolishly.’
ON FEBRUARY 16 . . .
IN 1957, music show Six-Five Special became the first programme to break the BBC’s ‘toddler’s truce’ — the time between 6pm and 7pm set aside for parents to put their children to bed.
IN 2006, in Pakistan, the U.S. Army decommissioned its last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital — made famous by the TV show MASH.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Umest (c1400)
A) Coverlet of a bed. B) A saucy boy. C) To dig up weeds with a hoe.
answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To blow hot and cold: To be inconsistent, it derives from an Aesop’s fable in which a traveller who accepts the hospitality of a satyr (part goat, part man) blows on his cold fingers to warm them and then blows on his hot broth to cool it; the satyr dismisses him as he feels a fellow that blows hot and cold cannot be friends with him.