ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE aPRIl 16, 1945
THE Minister of Food has given ‘Potato Pete’ the sack — that is why there is to be no potato rationing this year. ‘Pete’, the chief character in the huge ad campaign during the war, has urged everyone to ‘eat more potatoes’. He was such a success that the people of Britain ate twice as many as in peace-time.
aPRIl 16, 1984
CoMEDIAn Tommy Cooper died last night, aged 63, after collapsing during his act as it was being broadcast live on TV. And, as he would have wanted, the bungling magician in the fez left his audience laughing as they all thought it was a joke.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
AnyA TAyLoR-Joy, 28. The Miamiborn, London-raised actress won a Golden Globe for playing a chess prodigy in the netflix drama series The Queen’s Gambit. She says she specialises in playing ‘quite complex, messy, interesting human beings’. CLAIRE Foy, 40. The award-winning actress from Stockport starred in the films First Man and Women Talking, and played the Queen in The Crown. Foy says she illustrates ‘the difference between a star and a normal person. I’ve never been someone who walks into a room and people gasp.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
SIR KInGSLEy AMIS (1922-1995). The novelist and poet from Londonwrote Lucky Jim. In 2017, it emerged that MI5 kept track of his movements for more than 20 years, after he was reported as a student to be ‘a very promising member of the oxford branch of the Communist party’. BEnEDICT XVI (1927-2022). The German-born Joseph Ratzinger led the Catholic Church for eight years. In 2013, he became the first Pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. He had a ‘weakness for old-fashioned papal garb’, choosing larger stoles and mitres than his predecessors.
ON APRIL 16…
IN 1850, French wax sculptor Madame Marie Tussaud died, aged 88. IN 2018, U. S. singer- songwriter Kendrick Lamar became the first rapper to win a Pulitzer Prize.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Windlestraw (coined 1818)
A) Thin, lanky person. B) Shoot of an old potato. C) A type of threshing machine. answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED To be stuck up:
meaning to stay aloof because one thinks one is superior; comes from the manner of peacocks, as they habitually ‘stick up’ their tail feathers in order to show their importance over fellow peacocks.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Economics is all about how people make choices. Sociology is all about why they don’t have any choices to make.
James S. Duesenberry, U.S. economist (1918-2009)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a cow without a map? Udderly lost.
Guess The Definition answer: a. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD